Storytelling vs. Reconciliation?

In e-Communication, we are often encouraging our students to be storytellers with their projects.  What's the setting?  Where does it begin and end?  What happens in between?  Who is the protagonist?  Humans like stories - we can identify with them.

The problem sometimes is that when life events happen, like the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, no one knows the whole story.  In fact, an object overview of the hows and whys for the entire sequence of events leading to his death may not be knowable.  It's what investigators are trying to painstakingly piece together right now.

Even so, we still all want the story!  Was the policeman acting in self-defense?  Did Michael Brown really have his hands up?  Was this a racist act?  What kind of people are these, and how did this end up happening?  Many of us already have our minds made up about which person was the "good guy" and which was the "bad guy".

This editorial points out some big issues with how the public and the media have dealt with this absence of a full story.  Ferguson shows that real life is not a story   Read it, and then ponder the following questions. Your teacher may have you post your thoughts on your blog.

• What happens when news media outlets cease to be objective reporters of fact, and start trying to tailor their story to the biases of their readers/viewers/listeners?
• What is it about our social media feeds that tends to feed our preconceptions or biases, instead of giving us an objective view?
• What happens nationally or globally then, when so much of everyone's "information" about an event like this comes from less-than-objective news outlets, or from their own social media feeds?
• How might this same phenomenon be affecting other areas, such as politics?