Information flow and its power

FOLLOWING last night’s post, I had a look over the Facebook comments and was quite surprised by the number of comments it received. That shows Social Media is quite important in our lives, either we like it or not.

Oxford Dictionary defines the word news as new information about something that has happened recently, and that is what every newspaper or media company out there is doing. We all present new information about recent events.

2020 has been and continues to be a tough year. Many people have lost their dear ones, many businesses have closed their doors forever and bad news is still happening. People are stressed, depressed and frustrated. It is understandable, but blaming or accusing a newspaper, or any media company, for all the bad in the world is taking things a bit too far.

A newspaper doesn’t give national regulations, it just presents them as they are being issued. The role of a newspaper is to present facts, from official and sometimes unofficial but reliable sources. A newspaper is a messenger, either people like it or not.

Everyone wants to present happy, positive stories, but unfortunately, bad news always outnumbers the good ones. That is why we only seem to see negative reports presented in the press and on the Internet.

No one wants to share pessimistic, gloomy news, but the information must be shared and everyone must keep themselves informed. As Bruce Colville once said “Withholding information is the essence of tyranny. Control of the flow of information is the tool of the dictatorship.“