Blame & Complain or Engage & Fix It

Have you noticed how many of the memes – pieces of information -- you find in your emails, on your Facebook page, receive via Twitter, see  on TV, to name a few, are about blaming and complaining? It is as if millions of people have had their brains programmed to believe that their most important role in life – the purpose of life – is to find someone to blame and then complain about whatever upsets them:

I have found someone to blame, I have told as many people as I can who to blame for whatever it is, and I complain about it every chance I get – I have accomplished my purpose for existing.  

Have you ever been around a place where a bunch of chickens lived? When I was a kid my grandmother had a “chicken yard” where she raised her chickens. I really enjoyed going with her to feed them and collect the eggs. The moment she opened the gate and we took the first steps inside – the chickens started squawking. As we walked towards their nests, they squawked louder and louder. They didn’t only squawk; they also ran away. Oh yeah, there is one more thing you could count on them doing – and you made sure you didn’t step in it. When I hear all of the blaming and complaining going on today – I think about those chickens.

But, I will be eternally grateful to some of the men who were my bosses and mentors in my early years of business management. By the time I was 20 years old, I was branch manager of a consumer finance company and responsible for over $1,000,000 in loans. My boss was teaching me some of the tricks of the trade one day, when he said, “When problems arise, most people spend their time trying to find someone to blame or just go around complaining about it. But the ones who succeed and are promoted to higher positions in the company -- investigate to find the causes of the problem and then take the steps required to solve the problem. His slogan was – Are you going to blame and complain or fix it!

So, why has blaming & complaining become like a virus of the mind for so many Americans today? I think the media, especially the news programs, plays a major role in creating this problem. News programs, especially on TV and politically charged talk radio, have evolved into entertainment programs instead of reliable sources of accurate information. We all know which programs support the Democrats and which support the Republicans. Instead of doing what reporters used to do, go out and investigate the matter and report the results in a way that could be understood by the audience, today they invite a few people from each side to come and try to persuade the audience to believe them. Showmanship is much more likely to be a greater factor than accurate information.

The goals of all of those involved appear to be to manipulate the emotions of the masses instead of accurately informing them – and that includes the reporters – who are making a whole lot of money when they drive up the ratings. I know a lot of them say that fame and lots of money doesn’t affect how they do their job – but I really have a hard time believing that one!

One thing about getting old is that you see a lot of things just because you happened to be alive when they took place. And, as long as the old memory works, you can compare similar things that you have seen throughout the years to each other. When I watch today’s star reporters, I think about another reporter that I heard a lot about when I was just a kid -- Edward R Murrow. If you have a few minutes watch this short video -- Edward R Murrow vs Joe McCarthy -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4LZsDqSSfk . I think it will give you a taste of what news reporting could be about.

Reporters like Murrow worked hard to dig and dig until they came up with facts and then reported them in a way that helped their audience understand, so they could see the entire picture. This brings up another important point – and a major problem that is continually ignored -- the increasing inability of the audience to engage in critical thinking so they can understand the facts. Reporting the facts doesn’t accomplish much if the audience can’t understand what those facts mean.

Another great reporter, in my biased opinion, is my co-cogitator Dan Bodine. He has been a reporter and editor for a number of newspapers. Watching Dan work on a story always reminded me of an old hound dog following the scent of the thing it was after. He would just keep on sniffing here and there until he found what he was looking for. I remember times when what he found were things that some pretty powerful people really didn’t want him to share with his readers. But somehow or another, he would usually find a way to get that information in the paper. Hopefully, he will cogitate on my comments above and share some of his thoughts on those subjects.

Finally, I would like to invite everyone that reads this to cogitate on it too and see what ideas we can come up with that will get us on the road to fixing it. You know, this is really a strange predicament to be in – in the information age!