[ Another TM speech; let's just say the writing flowed better than the delivery. Learned a lot more from the failures of this one than many successes of previous ones. ]
I'm sure we can all agree that knowing about the world we live in is useful. From a young age, we are instilled with certain values, some as simple as saying 'please' when we want something, or 'thank you' when we get it. We go through different stages of education; kindergarten, primary, secondary, perhaps tertiary education. All of these are supposed to give us what we need to function in the world.
Newspapers are a bit different. What we learn in schools is usually fairly time-tested, established knowledge. The news is there to tell us what is happening, or has happened recently.
Whatever the differences are, what all these have in common is that they give us knowledge about the world.
As may have become obvious, I like knowing stuff. Less obvious is that I don't read the newspaper, and I don't think most people should, either.
Although I don't read it for what I believe to be pretty good reasons, some people act as if this is tantamount to heresy.
When visiting some relatives for dinner one night, my uncle put it well:
“He doesn't read the newspaper. He likes to remain as blissfully ignorant about the world as possible.”
He's right, in one way. Ignorance can be blissful. The difference between my uncle and I is that we choose to be ignorant of different things.
We all realise that we can't know everything. Unfortunately, not everyone is blissful or happy. Ignorance, it seems, is not enough for happiness.
Someone else has remarked that “[h]appiness isn't having what you want, but wanting what you have.”
One problem with newspapers is that along with all the information you do want comes all that you don't want, and for a very simple reason. Newspapers - hello - aren't made for you. They're made to appeal to the widest audience, while being very careful to annoy as few as possible.
They're made - in other words - for Mr. and Mrs. Average. If the newspapers are any indication, this couple and their progeny are a little bit interested in everything and have a curious fondness for advertisments.
The best way to understand the Averages is to look at Economics. Economists like to think they understand people's motivations, but they only really have a solid grasp of averages.
Two tenets of economics are the ideas of supply and demand; basically, 'giving people what they want.' If you take any kind of good or service; it could be music, clothing, groceries, or indeed 'information about the world', you can picture it along a curve like this.
[ Draw a demand/pareto curve ]
Along here [point to X axis], you have products, and here [point to Y axis] you have the demand for those products.
On this side [left of the curve] of the curve you have the hits, those products with the greatest sales; perhaps a Michael Jackson album in a music store, or staple foods in a supermarket; items purchased by large groups of people. Towards this side [pointing down the 'tail' end'] you could have a book by an unknown author, or an obscure kind of pasta like quinoa.
This curve says nothing about quality. Not all great books attract a broad audience, and some goods may have dedicated but small customer bases.
The problem is, when you have limited shelf space, or can practically print only so many pages, you have to decide what to include and what to leave out. To reach the greatest profits, a shopkeeper or a newspaper editor can't be selling goods, or providing news to only a niche group of customers or readers.
This isn't an issue of most of the world's media being controlled by a very small number of very large organisations, and the biased reporting that can result from that. It's not a problem of subtle philosophies of why reading newspapers can damage your reasoning, even when they certainly exist
.
.It is a question of why anyone should have to be bombarded with junk they don't want. Perhaps there's a certain clothing store that stocks some clothes you like. Perhaps another store sells some of the same items, but buried along aisles of unappealing trash. Which one are you going to choose to visit?
With the internet, the shelf-space is infinite, and with curators like Google, Amazon, eBay and Wikipedia, the niche can afford the same exposure as the mass-market. If people want it, well, they can find it almost instantly. Why should a newspaper editor decide what you learn about the world, when you can find exactly what you want to know?
Newspapers only have so many pages to fill, while the web has about as many pages as there is air for us to breathe. Sure, much of it may be trash, but newspapers don't have Google to filter it out.
The days aren't getting any longer, and I've got better things to do than find needles in haystacks. Don't you?
[ Just a little after-commentary:
Going in, I wasn't satisfied with the logic of the content; it's not watertight, but I believe the message is clear. Borrowing from Pascal, "I apologise for the length of this [speech], I didn't have time to make it shorter."
In the line, "All of these are supposed to give us what we need to function in the world." I tried not to put too much emphasis on 'give.' The symbiosis that has been so lacking in education in the past is ruinous.
During the preparation, I considered a cue of a subtly more crooked posture at the mentions of newspapers in the speech. Too much to think about at this stage...
Finally, I tried [but screwed up somewhat] to bridge the opening and closing both with word structure and gesture: "I'm sure we can all agree ..." with "I've got ... Don't you?" along with palms on chest, gesturing to myself on the "I" and moving my hands straight out, and extending them to the side to gesture to audience members. I liked this because the initial part is trying to open with agreement and the final part is trying to gain it. I guess it's easy to have that look over-rehearsed, so it would be nice to have a recording of deliveries. I know some clubs do them; ours doesn't. ]
