We are living in an age of unprecedented media access and almost every American home has access to multiple media options.  Cable news channels provide an constant stream of reports even as the internet erases the final geographic barriers to information transfer.  Newspapers, talk radio, and the older network news broadcasts must be added to the mix, providing citizens with an overload of information and images.

Most Americans never even stop to recognize how revolutionary this level of information access really is.  Previous generations relied on word of mouth, handwritten communications, the Pony Express, the telegraph, or radio broadcasts.  Those over 40 years of age can remember the limitations of a black-and-white television with news packaged in the form of 30-minute network broadcasts, supplemented by occasional special reports.  If you missed the nightly broadcast, you were out of luck and uninformed. No longer.  Now, the older networks are just trying to stay relevant in the news universe.

The really important question is this: Are we any wiser?  The explosion of media access has provided some real benefits for viewers.  Competition has led to improvements in both style and substance, and the expanding number of news organizations has added new checks and balances to the system.  Still, much of the additional coverage is more concerned with "infotainment" than information or analysis.  Furthermore, many citizens feel as if they are drowning in an ocean of competing reports and programs.

Is there a way toward media sanity?  Here are five more principles for Christian engagement with the news media.

Principle Six: The likelihood of being uninformed and misinformed increases as the number of news sources decreases. Dependence on just a few media sources, whether newspapers, internet sites, or television news programs, is dangerous. We can grow far too comfortable with familiar faces, trusted reporters, and patterns of habit. The reduction of news sources means that the filtering process poses an even greater danger, and viewers or readers are far more susceptible to influence and bias. This is also true when it comes to the form of media input.  Television reports must be visually interesting, fast paced, and energetic--regardless of the story.  Furthermore, television news broadcasts tend to rely on reductionism, making it more likely that bias can creep into a reporter's summarization without notice.  Christian citizens should develop the discipline of wide reading and selective viewing--checking reports against each other for accuracy and bias.  Do not trust just one network, one cable news program, one newspaper, or one commentator. 

Principle Seven: Beware the error of following the crowd. As a commercial business, the media industry must produce a mass audience and must compete for viewer attention. Thus, the network or program that offers the most drama, controversy, and excitement often draws the largest viewership. Similarly, the newspaper that is most salacious, most sensational, and most superficial may well draw the largest readership. In other words, the crowd is often drawn to a spectacle, just as the ancient Romans demanded bread and circuses. As the crowd grows larger and larger, the content may grow smaller and smaller, and the opportunity for thoughtful engagement with the issues of the day may virtually disappear. When this phenomenon takes place, celebrities often replace specialized authorities in matters of public debate, energy substitutes for information, and the whole enterprise produces far more heat than light. As your parents warned you long ago--beware of following the crowd.  Far too many Americans rely on superficial reports and on news wrongly packaged as entertainment.