Given all the trouble in the world, we live in profoundly unserious times. One prominent politician is said to have ended his career by taking a sip of water on national television. Another is twice elected President, but cannot be roused to actually govern.
Much of this unseriousness is reflected in--if not actually caused by--the dominant media outlets of our day. Take the front page of my local newspaper--the Minneapolis Star Tribune--as an example. Minnesota's leading newspaper covers a circulation area of about 3.5 million people. The lead story in today's paper was about that crippled cruise ship in the Gulf of Mexico. I have much sympathy for those passengers, but the whole incident will be forgotten within a month.
Meanwhile, in a scene out of Beau Geste, the French Foreign Legion is on the march in Mali. North Korea is desperately trying to attack the U.S. These stories are relegated to page A6.
Blogger Mickey Kaus is widely credited with popularizing the idea of "undernews." Undernews is that actually important story, buried deep or covered only by alternative media.
American Interest editor-at-large Walter Russell Mead wrote more than a year ago about this phenomenon in a post headlined "The News that Isn't the News,"
"There is too much noise and not nearly enough signal in most of what appears every day. Vital stories are covered poorly if at all; most news organizations appear to spend little time thinking in a disciplined way about what is going on in the world and their coverage reflects this lack of a thoughtful and centered approach to world events."
We all need to be savvy media consumers, reading with a critical eye.
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