Posted on 10/22/2017 10:38:31 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Last week I returned from a big journalism conference, and it cemented a hunch I’ve been ruminating on for a little while now: A lot of the chatter in the hallways was about data suggesting that readers have started paying less attention to the quick-churn news cycle. Web traffic to news sites appears to have declined across the board from the spikes after Trump was elected.
That’s a problem for a lot of an industry that derives most of its revenue from the ad impressions that load every time you click on a story, whether or not you end up actually reading it.
But it might also be good news—if it means that as a society, we’re ready to engage with the news in a different, less frantic way.
Before I unpack that, though, I’ll level with you: I also suspect fatigue is a big reason we’re behind on our fall pledge drive. We need to pick up the pace to make our $200,000 budget, so even if—especially if—you’re feeling like it’s just too much right now, I hope you’ll keep reading and that you’ll support Mother Jones’ journalism with a tax-deductible donation today.
Now let’s dig in on the question of fatigue, because it’s a real concern—and our team isn’t immune from it either. From Charlottesville, devastating hurricanes, and the mass shooting in Las Vegas to attempts to kick millions off of their insurance or reversals on DACA (to name just a few—travel bans! North Korea! Iran!), it’s been a tough run.
So as counterintuitive as it seems, let’s think back to a moment we all remember very precisely: The night of November 8, 2016. That moment when it became clear that Donald Trump would be our next president.
People dealt with that night a lot of different ways, but I’ve heard one thing from almost everyone I know: We all felt our compass very intensely that night. We felt it in our bones. We were really connected to our values, and we knew that our values demanded that we pick up our tools and start hammering away at what seemed like the daunting task of advancing democracy, justice, and progress.
Here’s how a former tech executive put it to me at an event recently: “I realized that night that I couldn’t outsource participation. I couldn’t leave democracy to other people.”
As people thought about what democracy means to them, many of them found their way to journalism—including Mother Jones. We saw tens of thousands of new subscribers and supporters sign up, and we took that as a mandate: to reconfigure our priorities, to double down on the work that is most critical now, to be worthy of the trust that our audience—you!—places in us.
Nine months in, if we feel a little overwhelmed, it’s for good reason: They want us to be. The more they get us thinking it’s impossible to keep up, the less we can pull back and keep eyes on our compass. So whenever I battle the fatigue that is inescapable at times like this, I try to think back to that moment, when we all knew it would be a long slog, and we couldn’t afford to feel hopeless. (You can let me know how you’re feeling and hear from fellow readers at the end of this article.)
And there’s one other thing we realized at that moment: We could no longer keep going the way we were. That’s where I come back to the changing patterns in news consumption. Maybe it’s a good thing that we’re no longer frantically clicking on every outrage-inducing link in our Facebook feed. Lots of you have told us that you are unplugging a bit—not from the issues, but from the blur of headlines. That you are taking the time to read more deeply, and to connect with others for real (yes, even face to face) conversations.
And it turns out that by doing this, you may be fighting the propagandists in the most effective way there is. Last year, the nonpartisan research organization RAND released a study of messaging techniques used by Kremlin-controlled media, known as the “Firehose of Falsehood.” Here are their two main takeaways: Russian propagandists utilize “high numbers of channels and messages, along with “a shameless willingness to disseminate partial truths or outright fictions” that “entertains, confuses, and overwhelms the audience.”
Sound familiar? It’s very similar to what we’ve been seeing from Trump and his allies in the last year and a half.
But the propagandists’ worst nightmare is for the audience—us—to hold on to our grounding. The study concluded that the best way to counter deception and media manipulation is getting ahead of the lies with accurate information, and exposing the propaganda as such—because fighting it case by case, story by story, is a daunting, and losing battle.
It’s a tall order, and I won’t pretend we can do it on our own, but Mother Jones—and most journalism—exists to make it harder for the firehose of falsehood to work. If that’s what you want, I hope you’ll join us with a tax-deductible donation to help us reach $200,000 so we can keep digging up facts and get them to millions of readers for free. We only have two weeks left in our pledge drive, and we still need to raise about $100,000 to stay on track.
We can’t let Trump-era politics become the new normal. But we also can’t respond to every development as a brand new, hair-on-fire crisis. By recognizing the playbook, and refusing to let it work you up or beat you down, we can hold on to the strength and wit we’re going to need for the road ahead. That’s what we’re committed to—and I hope you’re with us.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on Trump fatigue, because when I say being a reader-supported nonprofit means we answer only to you, that’s not empty rhetoric. We not only need to double down on fact-finding reporting during times like these, we also need to listen and learn from you.
I’ll pay for the wine.
If the brain-dead MSM drones would do their jobs, and leave Trump alone to do HIS job, there’d be no fatigue to whine about.
So they’re finally noticing that nobody cares about them anymore? They’ve devoted all this time to trying to sabotage, remove or do whatever to Donald Trump, and while he throws them a bit of bait with his tweets, he’s been plowing ahead and people - including a lot of Dems - have been liking it.
Of course, Hollywood and the NY television industry believe themselves to be the center of the universe, so it’s a little hard for them to believe that people might have other considerations. Heck, even Jimmy Carter today said that no President has been attacked like Trump - and he was being sympathetic!
Carter was attacked a lot in his day, not for being a goofy, inefficient liberal, but for being a Christian. So while I think he was a lousy president, mostly because he just told people that all was lost and we should just accept that life would never be good again, the reason they attacked him was not that. So Carter knows whereof he speaks.
beat me to it....gmta
Trump fatigue?
Only when there’s too much winning.
Uh, wait a minute, who is that audience again, and who are the propagandists? Somebody seems a little confused.
That fatigue results from one of the most intense media hate campaigns in history failing, and its perpetrators simply don't know what to do about it but double down to exhaustion.
Nah, they are just tired from hours of screaming. At least they aren’t in the straights of a dissenter in North Korea. Or someone who got on the wrong side of Chinese Communists.
I’m wrestling with anti-Trump fatigue.
From the night of November 8, 2016 I was happy, still am, jump out of bed, turn on the computer, read my sites and listen to music and clean house, go to Mass, go to Bible Study, and now looking forward to working part time, crocheting, sewing, watching my grandson, read books...
It’s a happy time in my life and I wouldn’t change Our President for anything or anyone...I haven’t felt this way in years and God watches over those that I love and are friends with and America, what more could you ask for?
If so, that would be excellent news!
DJT is fine, not fatigue there, it’s the Chicken Little Left and the McCain Class causing all the fatigue.
I don't.
I survived 8 years of Obama.
They can survive 8 years of Trump.
Fair's fair!
Second law: SJWs always project.
Mother Jones Magazine, a bunch of dope-smoking semi-retards, SNORT.
Even within the leftard fake news media they are considered to be a bunch of paranoid ex-hippies from the 70’s. Definite D listers.
I do take pleasure in their pain.
This will be on Rushs show tomorrow. He has spoken a few times about how the progs will eventually fatigue.
I wonder how many have found themselves cut, cut, cut! out of baby boomers’ wills over their hostile, pugnacious primal screaming and suddenly have to make new income plans.
I stood for the national anthem all 8 years of Obama. I must be a very fit athlete /s
Yep. The fatigue we’re witnessing is the fatigue of a tantrum exhausting itself. It may not be any more complicated than that.
this was the saddest example of delusional, self-centered drivel I think I have ever read.
But then, it is Mother Jones, and it is to be expected. LOL
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