Everything That's On My Mind

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

I’ve heard it said that the last person who knew everything (i.e. all the accumulated human knowledge at the time) was Erasmus. Of course we have no way of confirming that, but the fact remains that it is no longer possible for one person to absorb all the information that humanity has gathered. We all have to specialize in one way or another. The challenge today is incredible volume of information available to us. How do we filter for the important stuff and not be distracted by the trivial? How do we find reliable sources of information?

Joe Carter’s latest post over at the Evangelical Outpost got me thinking about this. His post focuses on the news industry, which in my opinion is becoming more and more irrelevant. I was in college studying broadcasting and working at the college radio station when USA Today began to be popular. I remember my professors decrying it as “McPaper,” fast-food news without any meaningful content. I don’t know if that was the beginning of the end or if it goes back to Edward R. Murrow, but news has become entertainment rather than information.

I used to be a news junkie. I read the newspaper, watched CNN (this was pre-FoxNews), and listened to talk radio all day long. In the end, I don’t think it was really profitable. Joe may have it right, it may be no better than watching the mindless sitcoms. All the news outlets use the same sources anyway. They just wrap it up in different clothes. I still listen to the news on the radio (WWJ) in the morning to see if there’s anything “breaking” that I need to know about. I still read the Sunday newspaper, at least some of it. They’re not my major sources of information anymore, though.

These days I try to focus on gathering information that helps me be what God has called me to be…a pastor, a father, a husband, a friend. Blogs are an interesting new tool for that kind of information gathering. They’re not a perfect source either. There are far, far too many for any one person to read. They can suffer from the same problems of triviality, and many are untrustworthy sources or have a particular axe to grind. I’ve found a few blogs that focus on the kind of information I need. By paying attention to the books they quote, the sources they cite, their links and blogrolls I find other possible sources.

I’m curious. How do my many (hee hee) loyal readers filter the noise of our information culture to find relevant information?

Culture | Technology

Tuesday, June 27, 2006 - 09:36 PM Eastern Daylight Time