MoveOn's 50 Ways to Love Your Country

Read More, Watch TV News Less
Kate Cox, 27, Astoria, Queens, New York

My father is a journalist. He has written for the same newspaper for 30 years. The children in my family were bred with a healthy respect for freedom of the press, as well as freedom of speech and expression. My parents taught us to view every issue with a critical eye and to analyze any given situation for truthful content, not merely sentiment. I have taken those lessons with me into the workplace, the community, and the voting booth.

On September 11, 2001, my critical eye was tested. While the mass media have always bombarded us with images of human suffering and injustice, for me, this was different. This was my city on fire. These were my friends and neighbors running for their lives. Any amount of desensitization I might have developed in the past was shattered in an instant. Like many people in this country, I was glued to my television set for weeks on end, watching images of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon play over and over, while commentators tried to make sense of the events for us. I went to bed every night with a deeper and deeper sense of foreboding about what our world was quickly evolving into.

In nightly phone conversations with my father, I ran down the list of things I’d heard and seen on television that day that I found sad or terrifying. The nation was entering a very scary time, and I was firmly in the grip of intense fear and anxiety. Each night as I ended the conversations with my father, he said, “Remember, read more than you watch.” In daily emails, he also urged me to start the day with a newspaper, instead of the morning news programs. He told me that limiting myself to a half hour of coverage per night would help me sleep better. My father reminded me that we are all incredibly susceptible to images and pictures, especially those set to softly touching music. If we allow ourselves to take all of our information from the footage we see on the nightly news, we lose sight of the truth in any given situation. We lose our ability to relate. We become uninformed. He told me that pictures tell only part of the story.

My father was right. I started to read everything I could get my hands on, from newspapers and magazines to social and historical commentary. I read articles and essays written by theologians, teachers, and scientists. I became a subscriber to several publications to ensure that I would always have information first, before images. Each time I sat down to read, my critical eye became more able to focus. I found a sense of perspective and learned to put world events into a historical context. For every essay that said the world was ending, there was one that said it was being rebuilt.

I slowly began to sleep better. I began to feel I had power in a situation that had previously made me feel powerless. I read about opportunities for participation and service, and I started to see myself as a vessel of peace and a force for change.

I am still deeply moved by the images of profound suffering and injustice I see in every corner of the world. I am still brought to tears each time I see footage of the collapse of the World Trade Center. I have learned, however, always to read what’s behind the picture. There, I find hope, truth, and details. For me, there is healing in those details. Information is power.

• In your search for information, include types of written material that you have not previously explored, such as published sermons, speeches, and essays.
• Read material featuring viewpoints that differ from yours politically, spiritually, or emotionally. This will help you see all sides of an issue.
• Limit your television viewing. Before tuning in, thoughtfully consider which programs will be most valuable to you in your personal search for information.