English, The News, And My Grandfather

What do you think of the diminution of both print newspapers and network news channels generally viewed as just reporters of the news, and not having any particular side, at least none they let on to?

For a long time people viewed Cronkite or Roger Mudd or Brokaw that way. It started to change when they started to cave in to the craving for ratings out of those new hours (or half hours), and put in those roles people who wanted specifically to be "TV" journalists, and the celebrity that went along with that.

USA Today then was born, and caved in to both color and the seemingly ever-shrinking US attention span, with short articles, less attribution, and no words you would ever have to look up.

And instead of other newspapers thinking how sad that was, they followed suit. Now, the only newspaper that will still sometimes make me reach for a dictionary is the Times. The Journal, too, perhaps. But once they are gone, that's it: an era of top-level, honest, sourced, shoe-leather journalism will be dead. Extinct. When there used to be so many.

And young people could give a shit (please endulge that one four-letter foray, as young people would not say "crap").

They are a large reason for it. Those papers, and those news anchors, don't feed their addiction to sensationalism, and don't enable their arrested English skills. The anchors are already gone. In a world where ADD is the alien virus, news anchors have already been infected. Newspapers too, but for those two, and they will probably not survive.

I read an online news article recently, and it said something like, "The prevailing opinion was he would do better than her in the primary." Or something like that. Better than "her", I thought? "Better than she would do." "Finish the sentence", my dad told me, when I was about 11, "before you shorten it."

My God. It was a national source. You know, LA Times, Miami Herald, Washington Post. I can't recall. It wasn't caught because spell-check won't catch it, and because anyone under 35 would say it that way, and because editors have already fallen to deep budget cuts at print media, or have caught the virus and don't know any better themselves.

The English-educated in this country is way smaller than the college-educated, and nearly nonexistent among only the highs-school educated, or, say age 30 and down. What's more, no one cares. You could tell them point-blank, "Your English is remedial. 6th or 7th grade level at the very best. And your grammar is a clutter of errors." And do you know what would be the response? I kid you not. I PROMISE it would be this, "Yeah..whatever..."

They don't care. They have either given up on themselves in that respect, or they honestly and truly do not care, and have elevated "you know what I meant" to the highest level of attainment in the language.

I am soooo happy I am not one of them, and that I grew up when there was a broad-based respect for newspapers and news anchors and just news in general. European 20-somethings know more about America than American 20-somethings. And here again it is the fault of The Lamest Generation, self-important, self-indulgent, selfish, and not demanding enough of their children. It devolves from the same fault in character which motivates them to time and again put pressure on their elected representatives to "buy it now and borrow for it - do not reduce my paycheck - and take it out of my kids' paychecks later, with interest of course."

My father brought home a "C" in English one report card. His dad was a Sicilian immigrant, whose spoken English was terrible, but who regularly read The Complete Works Of Plato and other light reading, in English. His father said, angrily, "This is your country! This is your country's language! You speak and write it every day! How do you get a "C" in English?" Well, it was the last "C" he ever got.

Children, when young, and as teens, respond to the bar set for them. And it is not that challenging a bar, because it is not higher learning; it is not college; it is not graduate school; it is not doctorates and post-doctorates.

It is grade school, junior high, high school, and it takes some effort and some focus and some time to be sure, but it is not a high bar. It is the bedrock, foundational knowledge a society needs to be productive and democratic, too, since the citizens of a democracy are regularly asked to critically consider various candidates' positions and choose those who are to represent them. You simply can't be a drop-out with no capacity to make a critical judgment - because you can't really read or understand what the candidates or people at the water cooler are talking about - and be a democrat (small "d").

You are of no elective use to your country.

I can hear my great grandfather scolding them now. "It's your country! What do you mean you don't understand what's in the newspaper? It's in English! That's your country's language! What do you mean you can't tell me what that candidate stands for? Haven't you been paying attention? How can you be a citizen if you don't know? You aren't a citizen, you are simply breathing air, eating food, and taking up space if you cannot read, and understand, and tell me what you read, and what they stand for."

A whole couple generations now need my grandfather's scolding, but it won't happen. And even if he could come back and tell them I know what would be their reply, "Yeah...whatever...."

Comments

[Ryan]

I think you may be putting too much emphasis on "how" ideas are stated rather than "how" they are understood. Think about these two scenarios:

1) Someone speaks pristine English, yet, they are on cable TV spouting off about economic principles that any simple researcher can cleary see they do not understand.

or...

2) Someone speaks choppy English, yet, understands highly complex economic theory.

The point being that you shouldn't automatically jump on those that speak less-than-stellar English because those same folks might actually be the answer to the problems facing the country.

I would focus more on comprehension of complex economic theories, social structures, political dynamics, etc. etc. than someone who can speak crystal clear English and lacks any realistic understanding (textbook or "real world") of the country.

Look at our current president - and his predecessor? One speaks eloquently, the other had a hard time putting a full sentence together. The point? Both have created reckless policies that cause more problems than they solve. Bush, and many conservatives, fail to recognize the faulty mechanics of "supply side" economics and liberals think that the altnernative to the "unequal distribution fo wealth" is an "equal distribution of poverty". Doesnt really make sense, but most ideologues and political opportunists never do.......