The importance of being informed

Young people consider news to be garbage and lies according to Paula Poindexter’s research at the University of Texas at Austin. Because of that and for so many other reasons, Poindexter says, millenials are increasingly ill-informed. In fact, according to her research, they simply don’t feel being informed is important to start with.

(Of course, it’s the grown-ups who get to decide what “being informed” means as well as brush aside any concerns that that information might indeed be garbage. Judges don’t usually get to craft their own legislation.)

Anyway, young people aren’t informed and Paula finds that scary. But is it really?

I enjoy my daily news fix because it gives me something to talk about, something to think about, something to laugh at and because it’s weirdly reassuring to know what’s going on in the world even if everything is going to hell.

Do I get any useful knowledge out of my news habit, though? Stuff that will help me in my day-to-day life, or anything that will make me a more informed voter? Oh, I guess once in a blue moon I do read a story like that. But mostly not.

We read because it gives us something to talk about and because we want to see what everyone else has to say about that nasty snow storm and because we love reading for its own sake and for so many other reasons.

Maybe we hope journalism makes us a better person. Martha Nussbaum has long argued that literature makes people wiser: more understanding of others’ failings and more open to new perspectives. Maybe journalism, some kinds of journalism, have that power too. (But then, so do travel, volunteering and having kids.)

Plenty of reasons to love journalism. But you don’t have to love it and if you don’t, I’m sure there are many other ways to get where you need to be going. Many other ways to be a good person.

Appreciate journalism for what it is. Don’t get upset at kids because they happen to have a different opinion about what’s important in life.