Do you know what the scariest, most troubling, most worrisome words in the English language are? “Uh-oh,” or maybe “oops!” Imagine you are in the doctor’s office getting a physical and as he is listening to your chest, his eyebrows come together as he strains to listen and you hear a slight, “uh-oh” come from his lips. Or imagine you have taken your car to the repair shop and after your third trip down to check on their progress you hear a crashing noise, metal striking metal and a mechanic under your hood is heard to say, “oops!”
Neil Postman, in his book, “Amusing Ourselves to Death,” suggests the one phrase that separates everything from everything is, “Now . . . this.” These two words are the most commonly used words in radio and television, indicating that “what one has just heard or seen has no relevance to what one is about to hear or see . . . the phrase is a means of acknowledging the fact that the world is mapped by the speeded-up electronic media has no order or meaning and is not to be taken seriously. There is no murder so brutal, no earthquake so devastating, no political blunder so costly—for that matter, no ball score so tantalizing or weather report so threatening—that it cannot be erased from our minds by a newscaster saying, ‘Now . . . this.’”
[i] It is for this reason that when I think of “the news” I think of watching or listen to something else. I don’t like the news. Neil Postman defines “news” as “trivialization of public information.” How much of what is reported really matters to you or affects you directly? A small percentage. This is another reason I despise going to the airport because on top of all the stress I face in getting from point A to point B (by means of layover 1 and 2), I am firehosed with information that only stirs up my desire to tell the world about Jesus! In today’s world, the news is nothing more than 45 seconds of a fragmented information without a personal context, personal consequence, value or seriousness. At bottom “news” is nothing more than entertainment.
Let’s try an experiment (and we will use some principles Postman describes in his book): imagine you are given the chance to produce a TV show for the station of your choosing and your goal is to reach the largest possible audience. What do you need?
First, you would need a cast, so you must set out to find people who are likable, credible. Who do you eliminate but the ones who are less-than-desirable (for one reason or another). You may even consider eliminating faces that are too pretty, or people who actually look like they are acting. After all, many performers lack credibility as genuine people. You may not want an actor, but a face that is welcome in your own home, a “safe” face.
Second, you would need to consider what you would like to communicate to your audience. Will it be “fact” or “fiction”, “truth” or “untruth?” Whatever you choose, you want to hold your audience for the duration, so whether fact or fiction, it must be believable. This is what the “news” does. It communicates credibility over reality.
Also, how will you begin your show? How will it end? What moods do you want to create? Have you ever noticed that the Evening News asks nothing of you? Advertisers ask something of you, but not the newscaster. “It is quite obvious that TV news has no intention of suggesting that a story has any implications, for that would require viewers to continue to think about it when it is done and therefore obstruct their attention to the next story that waits panting in the wings.”
[ii] Do you want your audience to react? If so, what reaction are you looking for and what would you want them to do? Right here is the difference between “news” and “good news” or “gospel.” Not too long ago I met four young men downtown and our conversation came around to perspective the way we view ourselves and others. Three of the four thought they were pretty good people and the fourth fellow agreed he was not as good as his friends. After a brief survey of the Ten Commandments, all four youths were obviously bothered by what they saw in themselves. One young man said to me, “You know, we came down here tonight to have a good time then we meet you. You are telling us we are in trouble with God because we have broken His moral law as liars, thieves, etc.. This is all bad, very bad news. What are we supposed to do?”
In this world of all bad, very bad news, there is only one kind of good news. I could tell the boys the good news because they understood what the bad news was. I don’t mean the kind of good news that reports how the local food drive went, or who got High School Football Player of the Week. The news I am talking about matters because each person is held personally responsible, personally accountable for how God sees the heart. This news does not divert us with “Now . . . this,” but “because of this” and “in spite of this.” The gospel keeps everything in context and demands a response.
[i] Postman, Neil.
Amusing Ourselves to Death. London: Penguin, 1989. P. 99
[ii] Ibid. P. 103
