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Politics

Welcome to the information crisis

Ruben Navarrette Jr. on

SAN DIEGO -- These days, when friends ask how I'm doing, I give them an honest answer. I say, "I'm struggling."

You see, my profession is driving me crazy. I have a job that requires me to stay on top of current events and follow every bounce of the daily news cycle. Switching between CNN and Fox News is like visiting different planets. Between White House press releases, talk radio, the internet, 24-hour cable news and social media, I feel like I'm standing in front of a fire hydrant that's gushing out information.

And, unfortunately, in the era of President Trump, a lot of misinformation.

I've decided that digesting too much media is unhealthy. It makes you cynical and distrustful.

A Facebook friend put it well when he said: "You spend all your time in the sewer, and soon everything looks like a rat."

True enough. But when you're covering politicians, there is no shortage of vermin.

 

I envy my friends with regular jobs who can parachute in and out of news stories. A lot of them only watch the infotainment shows of pseudo-journalists like Fox News' Tucker Carlson and MSNBC's Rachel Maddow. My friends get the gist of the day's events and then shoehorn what they hear to fit their political leanings. They're fine with that.

Recently, I had a chat with an English professor at a small college in Southern California. She spends her days reading books, teaching students, grading papers and discussing great literature with colleagues. When our conversation veered into politics -- and, specifically, the immigration debate -- she wrongly insisted that Barack Obama had only deported illegal immigrants who committed crimes. She was out of her depth. I tried to set her straight.

It didn't work. She may have been ignorant, but she was blissfully so. To her, issues are cut and dried. Her world makes sense. It has good guys and bad guys, correct positions and incorrect ones.

Writing about politics, especially with Trump in the White House, I don't have the luxury of living in a black-and-white world. All I see is gray. Nuance is the new normal.

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