Seek to learn, not prove.

The distinguished looking gentleman above, is Sir Trevor McDonald, OBE. Growing up in the North of England, in the 70's & 80's, we had 3 TV channels, yes 3, creating a plethora of family fights and arguments as to who would watch what and when. There was no streaming, downloading or even a remote control. My sister and I would sit inches from the screen, slapping each others hands away as each tried to select a channel before we, can you believe it, missed a show FOREVER!

Appointment to view was a very real and respected ritual. As the youngest, first thing Saturday morning was for my cartoons. Dad would walk in at noon and switch to the one soccer game that would be shown that day, results from all the other games would fly across the bottom of the screen on a ticker-tape. Late afternoon my sister was allowed to watch 'Happy Days', or whatever imported sitcom was popular. Early evening the whole family gathered to enjoy a variety show, great British comedy, or if one happened to be on, even a 'Bond' movie. Of all these appointments, the most sacred by far, came at 10pm. My mother & father would stop whatever they were doing and, sit in their appointed armchairs, as my sister and I sulked in silence. The 3rd button from the top was pressed and after 'Big Ben' bonged through the screen 10 times, a deadpan Sir Trevor, would appear at his desk, and he would educate us.

Now, as a pre-teen boy, the last thing I wanted to do was sit in silence and listen to a stone-faced man tell me what politicians were doing, what was, or was not, happening in far of countries, what union was on strike that week and why. I would spend the moments approaching 10pm, praying my dad would get distracted and forget to come into the living room. He never did, we all had to watch and listen to Sir Trevor every night, and every night, within minutes, I was hooked.

I have carried a deep respect for Sir Trevor my whole life, and was lucky enough to meet him a few times. He is still making the occasional, factual documentary, and he still carries himself with the class, grace and style or a quintessential Gentleman. In short, he is who I want to be when I grow up. Now more than ever, especially if I am unfortunate enough to find myself viewing what passes for modern journalism, I feel my nostalgic admiration for Sir Trevor grow, I miss him. He was a journalist and a deliverer of news. He never added an underhand narrative, he never gave a personal opinion. He most certainly never rolled his eyes, screamed, 'yeah right', at a guest, or cut someone off that he didn't agree with, all things that I have seen in the last few month on Fox, CNN and a host of other channels, actions that were subsequently praised on, 'allied' social media channels. These specticles had been watched, supported and shared by viewers that had tuned in, not to learn what is happening in the world, but to prove that, whatever opinion they had was right, and it could be the demise of our society.

You see, Sir Trevor was pretty much the only, visual, information source we had. Yes there were radio stations and news papers, that in fairness had a more political leaning, however they were rooted in news, not aggressive opinion. In the main, news was delivered, fairly, accurately and without bias, allowing people to consume it all on a level playing field, discuss, consider and make up their own mind. Of course people didn't always agree, but they could only debate facts, so disagreements rarely lead to hate and even violence on the scale that it does today. Of course I am not suggesting we lived in a Utopian state of considered discussion, peace and good will, there was plenty of anti-government protests in the 70's & 80's, as well as civil un-rest at times. However, the limited (in a good way) volume of news, data, opinion & manipulation, meant a limited ability to twist the facts to your individual way of thinking, the inability to find a data source that unequivocally proves you right on every single opinion, meant eventually, there had to be compromise.

My point is, volume has nothing on quality. If you are of the belief the world is flat, run by lizard people or a 'new world order', or if you believe the opposite of any of those things, you can follow channels, blogs, social feeds, of like minded people who will consistently prove you are right. Why would you do anything else, who likes to be proved wrong? The problem with this ability and volume of information, is that we will never seek education, or to be challenged, worst of all, we will never seek to understand anyone else's point of view, so we will never compromise and the circle of hate will continue. Think on this, have you recently listened to, read, or in any other way consumed something, that had a headline along the lines, 'Fox anchor destroys left wing activist' or, 'watch CNN journalist humiliate Trump supporter'. Frankly, such headlines are hard to avoid, but if you are enjoying anything that glorifies its ability to destroy, humiliate, or otherwise harm anyone else's differing view or opinion, you are contributing nothing to the conversation, more importantly you are far from being any part of a solution.

In an almost non-consiquential side bar, to tie this rhetoric into our media industry, data is our equivalent of 'too much news or information'. The boast that continually rises to the surface of any pitch or media plan, is the shear volume of data that drove the recommended solution. The question we must ask is, did that volume of date, educate my provider to deliver something unique, due to newly provided learnings, or did it simply prove, that the recommendation they were always going to make, was the right one?

#WhatWouldSirTrevorDo