Making News

I was speaking with a friend recently about the flooding in Kerr County along the Guadalupe, specifically about the county's inability to get an early warning system installed and why. My story was answered with, "I didn't know that." It stopped the discussion and got me thinking about how we get our news these days.

In my youth and for most of my life, we had three TV channels, one or two local papers, and several so-called national newspapers, because of the markets they served. Radio had long since stopped really delivering the news and was mostly concerned with entertainment. This arrangement pretty much assured that when a story broke, you could say with confidence where you got a tidbit of news. That all changed with the internet.

These days news flows at us in a torrent of tiny outlets, and a great deal of it is tailored to what we want to hear—and this includes people who don't want to hear anything. It's taking a real bite out of our ability as a community to talk about important issues—like flooding. It also ensures that almost every conversation will be viewed through a political lens, which can make conversations inordinately difficult. I wish I had an answer, but the tide of change has rolled in, and I'm having a hard time finding my footing.