Tuesday, 15 May 2012
Now that the semester is over, I’m diving right in to about half a dozen books I’ve been meaning to read. I’m now about halfway done with Guy Harrison’s 50 Popular Beliefs that People Think are True. Here’s a great excerpt from chapter 19, “Television News Gives Me an Accurate View of the World:”
The primary problem with most television news today is that it’s just nowhere near the reflection of reality that most viewers probably assume it is. Much is said about conservative and liberal biases in the news, but political favoritism is a trivial concern compared to the irrational fears and warped perspectives that TV generates. Political leanings are not the biggest problems with Fox News and MSNBC. The primary problems are that they illogically prioritize news coverage, cover politics like sports events, present tremendous amounts of nonsense as important news, fail on competent science reporting, and stroke fears unnecessarily. Anyone who doesn’t know how to assess television news for what it is and recognize the nonsense is likely to end up with a wildly inaccurate view of the world.
Later, he says:
I wish more people appreciated the unique power of a book. Not because I happen to write books, but because I sincerely believe that books (most of them) are good for the world. One could make a case for the book being the most important and powerful invention of all time. Given the impact of the book on human history, it certainly has to make top ten, no doubt.
And:
If one is short on time and has only thirty minutes or so per day for reading, I suggest spending five of it doing a high-speed headline-skim of a couple of the most reputable news sites or newspapers, then use the remaining twenty-five minutes turning the pages of a good mind-expanding book or science magazine. High-quality nonfiction books and science magazines offer two thing television news is unwilling or unable to provide much of these days: information presented in depth and a realistic perspective of the world.
So, yeah, I liked that stuff. Don’t misunderstand me, though, I’m not saying you should read the book. Like Harrison’s other similarly titled book, this one suffers from too many overlapping beliefs. A book covering only 40 (or, heck, any arbitrary number would do) would be better. Harrison also has a bad habit of talking about how awesome his life has been. For example, in one chapter discussing the supposed moon landing “hoax,” Harrison takes a good two paragraphs to talk about what a successful photographer he’s been. Also – in that same chapter – he says it’s just unbelievable that all those astronauts and NASA employees would have lied about the moon landing, yet in other chapters, he says that just because someone claims something is true, doesn’t make it true. So which is it?
Bottom line: decent book with a lot of overlap. Some annoying bits in it. The best bits are quoted above.