As a longtime journalist, Dave Umhoefer offered tips while in the pulpit this summer for dealing with disinformation – and despair—on our UU “free and responsible search for truth and meaning.”
He urged members to:
- Support local media outlets whose staff live here and come from all Milwaukee’s neighborhoods.
- Approach, assist and encourage reporters, and share their work. They are under attack and pressure.
- Pay for the news you use and find credible! Ask yourself: How much are you paying for cable and streaming services, compared to your support of news outlets?
- Push local outlets to cover all local elections and all candidates.
- Follow a diverse set of voices on social media to escape your information bubble. Work to find civil and thoughtful voices with different political perspectives.
- Very intentionally curate your own news content. Do it in a way that gets away from overreliance on opinion and sensationalism.
- Read deeply researched books and long magazine articles.
- Examine your own writings and posts. Are you personally encouraging an atmosphere of candor and truth telling while refraining from attacks? Avoid groupthink and be open to new information.