Sensitive Topics
Do you prefer espresso or filter writing?
Writers have at all times been at risk of being condemned by authorities or religious institutions for what they wrote. They have also been at risk of a milder form of "condemnation", namely the one that readers give when they don't like the written or the writer, or both.
Many are the people who have been burned for being blasphemous, like Jan Hus (1370-1415), or stabbed down, like Salman Rushdie. Countless are the writers who just didn't get an audience for their works. And even more countless, to look at it from a reader's perspective, are the people who never got the chance to read the stories of such burned, stabbed, or ignored writers.
There are always big topics to discuss, but just as often, a majority of people do not want to discuss them. Or read about them. They do not want to know.
Politics and religion are top scorers, but there are taboos within almost every thinkable topic, making it difficult for a writer to be effective - to actually move some thoughts with their readers.
Censorship steps in already in the writers themselves, thinking that this or that topic may not be popular, or may be banned by the publishing platform. So, many stories are never written, or perhaps written but then hidden in a drawer or a folder somewhere on the computer, to never be read by anyone.
Then comes the publisher. This can be LinkedIn, Medium, or a traditional publishing company or a newspaper. It doesn't matter where, really, because they all have either an "editorial standard" or some non-disclosed censoring principles, or even an AI-based mechanism that purges articles at will and bans the writers - they all filter the written and accept only what they see fit.
And finally comes the readers, who may say something like I have heard a lot recently, that "they block everyone who writes about American politics". Well, readers can decide on blocking many different things, and on some platforms, it can be difficult to mention anything within a long list of topics on a regular basis without losing a significant amount of readers.
Even an article like this one, that tries to describe the phenomenon, is at risk of being blocked, banned, censored, filtered, or whatever, because it may contain certain words that are not accepted, or simply seems to radiate some level of negative realism that many people don't like.
If I attempted to list all the taboos, I currently see in effect, that would for sure lead to blocks and bans. Even when just informing, not opinionizing. Not trying to indoctrinate or propagate any dangerous ideas. Apart from freedom of speech, of course.
Recently, a person in Denmark was sentenced to prison for having expressed his support for Palestinian demonstrations in Copenhagen - through a reply on Facebook to a post by a newspaper asking "who supports this". This is possible because of the so-called terror laws that were implemented in many countries in the time after the 9-11 event, meeting no resistance because we all had that terrible event fresh in our memories and wanted to prevent this from happening again. Now, it is being used to censor Facebook from simple opinions about everyday things.
A writer's world is full of traps. Social media beat up a sensation about something that happens, but writers who try to capture some of the essence of it and distill it into a readable and rational account of the events, will easily end up being punished for publishing it. Journalists at recognized media are somewhat exempt from this, which then in effect creates a segregated world of writing: Either you are part of the elite that is allowed to write about sensitive things, or you are not.
The European refugee crisis some years ago got many people blocked and banned for expressing their opinions, and the current madness in American politics is followed by a similar destiny for many writers.
Journalists can tell about what happens without being banned and blocked, because it is their job and privilege. On platforms like Substack, there are many such journalists earning millions of dollars on telling it.
And yet, most newspapers are full of vague phrases that try to describe even the most absurd behavior of a leading politician as if they were normal and should be treated as serious expressions, which are then analyzed and commented upon. Maybe the journalists feel that life is easier this way?
There are many people who do not read the news. I believe that most people have stopped watching the news programs on TV, but also the news related writing on social media or the newspapers’ websites are being ignored, apart from sports results and other lightweight news. But some are still binge-reading the few real and deep, sometimes negative sounding news stories from some honest and direct papers, like The Guardian, or they are aiming for a less direct and often also less timely, longer and more deep form of news, like found in The Atlantic. The writers there can allow themselves to touch the topic directly, even if negative by nature.
The rest of us can write about nice things. On Substack and elsewhere.
Popular topics are something about how to earn money on the Internet, or which five easy steps that would bring you to a new job or a healthier life. Or photos with a few thoughtful words. Everything pleasant, promising, and non-moving. Readers want to stay the same after having read it, perhaps just smiling a bit, having fed their dreams with another piece of sugar.
We can paint the sometimes harsh reality with nice and promising words, making it sound like we don't care about what really matters for most people. And simply skip the worst parts of life completely.
There is something true in the sometimes heard claim that if we had no news, the world would be much better. Much of what the classical newspapers are doing is to take a simple event in life and making a drama out of it. Picking an angle that may look scary or saddening, and then enforcing this by telling the story solely from that angle. It doesn’t contribute to anyone feeling better nowadays, but in an otherwise eventless world – a world without a daily stream of news and opinions through phones, computers, and other media as we now have around us 24/7 – I can imagine how a bit of drama now and then, perhaps with the weekly newspaper, would even feel enlightening and refreshing. Perhaps the style isn’t suited for binge-reading?
A magazine like Positive.News tries to turn it a bit, by telling not only the things that people want to hear, the positive things, but also to pick an angle that isn’t focused on the drama. This makes it a bit less catchy, to put it honestly, but it does bring you a bunch of news that will not ruin your mood for that day.
I have tried making some experiments on social media, and the mechanism doesn’t work there – not for me, at least. Maybe social media readers a too clever to accept that a post about a serious topic, disguised as positive, really is positive. Then better ignore it and go straight to the next cat video, they may be thinking.
So, the fact is, that we are all filtering, censoring, information, both when we give it and when we receive it. And I am not sure that it is a good thing.
I wonder what you are thinking?
Do you employ a great deal of self-censorship as a writer and a reader? Or are you hooked on getting more of the tough news, because that’s what is really happening, and you want to know about it? Or do you believe that the news is in any case fake and irrelevant to most people, so you rule them out and hunt the media for everything positive and beautiful – only?
Jorgen Winther is a writer on Substack and elsewhere through several publications such as All of Life and Turning Life. While trying to maintain a positive view on life, history studies and life experience have taught him that nothing lasts, and life must be appreciated for its changes, even though not all changes deserve the same amount of admiration and support. It is okay to be skeptical, and okay to be sad, when things look bad, and okay to try to find out more to understand how best to react.
News is a business, and our attention is the product.
I try to ignore it (living outside your country of birth can help this).
And as for truth, there are few universal ones. Our entire perception of life is stories, and everyone's story is different.
A thought provoking piece as ever.
There's always a tiny degree of self-censorship in writing. It doesn't even have to do with politics. True, unfiltered honesty is hard to put into words.