Fake News vs. Good News
Growing up in Moultrie, the Atlanta Journal Constitution and Moultrie Observer newspapers were delivered to our house every day. From the time that I was in 5th or 6th grade, I looked at the front page for meaningful news and then scoured the Sports section from cover to cover. Our other source of news in those days was the 6:00 and 11:00 news on TV. This is how we kept up with the events of the world and the “sports world.”
The thought of something being “untrue” in the newspaper or evening news never would have occurred to me. I had complete trust in everything that I read or saw without any question at all. It would have been devastating to me to believe otherwise. The newspaper and TV news were trusted sources I could believe in.
In June of 1980, the first 24 hr. news station was born – CNN. I remember when it first came on and thinking to myself – what could they possibly have to talk about 24/7? Turns out that I was somewhat right since they just seemed to have a lot of replays with the same content throughout the day. However, if something big happened, they could break in and tell us about it so that was very useful.
CNN and the other 24/7 news channels have evolved since then. We now have several 24/7 news outlets fighting for our attention. The better their ratings, the more money that they can charge for commercials. This forces them to continually produce “original content” to fill up the space. As a result, they aggressively try to lure us in with real news along with their political spin and partial truths. This is essentially how we got to the “fake news” environment that we are in now.
It makes me sad that we lost the purity of the news. We now must sift through what we hear and try to assign some level of truth to attach to it. However, I guess that is much like everything else we hear in life with all the voices that are speaking to us. We must be able to discern truth from deception.
I was encouraged this week when I read Psalm 19. Here is a great passage on truth:
Psalm 19:6-9 The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold.
No fake news to sift through here! Powerful words to give us confidence in the truth of God’s Word in our deceptive culture.
Stay Hungry,
Big E
Matt. 5:6