We are not far into 2020 and already it seems like another breathless year of developments, the fourth since 2016, the year of Brexit and Trump.
But something strange has happened to the filter for what counts as news. The turn of the year brought a few reminders of big events from not to long ago: another anniversary for the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake / tsunami in which at least 250,000 people died, and the latest German announcement on coal power phaseout, which reminds us that the world is still dealing with the consequences of the 2011 nuclear disaster in Japan.
These were massive events.
Then there's a set of events from the Middle East, the Syrian war since 2011, the Syrian mass migration to Germany in 2014-15, the French terrorist attacks in 2015. And there's more from any and every region of the world, stuff that would get noticed, at least by people in the "news" business. The problem is that the proliferation of ostensible engagement in news through social media has commingled political developments with general events and distorted the perceptions of both.
In fact, for the USA, you could turn the logic around and argue that there's been very little news since 2016. There is self-generated "news" from the political system, but no 9/11, no oil price shock, no large new military operations overseas. Of course there's been lots to track as non-political news, including "this American carnage" as Trump labelled it. But nothing to disturb the political system from the very resilient, very noisy, fairly bad equilibrium in which it currently lies.
One conclusion being it's just possible that 2020 could see a major non-political news event pulling the political system into unchartered territory, where having instincts honed based on a pre-occupation with other political actors and hangers-on is not going to be much help.
But something strange has happened to the filter for what counts as news. The turn of the year brought a few reminders of big events from not to long ago: another anniversary for the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake / tsunami in which at least 250,000 people died, and the latest German announcement on coal power phaseout, which reminds us that the world is still dealing with the consequences of the 2011 nuclear disaster in Japan.
These were massive events.
Then there's a set of events from the Middle East, the Syrian war since 2011, the Syrian mass migration to Germany in 2014-15, the French terrorist attacks in 2015. And there's more from any and every region of the world, stuff that would get noticed, at least by people in the "news" business. The problem is that the proliferation of ostensible engagement in news through social media has commingled political developments with general events and distorted the perceptions of both.
In fact, for the USA, you could turn the logic around and argue that there's been very little news since 2016. There is self-generated "news" from the political system, but no 9/11, no oil price shock, no large new military operations overseas. Of course there's been lots to track as non-political news, including "this American carnage" as Trump labelled it. But nothing to disturb the political system from the very resilient, very noisy, fairly bad equilibrium in which it currently lies.
One conclusion being it's just possible that 2020 could see a major non-political news event pulling the political system into unchartered territory, where having instincts honed based on a pre-occupation with other political actors and hangers-on is not going to be much help.
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