Editorial: Challenging times require people to do the reading

There has never been a time when it was this important to consume the news critically.

It is important to know what is happening. This is an Olympic year and an election year. There are wars raging in Israel and Ukraine. Governments are being upended in Europe and South America. The global nature of business makes it vital to pay attention to not just our economy but also those around the world.

Our political landscape has become a blood sport. While some will say that just happened Saturday with the gunfire at a Butler rally for former president and GOP nominee Donald Trump, that is just the latest example of an escalating problem.

There was the attack on former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s husband in 2022. There were pipe bombs sent to Trump critics in 2019. There were shootings of lawmakers such as Gabby Giffords in 2011 and Steve Scalise in 2017. There were the events of Jan. 6, 2021.

How much can be traced to the way we confuse social media with news media? They are not the same.

Social media spoonfeeds what we want to see with one hand and what infuriates us with the other. Both confirm what we want to think.

The news we need is what doesn’t pop up from social media friends. It’s what might surprise us or challenge us. It’s what we must read critically and watch thoughtfully.

The events unfolding are important. They are not something that can be absorbed in a one-sentence post. They cannot be boiled down to the headline. They cannot only be interpreted by the television pundit who best appeals to one’s politics.

The seriousness of the next months demands more from the people than settling for a CliffsNotes version of the news. It cannot be a situation where people decide what happened and search for the outlet that will tell them they are right.

This is the time your teachers tried to prepare you to face. If you are going to be prepared, you have to do the reading.