The media is not for singing praises.
Writing public accounts until now, because there are many new followers, I always have to face round after round of the same statement: criticizing some social phenomena is the direction of my writing.
Why make such a statement? Because there are always endless people in the comment section or leave a message saying: Why can’t you say something complimentary, and just talk about negative things all day long?
This kind of question does not need to be explained at all, but in this era, I think it is still necessary to say it often, that is – the original function of the media is to criticize, supervise and expose.
Self-media is also a type of media, so I am just following what the media should do, nothing special.
Pulitzer, the father of modern American journalism, once had a famous saying: “If a country is a ship sailing on the sea, the news reporter is the lookout at the bow of the ship. He must observe everything on the vast sea, examine the unpredictable wind and waves and shoals, and issue warnings in time.”
Not to mention the more famous sentence: If criticism is not free, then praise is meaningless.
This is the media, its main function is really not to sing praises, so those readers who want to press my head and make me sing a few praises, please stay away, I am not suitable for you here.
Moreover, there is no shortage of media and self-media singing praises now, on the contrary, the vast majority are singing praises – and there are also many with huge traffic. Then why stare at my small self-media and ask me to sing a few praises?
Some people also ask: Do you love the country?
In fact, this question has nothing to do with whether or not to criticize. Criticism does not mean not loving the country, and loving the country does not mean not criticizing. Patriotism is not compulsory, it is just a natural connection that a person born on a certain land has with the culture and people of that land.
What’s more, we can’t decide where we are born, so it is even more impossible to say “innate patriotism”.
It is very misleading to tie criticism and patriotism together.
I can’t imagine that the United States would not have those famous major media, it was they who exposed political scandals like the Watergate incident, and it was they who were prompting the United States to reflect on its own negatives.
For example, Sari Horwitz, Scott Higham, and Sarah Cohen, the database editor of The Washington Post, won the 86th Pulitzer Prize for their series of reports on the neglect of child care in Washington, D.C. between 1993 and 2000, which resulted in the deaths of 229 children. Their reports led to an inspection of the city’s child welfare system.
In April 1999, the shooting at Columbine High School in Denver, Colorado, shocked the world, and the local newspaper, The Denver Post, won the 84th Pulitzer Prize for its clear and balanced coverage of the campus massacre.
Byron Acohido, a reporter for The Seattle Times, won the 81st Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the aerospace industry. He comprehensively investigated the directional control problems of Boeing 737 aircraft based in Seattle, which eventually led the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA ) to propose improvements.
In the American film “Blackwater”, the reporter almost ruined his career in order to expose the inside story of the chemical giant, but in the end he successfully exposed the facts to the society, which led to the self-restraint and rectification of the enterprise.
No matter under what social system, if there is no media supervision, the stakeholders will definitely be very easy to conceal the facts and cover up the truth, leading to more darkness.
Therefore, media supervision and criticism is actually a matter that transcends national boundaries, and it has nothing to do with patriotism.
These common sense, in my articles are also repeated, because there are constantly new followers joining, I must explain my basic values to them.
There is nothing more to say about this topic, because it is indeed just a simple common sense.
At the end, I just want to add a sentence, that is: as long as criticism can exist, people are actually safe; if criticism cannot exist, people will only become more unsafe.
The sad thing is that now many people have completely reversed this causal relationship, they think that criticism will bring insecurity.
I think this “criticism phobia” is a real tragedy.
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