Angry Rhetoric and Cable-News Media Dividing the U.S.

The angry rhetoric spouted by President Donald J. Trump and shown by the news media, repeatedly, is dividing the U.S. As a citizen of this country, I am getting tired of the proliferation of unfiltered tweets and comments that continue to spew from the thumbs and mouth of our President. Rather than trying to convey messages that unify the nation the President continues to polarize situations.

The news media then repeatedly shows these to audiences to drive up ratings. It works and the advertisers are happy. But the nation itself continues to be divided. Emotional rhetoric and repeating a message are both known strategies within the media and communication fields of study to drive home a message. It is also a way to make money.

Audiences then reply with rhetoric similar to that with which they were addressed. After all, why wouldn’t they? Most, in this Christian dominated nation, may have been told or at least heard at some point to, “Treat others the way you want to be treated.” I am also reminded though, of my time as a child when my parents would tell me, “Two wrongs don’t make a right.”

If one shouts at you to communicate their point, cannot one as a civilized person understand the fallaciousness of the comment and reply in a calm and intelligent manner? A person can reply in a way that uses knowledge and logic, rather than emotion, to convey the same message. Even in moments of emotional debate, appeals to logic and reason, supported by evidence, analyzed objectively can, and should, convince one in an intelligent society of the justification for position.

The citizens of the U.S. look too often for meaning behind the statements. I hear all the time in the news media analysis that, “President Trump said X, Y and Z, but his body language conveyed a different message.” What if the President is having a hemorrhoid flare-up and don’t want people to know?

There is a quest for connotation before looking a denotation in the media. The people sometimes seem to want there to be more to the story. Why is this? Cannot we, as a people, just listen to the words being stated and first suspect, that the person saying them may mean explicitly what they are saying?

I hope that going forward we as a nation can gain a deeper understanding on how to view media as a whole. Prominent and educated people make statements of, “hating the media.” What I suspect they mean is that they “hate” news media. When one says they, “hate the media,” the statement implies ALL media since, denotatively, media is the plural form of medium; in this case medium means, the technology between one saying a message and one receiving the message. The medium doesn’t matter, print, television or the internet, all part of the media.

A solution to this problem, and the topic of my next article, is to teach Media Literacy at the Elementary and High School levels to American children. This should not be a question since Americans are the most media proliferated people on the planet. Many studies are done on this topic. Finally, University Statistics show that more and more college students are declaring majors in the media industry. This will only exacerbate the problem as more people compete for the same audience. We, as a nation and people, must combat the problem by making the audience more knowledgeable and critically thinking about what they are viewing. We must also emphasize the importance of responding with appeals to reason supported by evidence, rather than fallacious appeals.

Pinch Me, is This Happening?

When I was a child the only goal I had set was to be in the military. That happened at the age of 17. I enlisted and my parents had to sign my permission slip. Yes, I was too young to enlist on my own.

I enlisted as a split-operations training soldier. This means that I went to Basic Training during the summer between my junior and senior year of high school. After graduation I was an active-duty soldier and within a year I was deployed to Afghanistan.

This is me during my first deployment to Afghanistan. I was assigned to 2 Battalion 504 (PIR), 1 Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, during this deployment from April 2005 to March 2006. 

Once in the military I found a home amongst many other children of adversity. I discovered that there were many non-professionals filling ranks that I assumed to be filled with professionals. The military was not exactly what I was expecting.

I began to wish for something different. I was not exactly, happy, with what I was doing. Do not take this the wrong way. I am extremely proud of my service and would not change the course of my life. However, I would have exited the military after my first enlistment, had I known what I wanted to do with my life.

I remember at one point in my career telling people that I would exit in a heart beat if I could get a job driving cars for a living. Anything to do with cars was my passion to be honest. It has been since I was a child. From racing, to working on classic cars and driving to relax, vehicles have been my passion.

I finally left the military in July of 2013. Before exiting I secured acceptance to East Tennessee State University as a Mass Communications major with a concentration in Journalism. I never wanted to be a news reporter but wanted to write for magazines. My goal was to secure employment writing for a car magazine. This would enable me to travel and drive exotic cars and trucks.

I am now in my junior year of college and have secured an internship with Revma Media. My major is still journalism but my minor is Radio/TV/Film, or broadcast journalism. My internship will take place over the summer in multiple states. I will be filming rodeos and car shows.

I will be working on multiple shows that air on Velocity Channel with Revma Media. I now have the most amazing opportunities ahead of me. I never thought that I would be working on shows of this caliber this quick in my career. The learning experiences will transfer over for years to come.

My first day on the job with Revma Media. We were filming product features for Lokar Inc. Lokar is the manufacture of performance parts for cars.

I will also be working on my own project. This project is a concept of my creation. It is a web-series that will provide many different forms of content. All the content will focus on guest, food, overland adventure and discussions of American Culture. I have secured sponsors and funding for this project already.

I have started working and am very excited because what I do now does not feel like work. I have experienced moments of nostalgia in realization these dreams are now coming true too. I have worked hard to get here and cannot wait to prove I deserve it.

Now, somebody pinch me so that I know this is real.