In life, who decides what’s the right news?

Yas’s argument with Orfeo

“Anyway, what do you know of my grandpa?”

“Only that he was of great service to our cause,” Orfeo explained. “He was helping us create a peacekeeping force.”

“That’s a lie! Why would he do that?”

“To help smooth the way for change.”

“What change?” Yas asked, angrily.

“The interconnected world,” Orfeo answered, raising his hands to indicate its wonder. “Always on. Always exchanging information. Always providing the opportunity for the right news to be broadcast. A place that needs our influence.”

“What do you mean, the right news? Who decides what is right?” She paused for a moment, and the penny dropped. “Ahh, you mean you?”

Who decides what’s right?

It’s an interesting question to muse on, and I’ve talked about it before in How do the Word Guardians determine the truth . I wanted to share some more about this, though…

It’s said that history is written by the winners, the ones who had the ability to write it down and share it. But also, what we learn from history is that any story is written from a particular perspective, and likely to influence belief in a particular version of events.

We often need to hear varying viewpoints in order to form an opinion and ideally need an indisputable form of establishing what happened, for example multiple pieces of video footage of an event. Ultimately, all we can do is to question what we see from different angles. For what’s being shared, what’s the motivation and from whom? Then the same question needs to be asked for any opponents viewpoints and follow up stories on the matter. Ultimately, increasingly, we can’t take what we see and hear on trust.

It’s your turn

Turning it over to you to consider, how do you decide what’s the actual version of events of a particular story that you see in the news? What do you draw on to try to obtain a balanced view of the story?

And if you’re interested to learn more about the argument between Yas and Orfeo, buy Book 1 The Battle for the Peacekeepers. It’s available in both paperback and kindle editions.

Happy questioning.