Not long ago I was reading this book, Holding Onto Reality, a philosophical reflection on media by the late Albert Borgmann. Borgmann makes a point that’s obvious, though I’d never quite thought about things in this way.

Go back in history – way back, to medieval times or before, when most people lived in isolated villages or nomadic tribes. What did the typical person know? Most of your knowledge came from direct experience – from your senses. If I walk this trail along the river, it’ll take me to the next village. I know this because I’ve done it – first with my mother or father, and then by myself many times. I know what the trees and the hills look like along the way; I know a good spot to catch fish; and I know the people in that next village because I’ve met them, talked to them. If I know the villagers’ names it’s because they’ve told me their names. I might also know some things, or think I do, about more distant places and people – from tales told around the fire or by some traveler passing through. But that second- and third-hand information is paltry and of little practical importance compared to what I’ve learned directly.

How different life is now. We still learn plenty through our senses and our immediate experience, but the overwhelmingly share of what we know about the world, and what we need to know, comes through media. That often applies to our work lives, and it applies to just about all of us if we’re going to act as citizens in any meaningful way.

And here’s where I borrow a few lines and themes from the upcoming season of Scene on Radio:

Americans, if we want to be, are inundated with news, from countless sources, but we’re not happy about it. Some of that anger at the media may be misplaced and manufactured, but much of it is not. We’re mired in an information crisis. Does anyone here think that our news media, as now constructed, is doing its job? That Americans are well enough informed to be trusted with our own government?

Some have called journalism the oxygen of a functioning democracy. If that’s true, America is gasping for breath. Most of us say we don’t trust the media, and that’s only one of the crises facing the fourth estate. The business model for local journalism has all but collapsed. We know about the barrage of misinformation that flows from our splintered mediascape. Americans’ endless shouting match about journalistic “bias” is superficial and confused.

You can’t separate the state of our news media from the other profound crises that America keeps on failing to solve. 

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Forgive the radio silence in this space. This is my first Keeping ScOR post since early March. The team and I have been busy, though, working toward the release of Scene on Radio’s 8th season, The News — coming May 27th. I’m thrilled to confirm that Chenjerai Kumanyika, co-host of Seasons 2 and 4, Seeing White and The Land That Never Has Been Yet, returns as my co-host. Chenjerai is creator and host of the Unruly Subjects podcast, and the award-winning series Empire City and Uncivil. He’s an assistant professor of journalism at New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute, so the season’s subject matter is fully in Chenj’s wheelhouse this time.

I’m delighted to be working with our other talented team members, too: Story editor Diane Hodson and assistant producer Arlene Arevalo.

In a nice surprise, our project was announced as an official selection at the Tribeca Festival in June.

Can’t wait to get this work into your ears. Watch our feed later this month, or better yet, follow/subscribe. And if you feel so moved, spread the word!