By Paul Wieland
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wbfo/local-wbfo-698201.mp3
St. Bonaventure, NY – I suffer from information fatigue. And I think the malady is dangerous. Information fatigue is my term for my visceral reaction to the news that I ve been hearing for five very long years about a war in Iraq, about the he-said, she-said never-ending campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, about the blather that passes for civil discourse spewing from politicians who have managed to screw up the fabric of life in these United States. I can take it, I guess. But I just don't want to.
And that's both sad and it's ironic. First what passes for irony. The condition of information overload shouldn't happen to me. I am a teacher in a school of journalism, the capstone of a life spent in the media. I have been a reporter, an editor, a columnist and played 35 years in the sandbox of life, the world of sports.
Every day I am charged with knowing what's going on in the world around me, so that my students will understand what makes news what's of interest to that big world around them what they should be concerned about both as entering journalist and as citizens.
If anyone should pay close attention to the events of modern life I guess we can call that news it should be me. And I certainly haven't turned my back on the world around me...just parts of it...I thoroughly read the New York Times seven days a week, peruse several other newspapers on line and devour magazines such as the New Yorker and the Atlantic. I know I know some would say I am a media elitist, but hardly. I even watch the painful process called local television news, listen avidly to NPR and at least five news sources including the BBC on my home and car satellite radio services. I am a news junkie.
Yet there are some things that have numbed me, and I just can't take them anymore.
The first is the horrible war in Iraq, where for a longer time than any in our history, the United States is at war, with all that comes from that. I just can't read or watch about this war anymore. For a long time I would listen as NPR did profiles on many young men and women who died there, but now I turn them off when they start and say a prayer instead.
This war has me so upset that I have blocked it from my daily media consumption. If I didn't block it out, I would be in a constant state of rage, knowing that I can do nothing to stop it. Yet it's so important that we all care about what is happening in the Middle East. The war is killing thousands on all sides. It had brought the US into the largest deficit in history, the price of oil is affecting the cost of everything we do as Americans, and we are vilified in the court of world opinion.
We darn well better care about what happens. That's for sure. But I can't take it any more. Maybe it's because in my life I have seen and heard nothing but war involving my country, and I just don't know how to deal with the subject anymore. So I avoid the daily stories of suicide bombings, surges, and the rise and fall of militias around Baghdad.
I have opted out of the presidential campaign too. The overload came about the umpteenth time that Hillary and Barack gave the same speeches -they call them stump speeches sump pump speeches is better with that sucking sound.
Finally the overload that weighs heavily on my belief in democracy: the drivel and lies that our politicians fling at us daily. From Elliot Spitzer to a rogues gallery of thieves, liars and charlatans in Congress, I witness waste disposal by word and deed every day. And I just don't care anymore. I am tired of it all. So I have opted out.
Therein lies the danger. The war in Iraq, the presidential race, the actions of our elected officials...all have a very real effect on my life and yours. But I suspect many of you within the sound of my voice feel the same.
Like the legendary anchor man Howard Beal, we're fed up and we won't take it any more. So we just quit paying attention.
Listener-Commentator Paul Wieland teaches journalism at St. Bonaventure University.
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