All posts by Gary C. Woodward

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When ‘Tell Me’ Beats ‘Show Me’

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Internet giants seem to be racing to the bottom by turning their news sites into picture books with bright colors and sparse content.

Tech is turning out more drek. Why is almost every site trying to convert their news into clickbait pictures? We don’t need to see B-roll footage of the misery in Gaza for a story about what the next steps to secure peace might be. The real news lies in the thinking of figures in Gaza, the White House and Tel Aviv. We also need clear numbers rather than images to account for the ruinous health care costs facing many Americans.

For what it is worth, this insight came to me after a necessary upgrade to  Windows-11. After purchasing a new computer to be able to manage the decidedly underwhelming software, Microsoft thrust it’s MSM Webpage at me as an added bonus. It was enough to trigger my frustration.

Their page of ads and news “stories” caught my eye quite literally. The layout of the version I saw was a stash of videos dealing with everything from the weather to news about barely qualified people seeking White House jobs. The real meat of some of these stories could be more efficiently presented in straightforward reporting and more than 500 words of text.

One medium is never fully convertible into another medium.

We all love visual stories. But the hard truth is that a person’s world becomes highly circumscribed if their access to big and important ideas is hobbled with the need for interesting pictures. I noticed my frustration because my new computer came with glitches that needed to be fixed by adjustments to specific settings, none of which were well explained by a person on YouTube who assumed his job was to show me something. I was looking for lists and sequences, which had to be awkwardly communicated off camera by a tech who was trying to be helpful.

My mistake was turning to a visual medium. I finally got help from a print-oriented forum where the emphasis was on explanation and amplification, not interesting images.

As this site has noted before, many worthy ideas do not have an easy visual form. Policies, values, administrative decisions, directions on fixing a computer problem and similar kinds of topics need discursive amplification, not a talking head proceeding at the glacial pace of 200 words a minute.  Ditto for help in speeding up my slow computer. YouTube can be helpful in showing how to fix things; but not so much if there is a lot of telling to do as well. It has unfortunately become the default medium for explaining something, even when the explainer has no flair for visual communication. It is used because it is there.  If you find yourself frantically taking notes from a segment, you can understand the paradox of having to translate from a medium of images to a medium of ideas. As we know, at least intuitively, one medium is never fully convertible into another medium.

Recent news stories report another decline in the reading ability of the nation’s grade-schoolers occurring along with handwringing from professors at Harvard complaining that their students won’t read. If we wonder what the cost of turning our kids into smartphone addicts is, we may not need to look any further. The small screens of those phones and their equivalents are full of junk images and too little supporting text.

It does not have to be this way. A glance at The Week Junior, the popular weekly news magazine for kids, shows how non visual topics can be covered in effective ways. Even subjects like freedom of speech and the characteristics of good poetry can be explained in interesting and age-appropriate levels. The Week Junior is a model of how our children should spend more of their time.

Obviously, visual clickbait functions as a hook to pull a consumer in. But I worry that we are aiming at the low. Young “readers” may need primary colors and cartoon images at the gateway of literacy. But older readers should be self-starters. If we allow the acquisition of knowledge and new information to proceed at the pace of a poky PowerPoint show, we can only admire our predecessors who understood that advanced insights require the incisive comprehension of a master reader.

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It is Time for a Convention of National Reconstruction

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Such an open-ended national effort would be a welcome breeze of fresh air to help clear out what our stale discourse presently allows.

The nation seems ready to lend support to a formal effort to rebuild traditions, norms and institutions that have been weakened by the Trump administration. It is time for individuals representing the nation’s cities, blue states, federal workers, unions and universities to start the necessary and arduous process of imagining and preparing priorities for quick action when the Congress and Presidency are able to restore civil values that have been honored over the decades. A smarter set of constitutional amendments would have already put us on this path. As it is, we must stand by idly to gain formal political leverage to act in defiance of the sabotage undertaken by this administration.

Obviously, a national convention of patriots to rebuild the nation would admittedly not have formal powers. But as The Guardian’s Thomas Geoghegan notes in his similar call for a convention of blue states, the first continental congress held in Philadelphia had “no apparent legitimacy or precedent,” but still had big consequences.1 The founders had to make a similar decision to act beyond what was possible within the political status quo.

My guess is that there would also be many Republicans who are anxious to reset the nation by considering new, productive, and suitably conservative ideas. Enlisting moderate Republican governors would be a good start. Many have clearly been inhibited by the hyperpartisanship of the Trump wing of the party.

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We could assume that conservative and liberal sides would be willing to come together to make something better. Geoghegan notes that the result may be more theater than specifically deliberative, but such an organized national effort would be a welcome breeze of fresh air beyond what our fetid discourse from our entrenched politicians presently allows.

Initial concerns might include:

*whether the Presidency has the kinds of prerogatives and safeguards that the nation needs,

*whether Congress is too big or small to carry out legislative functions,

*whether money in campaigns should be limited, and

*if more federal functions supported by block grants should be taken over by the states.

Published recommendations receiving the most support could be distributed by receptive media.  Topics like these would benefit by having fresh and younger voices more clearly heard.

Organizations that could convene an ongoing conference of national reconstruction might include good government organizations like Common Cause, The National Conference of State Legislators, The United States Chamber of Commerce, The Brennan Center for Justice, and the Pew Research Center. All have traditionally presented credible work that cuts across rigid partisan lines. All would also have to propose some of the attendees, and sign on to the idea that the nation needs an extraordinary Convention of National Reconstruction.

There is also a tradition of calling on the services of respected former cabinet, state or Senate officials who could use their experience and wisdom to guide such an effort. We had such “wise old men (and women)” who helped the nation through the tough final years of the Nixon administration. We could find and enlist their contemporary counterparts again. Think of individuals like former New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman or former CIA Director Leon Panetta. There are many former state and federal office holders who would answer the call to help. And there would be more agreement on ways forward than we might think. The current broken norms, like the politicization of the Department of Justice, go unchecked largely because of the current suppression of open dissent by a vindictive President.

Members could forward high-consensus recommendations to the political parties, the media, and interested trade and professional groups. Many would welcome a “third way” to reinvigorate our national politics.

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1https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/oct/05/blue-states-democrats-trump