Ignorance is Complicated

The term “ignorance is bliss” has always held an interesting line of thought in my mind, because few statements have so many powerful arguments both for and against their merit as truths. Recently my debate with myself over my ‘ignorance is bliss’ beliefs was renewed when I read an interesting passage in Campbell, Martin and Fabos’ Media and Culture that discussed the media’s responsibility to cover news related to war.

It’s no secret Americans do not like hearing about war. The loss of American public support for the Vietnam War is historically credited to the media’s coverage of the horrors therein. Rather than risk the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq falling prey to poor public attitude, the most grotesque images from the warfront have been made illegal to publish (i.e. American caskets under G.W. Bush, detainee abuse under Obama).

Some would argue that war is a necessary evil and that by leaving those who cannot stomach the horror in the dark, what needs to be done can get done. Others will argue that because it is the public’s choice (beyond executive order and other short-term sources of power) to be at war, the public should be presented with every ounce of available information to be empowered to make an informed decision.

I think us as the public should be presented with all available information, but good news doesn't sell, so to level the playing field legislation is usually required.

I propose a solution that I believe will be highly effective, albeit highly unorthodox: Perfectly opinion-segregated media. Currently, media sources are always walking the line between growing their audience by covering events that will attract attention, and covering all news impartially without concern for ratings. If we can de-couple money and news (I will leave it to you to decide how this should be done) near perfect news coverage can be achieved by having one media entity assigned to each of the major opinions of current topics.

In the example of war, one media source will be entirely devoted to the downfalls of war- economic hardships, the horror for the local population and those fighting the war, corruption and lies. Another media source will be entirely devoted to the pros of the current conflict- the importance of what is being sought after by way of the conflict, what improvements have come from the fighting (stability, safety, and resources), etc.

The size of the media source (and more specifically the rate of volume of news) will naturally closely relate to the frequency with which positive events or negative events occur, and the content of the news will easily represent the significance of the reported events. This pool of information will partially reduce a very complicated decision to a simple mental calculation- comparing volume & density of one side to the other to make a personal decision.