Filter Success: The End of Social Discourse

237ish years ago a great nascent political experiment fought its way into being A government of the people by the people and for the people amp8211 just writing the words makes you feel proud Like many Americans during these past few weeks I have started to question the state of our Union and wonder about quotthe governmentquot in ways I have not wondered about it beforeIn reality my questions are not about privacy or civil liberty or leaked documents or quotBig Brotherquot or any of the things that the media is interested in sensationalizing right now I39ve been thinking about a topic I wrote about back in September 2012 concerning the coverage of the Republican National Convention and the remarkable success of our personal digital filtersThe questions I39ve been struggling with are about Truth truth truthiness Facts reality Wikiality and how we use our extraordinary digital filters to shape or limit our personal worldviewsIn honor of this Independence Day I offer you a look back at some recent history that caused me to think hard about how we should comport ourselves in the Information AgeWhile he was in Paris in March of 1789 Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to Francis Hopkinson that scholars have aptly named quotNeither Federalist Nor Antifederalistquot In it Jefferson writes quotI am not a Federalist because I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever in religion in philosophy in politics or in anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent If I could not go to heaven but with a party I would not go there at allquotIn the closing paragraph of this note Jefferson asserts quotI never had an opinion in politics or religion which I was afraid to own A costive reserve on these subjects might have procured me more esteem from some people but less from myselfquotI simply love the way Thomas Jefferson expressed himself He was a man of many remarkable talents a seriously independent thinker and as I39m sure you can tell a personal hero of mineNow I don39t like to discuss religion or politics in polite company It39s pointless Both subjects provoke passionate lectures espousing personal worldviews and minds are seldom if ever changed Butamp8230 after watching some of the speeches at the Republican National Convention last week and switching between pundit commentary on CNN Fox News and MSNBC I started to wonder what tjeff would have had to do to find the facts upon which to base his independent thinking The red and blue filters are so good and the mass and noise levels of the pridefully ignorant are so high it is almost impossible to find a verified factIMPORTANT Before I start down this road let me make one thing perfectly clear I am not going to tell you which party I belong to nor which candidates I support nor make any suggestions about how you should vote or whom you should vote for This is not a political or religious writing It39s just about information filters and factfinding in the 21stcentury amp8211 additionally there actually is an tjeff Twitter account but it does not belong to Thomas Jefferson amp8211 he passed away in 1826 Like many of you I believe that this upcoming election is important And although conventions are not as interesting as they used to be I was excited to see how the Republican Party was going to present itself Putting on my independent thinker tjeff hat I wanted to watch the least filtered leastpunditized broadcast of the conventionOn Day 2 August 29 2012 the major broadcast networks were not going to cover the Convention until 10pm ET So in order to watch former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice speak I turned on CNN around 930 pm hoping for nonpartisan color and commentary CNN is still a filter but I was too lazy to go searching for CSPAN I suffered through CNN39s coverage of Ms Rice39s speech amp8211 I say suffered through because CNN had a lowerthird graphic with all kinds of editorial nonsense flashing on the screen throughout the entire speech I suppose that flashing select resume items for Ms Rice under her speech was helpful to some viewers but from my point of view it was distracting detracting gratuitous noise that was insulting to educated viewers and disrespectful to the speaker When she finished I switched to NBC to get a full HD picture with no editorial graphicsNext up was Vice Presidential hopeful Paul Ryan During Representative Ryan39s speech he told a story about candidate Barack Obama four years ago Here39s the quotequotMy home state voted for President Obama When he talked about change many people liked the sound of it especially in Janesville where we were about to lose a major factory A lot of guys I went to high school with worked at that GM plant Right there at that plant candidate Obama said quotI believe that if our government is there to support youamp8230 this plant will be here for another hundred yearsquot That39s what he said in 2008 Well as it turned out that plant didn39t last another year It is locked up and empty to this dayquot According to the Washington Post the decision to close the plant was made in June 2008 when George W Bush was president Ryan says that Janesville was quotabout toquot lose the factory at the time of the election and Obama failed to prevent this This is false as Ryan knew in 2008 when he issued a statement bemoaning the plant39s impending closing Republican Fact Checkers say that the Washington Post Fact Checker is wrong and that the plant did close in 2009 under President Obama39s watch What would an impartial view of the speech have thought What did you thinkNow just for a second put your politics aside Forget whose side you39re on and think about this the way tjeff wouldMSNBC vilified Ryan amp8211 not unexpected it is the blue state channelFox News reported it but dismissed it as a mischaracterization amp8211 not unexpected it is the red state channelThe Interweb Twitter Facebook Blogs etc split precisely along party linesNone of this is surprising nor is any of it news Politicians lie all the time no matter what party they represent But with all of your filters in place how can you find the truthTake everything else in Representative Ryan39s speech and fact check it for yourself I did just like tjeff would have and it took hours It would have been so much easier to just let my preferred filter do the work for me It would have been blissful to blanket myself in the comfort of the information that I wanted to hear It would have been super easy to cocoon myself inside my filter set If I just laid back and enjoyed it I too could be loud proud and pridefully ignorant if I were ever to let myself discuss politics in publicBut just this once just to confirm my own thesis that filter success is speeding the end of social discourse I spent the required time with the transcript of Representative Ryan39s speech and my laptop After two hours of searching other stories in the Representative39s speech I can say with authority that it will be hard for you to find verifiable facts with two sources that would allow you to take this speech at face value and I am being kind Again this is not a political comment on any particular thing that was said amp8211 only a comment on how it was filteredHere39s the really unfortunate part amp8211 it is abundantly obvious that the vast majority of people don39t care Why bother to fact check Why take the time to form your own opinion You can let Rachel Maddow blue states or Bill O39Reilly red states do it for you If you spend any time reading the millions of words written about this single speech you will quickly realize that politics and religion share a single attribute amp8211 they are faithbasedWhat is the truth Whose truth With whom can you debate and discuss the issues Where are the facts What has happened to civil social discourse The filters we have evolved are so personal and so good quotSuch an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agentquot tjeff must be turning over in his graveShelly Palmer is Fox 5 New York39s Onair Tech Expert WNYWTV and the host of Fox Television39s monthly show Shelly Palmer Digital Living He also hosts United Stations Radio Network39s Shelly Palmer Digital Living Daily a daily syndicated radio report that features insightful commentary and a unique insiders take on the biggest stories in technology media and entertainment He is Managing Director of Advanced Media Ventures Group LLC an industryleading advisory and business development firm and a member of the Executive Committee of the National Academy of Television Arts ampamp Sciences the organization that bestows the coveted Emmyamp174 Awards Palmer is the author of Television Disrupted The Transition from Network to Networked TV 2nd Edition York House Press 2008 the seminal book about the technological economic and sociological forces that are changing everything Overcoming The Digital Divide How to use Social Media and Digital Tools to Reinvent Yourself and Your Career York House Press 2011 and Digital Wisdom Thought Leadership for a Connected World York House Press 2013 For more information visit shellypalmercomRead all Shelly39s MediaBizBloggers commentaries at Shelly Palmer ReportCheck us out on Facebook at MediaBizBloggerscomFollow our Twitter updates MediaBizBloggerThe opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaBizBloggerscom management or associated bloggers MediaBizBloggers is an open thought leadership platform and readers may share their comments and opinions in response to all commentariesImage courtesy of cooldesignFreeDigitalPhotosnet

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