Harper: We get the news we deserve in a likely insane election year ahead

This is a commentary by Charlie Harper, a longtime opinion contributor to the Savannah Morning News and the Georgia USA TODAY network.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results. That’s the nonclinical definition of the term by Albert Einstein, who seemed to know not just a lot about math and science, but the human condition.

We humans are creatures of habit. If you’ve ever had the joy of having to attend an off-site management training seminar (as I had the distinct “pleasure” of doing several times throughout the 1990s) you likely had an exercise or three dedicated to demonstrating that we as a people are resistant to change. We would rather continue to remain in our comfort zone and do things wrong, or continue to get the wrong result than to change our ingrained habits.

Our new year will be an election year. This hardly seems special, as campaigns have long been permanent fixtures in our world. We have entire news channels that are no longer news, but entertainment aimed at keeping sides outraged at each other and each party’s base in line.

Informing the public has long become a secondary obligation to keeping eyeballs transfixed on cable or fingers typing to click on baited links.

We could blame these “news” organizations, or we could accept that they are just dealers supplying willing customers. The viewers that watch their shows, listen to their radio bits, or feast on and share their links demand their product, and demand it the way they want it.

Information and reasonable debate is no longer the goal. Those of us seeking that are just bystanders in the game to “own the libs” or “de-platform the deplorables”. We’re happiest when we’re arguing, and there is no shortage of things for us to argue about.

Too many of our politicians are now complicit in this game. If they aren’t responsible for the outrage of the day, they invite themselves to the argument.

A recent case in point:. A back-bench Georgia State Senator known for his own publicity stunts rather than his short list of accomplishments decided he needed to be part of the annual gnashing of teeth known as the college football playoff selection process. He released on State Senate letterhead a demand that this year’s Orange Bowl be added to the playoff process to determine this season’s national championship.

The “demand,” like the Senator, was not serious. It was yet another blatant attempt to generate publicity for himself – so blatant that we’re not going to feed the beast and name him here. He’s otherwise known for strong libertarian views and voting to keep the government out of everything. He’s been voted out of his own party’s caucus. There is no government nor legal mechanism for his “demand” to transcend the litany of voluntary school, conference, and television contracts entered into years in advance to determine how the championship is awarded.

Does any of that matter to him or the various local, national, and international news outlets that know click-bait gold when they see it? Of course not. For a few days, he got his name splashed across news outlets around the world. There was a complete lack of skepticism in his demand, nor cynicism in the obvious ploy. It’s just that week’s result of the symbiotic relationship of the political outrage machine that has consumed much of politics and journalism.

His demand was good for the business of journalism, and the business of journalism was good for the Senator’s all-important name recognition. We all know this, and yet lather, rinse, repeat.

Which brings us back to the beginning of 2024, and the upcoming elections. Coverage of the race in the GOP primary has already begun. You’ve seen a lot less obvious coverage of the Democratic nominating process, mostly because in a very undemocratic fashion there hasn’t been one allowed.

But what has been covered on the GOP side isn’t the policy or promises so much as the horse race itself, and the constant goading of insults between candidates. You would be hard pressed to find out the nuanced policy differences on national security, economic and tax proposals, or social issues between the candidates in the news coverage.

Too many journalists would rather cover the race as if it were a food fight, rather than a detailed dive into how the meal was being prepared and which recipes were being used. And we not only allow it, we demand it.

It’s been the process we’ve used since the dawn of cable television. It was turbocharged with the adoption of the internet and social media.

We’re about to do the same thing over, again. And we’re going to act surprised at the end of 2024 when we get the same divided country and growing distrust of our own system of government.

This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: We'll get the news we deserve in a likely insane election year ahead