Welcome back, students!
Yes, it’s a bit chillier this week than when you left, but at least we’re not living in an imitation of the ice planet Hoth from “Star Wars,” like many states north of us. A special shout-out to you if you came back from there. Welcome back to the sunshine.
I hope you had a chance to rest, relax, eat entirely too much and, most of all, decompress from a, shall we say, consequential Fall and 2024 in general. Now, you’re back and ready to charge into the new year, right? Right?
I know. Things ahead can feel uncertain. 2024 might have left you with lasting exhaustion, something that a holiday break might not have fixed completely. This might be your tough semester, the one you can no longer put off. That course that everyone warned you about looms ahead. Outside the friendly confines of Gator Nation, the headlines you read might frighten you more.
What to do? Well, I’m not going to prescribe some one-size-fits-all solution to this kind of anxiety, but a few things might help. Gift-giving season does not have to be over for you — now’s the time for gifts you give yourself.
Give yourself the gift of space. Be conscious about allowing yourself room to be creative, to be connected, to be human. You might say, “What are you talking about? I’m connected to my friends.” But are you?
We live in a time of real irony. Never have we been more connected with all our devices and yet studies say loneliness is a serious problem in the country. Real connection is elusive. In its place, social media algorithms put us in a world where cognitive bias is currency.
Our opinions are fed back to us in ever growing rage-farming cycles. The echoes grow louder and those elevating them look and sound increasingly like us. As James Taylor wrote in a song, “You’ve never met a soul that you don’t already know.” When this happens, we become more predictable. We become less a community and more a market.
Give yourself the gift of freedom from that noise. Find time to disconnect from social and reconnect to socializing. If you’re already doing this, good for you! Do more. You have fascinating people all around you. Hear their stories and let them hear yours.
And speaking of freedom, give yourself a gift that is essential to freedom. Resolve to seek and value truth. Just like the irony surrounding connection, never have we lived in an era where the truth is more available and yet harder to protect. I don’t think we as a nation are even remotely grasping the existential danger to us posed by the attacks on information integrity that we are awash in today.
And yes, I believe journalism has encountered this problem and has been found desperately wanting. Too many organizations lack the courage to do the simplest of things: when one person says it’s raining out and another says it’s dry, you don’t just quote them both — you stick your head out the window and see what’s true. Too many platforms now state opinion as fact, and needed facts are being shouted down.
And we are paying real costs. Gravity doesn’t care about whether you believe in it or not. Disease doesn’t care whether you believe in vaccines or not. Math, physics and climatology don’t care whether you believe in climate change or not. We are paying dearly for not paying attention to what science has long told us.
So do something. Find trusted sources. Find original sources. Be willing to entertain the notion that the truth may not confirm what you believe. Be inquisitive and do the hard work of challenging popular opinion. It’s okay — you can handle it. And you have to — Mark Zuckerberg told you last week that when it comes to seeking facts on his platform, you are on your own.
At the College of Journalism and Communications, research is finding ways to make trusted facts easier for audiences to access. I’m excited about the potential of our efforts to provide information in ‘news deserts,’ to find and eliminate bias in writing and to get trusted emergency or safety information at scale to people in need.
And, if you have any doubts about how much reliable information is needed, look to Los Angeles. I was there last week. Amid raging wildfires, the Los Angeles Times dropped its paywall, and they and local television and radio stations were reporting nonstop since the moment the devastating fires began, providing moment-by-moment information about where the blazes are, where and when to evacuate, even where to bring lost pets — all matters of life or death.
You can help strengthen the information environment everywhere by creating and growing a market for the truth. In bringing news to communities that need it, the College of Journalism and Communications, UF and this newspaper are already helping. And not for nothing; students in general are already doing a better job of seeking and valuing the truth than many in generations before them — including my generation.
When you have the information that you need, you can make better choices, and in doing so, you really are being good to yourself. Having reliable information means you have less to worry about.
And doesn’t less worry sound good right about now?
Hub Brown is dean of the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications.
