Columnists
Story fragments
If some reports are to be believed, Canada’s prime minister turned into a raging monster last week, throwing off his campaign promise of decorum in parliament in favour of a brawl on the parliament floor, with an MP’s bruised chest as a casualty.
A review of the tapes would suggest little more was bruised than her pride. But that didn’t stop the pile-on of condemnation from politicians and the press, which would make any layperson tuning into the evening news to learn of “elbowgate” unwittingly believe our country’s leader requires anger management sessions.
This story highlights one of the difficulties of keeping up with current events. Ubiquity being unattainable, most knowledge is gained secondhand. That often means relying upon tainted perspectives, whether the motive be politics, dramatic effect or inattention to detail.
And the game of broken telephone begins, as those hearing the reports pile on with their own comments around the water cooler and on social media. These less-informed third-hand perspectives lead to gossip and outrage and everything blown completely out of proportion.
Of course, in some cases, a simple camera rolling can set the record straight, and will usually help anyone without a foolish amount of pride to concede the whole story was an overreaction. But this isn’t always the case.
Stories which lack vital detail or are even just sloppily worded can have misleading information that gives way to unfair criticism and anger that can ruin reputations, throw good plans off course or even cause discrimination toward entire groups of people.
For nearly two decades, the insistence of referring to groups of terrorists by the religion they claim to follow has led to the persistent prejudice against Muslims, from localized violence and vandalism to a hostile reaction to Syrians looking to escape a brutal war.
And when they are shared, retweeted and discussed by millions of people, the power of those mistakes is magnified. In 2013, a hacker who pranked the world by taking over the Associated Press’ Twitter account and reporting the White House had been bombed and Obama injured managed to tank the stock market for an afternoon.
Last year, as parents protested a change to the sexual education curriculum, the media reported panicked parents’ misinformation without reading the readily available updated curriculum to dispel claims that teachers would be promoting oral sex to young children—a foolish misunderstanding without any connection to the actual text. As a result, children were pulled from classes and some boards knuckled under, allowing versions of sexed that are completely unhelpful to students.
Justin Trudeau’s apology and the play-by-play videos widely available online have mostly cleared his name for some. But the incident itself should remind us that what we hear on the news—or in gossip, or on social media—isn’t always the whole story. And while it’s not always possible to get the whole story, sometimes it’s worth investigating before passing judgement.
Comments (0)