Max 100 words
There’s a new cultural law: If it’s short, sensational, and has enough likes, it must be true. Add some video and boom, you’re off. Dare to verify anything, you’re branded as “brainwashed by mainstream media.” Being born between the 1950s and 1970s automatically disqualifies you from being taken seriously. Simply because we refuse to treat every 27‑word social‑media post as sacred scripture.
The irony is exhausting. We’re accused of being manipulated precisely because we don’t blindly accept whatever the algorithms cough up.
Meanwhile, the trend of micro‑thoughts has become the modern standard for “communication.” Anything longer than 100 words is treated like a dissertation. I’m fully aware that many of the Gen Z and ‘social‑media‑native’ crowd won’t make it past the first 200 words of this piece. But then again, they aren’t interested in my point of view anyway.
But the irritation cuts deeper. The casual disrespect toward the very people who built the foundations of modern journalism is hard to swallow. And I say this not as an outsider just defending true journalism.
I’ve spent the last 24 years of my life alongside a dedicated news producer. I’ve seen the work, the research, the pressure, the integrity, the impossible deadlines, the ethical rows and debates, the nights spent rewriting scripts because accuracy mattered more than convenience. The fear for the team or stringers covering the news stories. The relief when everyone returns safely. It is palpable.
Yet make a single error and viewers, “Fake Newsers” alike go ballistic. Bashing the journalist then becomes a medieval sport and distraction.
So when I hear or read sweeping claims that “mainstream media is bought” or “journalists are puppets,” it’s not just ignorant — it’s personally insulting.
Worse still is the complete erasure of the journalists who died doing the work these critics mock. Well over 1,700 since Millennials even knew they were not Gen Z. Reporters from Al‑Jazeera, CNN, and countless other outlets have lost their lives not for clicks, not for clout, but because they believed the world deserved the truth. To dismiss their sacrifice with a flippant meme about “controlled media” is not only disrespectful, it borders on obscene.
And yes, I’m upset. But more than that, I’m disappointed.
Truth costs
Disappointed that critical thinking has been reframed as stubbornness and ignorance. Disappointed that experience is treated as irrelevance. Disappointed that the loudest voices are often the least informed. Disappointed that truth, real truth, the kind that requires work is losing ground to whatever happens to be trending. Disappointed that it is so easy to mislead this generation using bots and trolls and algorithms.
I grew up in an era where information was something you earned. Think about this for a second. You read, researched, compared sources, questioned, learned.
Today, information is something you scroll past. And if it fits your worldview, you repost it. No scrutiny required. A Russian troll called American League For Truth posts that “They’re eating the cats and dogs” and “Oh My God now they are eating babies too!” The American Department of Justice ‘confirmed it’s true’, so it must be.
Who.the.fuck. is the American Dept of Justice anyway?
This from a generation that sees their patently vacant looking peers, posing in public with nipple rings holding up their transparent gown, as she “ate” — as if that’s the new standard for cultural achievement.
I’m not claiming our generations are faultless, none are and that’s a whole new rant.
But some of us ‘old farts’ understand something that seems to be disappearing into the vast dump of social media sewage. Truth is rarely simple, never instant, and absolutely never determined by popularity metrics. So, if refusing to accept sensationalism as fact makes us “out of touch,” then fine. I’d rather be out of touch than hoovering up all the garbage out there.
And to the journalists — the real ones, the ones who risk and lose everything in pursuit of truth — this is for you. Your work matters. Your sacrifices matter. Some of us still see you, still respect you, and refuse to let your legacy be reduced to a punchline in a comment thread.
If that makes me old‑fashioned, I’ll wear it proudly. No nipple ring required.
February 6, 2026
Last Updated on February 6, 2026
