Fake news, media literacy, and your story

Posted on April 16, 2018 by moonbridgebooks

Thanks to Donald Trump, fake news is all the rage lately – literally. I’m talking about the real meaning of the word “literally,” not the fake one even the dictionaries are resigning themselves to since nobody seems to care about the truth. Exactly what is fake news? A local library held a panel discussion with media representatives that I hope everyone in the entire room plus the standing-room-only overflow room plus those watching the live stream on YouTube took to heart. It was such an important discussion that I’m going to summarize what they said, and also add a few comments of my own.

The program was moderated by Betsey, a retired Fox News anchor, with panelists Carol and Alvin, both with distinguished careers on TV and radio as well as with print newspapers; Julie, a professor of media literacy; and Don, a journalist and professor of media law, and the editor of a weekly newspaper.

Betsey started off by saying fake news is not new. She remembers it during the Vietnam War, and I’ve read we had it back during the Korean War, thanks to the then owner of Time magazine. Betsey reminded us our government, of course, has its own spin doctors, like all governments do. This is why we like to have a variety of professional media watchdogs who are not all owned by the same corporation, especially by a hands on type (hello, Sinclair). We want trained professionals and not your neighbor on his personal blog. Reporters are not perfect, but they can be held publicly accountable by media peers and their audiences and will lose their jobs if they outright lie. Carol reminded us there is a big difference between reporters and pundits.

So fake news is disinformation spread on purpose–for fun, to advance an agenda, or to attract readers and therefore make money. It is not news you don’t want to hear because it is against you or goes against your personal bias. If you are a smart person interested in the truth, you will not get all your news from one source—or only from sources slanted to your beliefs. You will not believe everything you hear about a situation unfolding, because no one actually knows what’s going on and people start speculating or giving one point of observation. The truth can take a long time to come out, so avoid pointing fingers and assuming. You will check sources to make sure they are not trolls or full of obvious bias. If a topic is controversial, a good news source will tell the whole story or explain both sides of the story.

Carol and Julie brought up points pertinent to the recent Facebook brouhaha. What you look at and post about on social media dictates what is fed to you. Google knows what you like and will show you other articles (and advertising) that it thinks you will like—news slanted to feed your bias. Also, news sources need ad revenue to exist, so we often  see emotionally charged headlines or clever titles used as click bait. Beware of articles and headlines that make you feel upset, because they are often slanted or not telling the whole story. Julie says to understand the point of view of the news source so you can be an aware consumer. Do not read or believe only what you want to believe. Don said do not be a person who thinks “this is my side and I’m sticking to it.” Open your mind, take everything with a grain of salt, and do your research! Don’t be a puppet.

How does this relate to life story and memoir writing? Your stories may have an agenda, too. How are you going to spin your story? Will you make yourself perfect? Will you make yourself a victim? Will you blame someone for all your troubles? Will you write someone as all bad? When you read other peoples’ stories, check for obvious bias and if the author is telling you what to think. Tell the truth as you know it, but let’s look at the whole truth, even if you don’t want to believe it.

KPLpanel

Posted in lifewriting, memoir writing, storytelling | Tagged | 4 Comments

Old slides reveal hidden past

Posted on April 1, 2018 by moonbridgebooks

I spent Easter weekend examining my dad’s slides taken during the 1950s when he was in the Army, stationed in the US and Japan (no combat duty). Dad and I used an old illuminated screen to view the slides against and chose ones to save, and my sister used a device to view and save to computer. Dad loved reviewing his past, but I think he really loved that his daughters were so interested. I wrote down names and places and scribbled down the stories he told. Amazingly, with this teamwork, we went through all the boxes of slides—at least from this timeframe. The rest we’ll save for my and my sister’s memoirs.

I’ll be using the slides and my scribbles to write my dad’s memoir of his youth and Army days. This besides his family history book I completed late last year. I will also look through a stack of letters he wrote to his parents, but I already transcribed a couple audio reel tapes he had made in Japan and mailed to his parents. I was very happy with the work Memory Keepers in Naperville, Illinois, did at reasonable cost.

Many of our older generation have a lot of slides hidden away. We found some real gems in my dad’s collection. Fun shots of him and his Army buddies, beautiful ones of my mother as a young woman, happy gatherings of relatives. These were in color versus the black and white photos I had for use in the family history book. It is worthwhile to get the equipment needed to view and convert slides into .jpg format to save for easy viewing. Or, you can pay a company like Memory Keepers to convert and even clean up the images to remove dust specks and minor imperfections.

My sister and I loved seeing our father so happy and excited, remembering the old days and the stories behind the slides. We learned our dad was even more of an adventurer than we had thought, and that some stories we knew were not quite what we had been told. What a great bonding and learning experience! We were all quite worn out from too much fun (and squinting).

A great way to pull stories out of parents and grandparents is to go over old photos. Mostly people like to tell what happened, so ask questions to pull more information out, especially about what they thought or felt about the places they were in, the people, the situation. You might be astonished at the person you only know as a parent or grandparent.

Army

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Border Crossing: Learning other perspectives from memoir

Posted on March 18, 2018 by moonbridgebooks

Recently, I came across an article about people protesting Francisco Cantu and his memoir of four years as a border patrol agent working the Arizona-New Mexico-Texas deserts. The people being nasty on Twitter and shouting during his book store events were liberals angry at him for making “blood money” off his book (yes, some people think authors make a ton of money). They probably didn’t read his memoir, The Line Becomes a River: Dispatches From the Border, but they should have—they might have learned something enlightening and important for their cause. Cantu says that surprisingly he has not heard much from conservatives.

RiverMemoir is most important to give us new perspectives, encouraging understanding and empathy and in some cases helping to facilitate changes. For controversial issues such as immigration or gun control, we are wise to learn facts and current rules and understand the opposing side so we can better work with them to make realistic changes. If you’ve ever taken a speech class, you should have learned this for your persuasive speech assignment. I gather from all the online commenting these days that few people paid attention in speech class.

In Mr. Cantu’s case, he had studied international relations and wanted to spend time outdoors while learning more about the immigration issue. What he discovered can be likened, I think, to what army men and women learn in combat zones:  you do as you are told and you become hardened if you spend enough time there. You have to to keep your sanity. People sitting in their comfy chairs at home have no clue, but they sure have opinions.

From the Dallas News article of 3/11/18, “Debate Erupts Over Memoir”:

“Writing the book was a way to come to terms with what I had participated in, a job that made me normalize a certain amount of violence,” Cantu said. “I tried not to draw conclusions, but offer descriptions of what happened and a reflection of my state of mind.”

In memoir, you may not like what you read, but you should open your mind and learn. If you want to make changes, memoir can help you “know thine enemy” so you can better strategize how to come to solutions. And remember, especially for polarized issues, perfect is the enemy of good.

If you have not read The Line Becomes a River, the San Francisco Chronicle carried an interview with the author on 3/23/18 that you might find interesting: Contested Terrain.

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