One of the first ideological conundrums a writer, analyst, commentator, or history instructor confronts is content bias. What events, topics, and characters will be validated as important by their mere inclusion in the media or curriculum and what will be left to the ash heap of forgotten history?
When that is answered, the next issue is that of the first question. This question is hardly ever a literal one asked within content or in class. It is one answered by the writer’s, host’s, or instructor’s structure of the piece, show, or lesson: What is the starting point, the frame of the piece or debate? Does the content producer, for example, frame the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as an argument between the “Truman was justified in ordering the use of atomic weapons” and “Truman was not justified” camps? Framing the article, show, or lesson that way trains the reader to believe that, from step one, those are the only two options (i.e. Democrat or Republican).
How many writers, hosts, or instructors take one more step backward to question or debate whether or not the U.S. should have developed nuclear weaponry at all? How many instructors encourage a serious debate regarding whether or not the U.S. should have even entered World War II? After all, a news anchor was lauded for creating the lofty label The Greatest Generation for fighting that war. This assumes that it was the noblest of callings without questioning the basis for the assumption.
The MidnightWriterNews.com site will ask those questions, the ones that sit in the uncomfortable corner of the room. We will challenge those assumptions so that we may open the creative thought processes and critical analysis skills of our readers.
We hope that the site and show will have the most impact over time when thoughtful readers and listeners take time to reconsider opinions that are so ingrained in the American psyche that we may be challenging certain core issues for the first time in our readers’ adult lives.
We throw stones at the sacred cows of ideology, media, education, and philosophy as a means by which we hope to make people think, not because we have an iota of harmful intent. Americans are in an intellectual funk at this point in our history. Our staff hopes to loosen the reins and reigns of the persuasive elite so that we may think critically once again.