Last Sunday afternoon, returning from a vacation in the Finger Lakes, I decided to relax and catch up on the news by watching Fox and reading the Sunday NY Times.
How many people do you know that would or could do these two things at the same time?
Not many! For most these two are incompatible. My conservative friends would scornfully say "You still read that rag?" My liberal friends would view me as contaminated by habitual viewing of Fox News.
For me, on the other hand, they require each other; they complement and fulfill each other. With only one of the two my viewpoint would be very jaundiced and narrow. It is like: catching the football with both hands, not one-handed; like loving my mother and my father, not one or the other; like surrendering to God's Mercy and his Wrath-Justice-Holiness...the one without the other would be sentimental, saccharine, nauseating while the inverse would be desolation and despair.
I read the NY Times every day; have been doing so for 60 years. It is a staple of my life. In high school history class, Fr. Giblin had us read the "Week in Review" every Sunday and outline a number of articles; I dispense with the outline but continue the reading habit.
I know that the paper is my antagonist in the relentless Culture War and that their politics is out of alignment with mine. I know that their viewpoint infiltrates the entire enterprise: what is reported, how it is slanted...news, book reviews, Sunday Style, et al. I know who I am and I know what it is and I respect it as such: a secular, progressive, highly opinionated, often interesting and sometimes reliable Jewish newspaper.
But I treasure it for several reasons: First, it is a dependable source of information about world events. For example, daily I read the updates on the Ukraine war and find them to be trustworthy and helpful. Second, they often offer valuable insights from a variety of sources: I regularly read Douthat, Brooks, Stephens and even Collins, Dowd, Krugman Goldberg and Blow. Occasional contributors like Arthur Brooks or Jonathan Haidt are invaluable. Lastly, it is good to know what the enemy is thinking, seeing, and planning. I recall that John Paul, when still a bishop, was seen entering a synod meeting of the bishops with a Marxist journal in his pocket.
Regarding Fox: I am a happy member of that family. And proud of it. Although it is admittedly a dysfunctional family Religiously we watch, at 6 PM, Bret Baer, who is like a brother: practicing Catholic, family man, real smart, funny and light-hearted, patriotic and conservative, competent and professional. He interviews a progressive Democrat and a conservative Republican with the same calm, sober, respectful but tough questioning. He, along with Shannon Bream and Martha McCallum are the portion of the three-part channel that I like. The others not so much. The ideologues (Hannity, Ingraham, etc.) are so unbalanced, , emotional, ad hominem and shrill that they are unwatchable. In between these two is a more ambiguous group, the entertainers and comedians: Jesse Waters, Tucker Carlson, Greg Grunfeld and his bunch (especially the huge wrestler guy and the smart, skinny, funny blonde). They are not serious, reliable journalists, but they are funny and cathartic as they give the progressives the ridicule they deserve. Ok...this is a guilty pleasure; I am not proud of it. Hey! I am only human!
Often at 7 PM I switch to CNN and Erin Burnett for a change of pace. For one thing, Erin is a lovely brunette: What's up with Fox and all these smart, confident, gorgeous blondes? We have always liked Erin. My wife has closely monitored her appearance and weight in and out of her three pregnancies: she has come out of it all looking great! (Hey: if that is sexist, blame her not me. To be fair, Bret has also added and lost weight. Lately he looks good. He is getting older so lets cut him some slack!) She is super-intelligent and generally a fine journalist. She does not disguise her pro-abortion bias: but this is CNN so what can we expect? Sadly she is a victim of TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome). When she talks about him she becomes a different person: agitated, shrill, angry, unhinged. It is devastating for both her feminine charm and her professional credibility. It is noteworthy: since Biden took office the five letter word T-R-U-M-P is never mentioned in Bret's 6 to 7 slot on Fox; but every Erin show obsesses about him (the Big Lie, January 6, and yada yada yada). It is unfortunate to waste her fine mind and all that energy!
I am blessed to receive information from a lot of different sources. Two older, conservative friends cut and mail me pieces from the Wall Street Journal, the Economist and others that I don't read. My liberal, policy-wonk double cousin sends me stuff from the Times, the Washington Post, and other. I religiously read the Catholic press: especially Communio (theological journal), First Things, The Catholic Thing, National Catholic Register, Crisis and sometimes New Oxford Review, Catholic Worker, NC Reporter, Commonweal and America.
Like everyone else, I am in my own bubble. But I enjoy the breath and depth of my bubble. A good Catholic strives for a (small c) catholic mind: embracing and welcoming the True and the Good wherever it can be found. A good Catholic is fearless in dialoguing with all sides and does not cancel, demonize or flee from dissonance and contradiction. A good Catholic realizes the fallibility and frailty of the human mind and the provisional, positional, finite, biased nature of human knowing. And so the good Catholic is open minded, searching and passionate in his craving for The Truth in all its splendid, entertaining, paradoxical and even disturbing manifestations.
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