Writing to make meaning. But where is hope?
The news is much on my mind these days — what it shows us, how it shows us, when it shows us. The images, the noise, the intensity — it’s all everywhere all the time. As I try to process it, make meaning of it, memories of how it used to be burble in my mind. I remember learning in my masters in applied communication program about how US President Ronald Reagan and his media people took a strategic approach to managing the news of the day. I cannot find the reference for it, but I am pretty sure I remember learning that Reagan’s press secretary knew that if he could get his preferred story to lead the 6 o’clock TV news, the whole country would take its political cue from it: Control the national news, control the national narrative. This reference I did find, from a New York Times story on October 14, 1984 : “Mr. Reagan … and his aides have achieved a new level of control over the mechanics of modern communication — the staging of news events for maximum press coverage, the timing ...