We’re all searching for truth from our sources of news. Most of us admit freely that this task can be quite daunting in this day and age. There’s so much misinformation and anything but reliable, newsworthy places to find the information we want and need that finding it at all can, at times, seem nearly impossible.

But an odd trend I’ve noted over the last several years has me scratching my head: since when did what the people delivering the news thought about the news become news itself?

You know exactly what I’m referencing. If you visit the websites of any of the main ‘news’ networks, among the stories regarding the war in the Middle East, efforts to get peace negotiated between Russia and Ukraine, tariffs, the stock market, and Lord only knows what else, you’ll find prominently placed headlines such as:

“Sean Hannity Approves Trump’s Triumphs”

“Rachel Maddow Condemns Trump’s Failures”

“Anderson Cooper Disapproves of Sean Hannity, Rachel Maddow, and Trump”

Videos, no less accompany all.

Now, those aren’t actual headlines, but you get the idea. It’s pretty much the kind of thing you will regularly find these days from Fox, MSNBC, and CNN (as well as others), where they are now making headlines with ‘news’ originating from their own celebrity news anchors.

Maybe I missed something along the way, but I always thought the people bringing the news to us were supposed to pretty much be basic conduits of information regarding news stories for delivery to Americans – no more, no less. Now, we’ve apparently reached a point where the words coming from those very news reporters have somehow become worthy of being considered actual ‘news’.

Can you imagine the following scenario?

“I’m Walter Cronkite, and this is the CBS Evening News. Leading the news, over 1,000 American troops have been moved to support positions along the border between South and North Vietnam…and now I will share my thoughts on this strategy…”

It wouldn’t have taken very many of those kinds of episodes before most Americans would have raised their eyebrows and shaken their heads at such an audacious display and found somewhere else to get their news.

But Walter Cronkite knew his job wasn’t to be the news – his job was to report the news.

And, he was smart enough to put someone like Eric Sevareid on at the end of every program to offer opinion segments about things – done with the clear distinction that those opinions offered were separate from actual news.

So now here we are, where Americans have to swallow the fact that the ‘news’ networks think so much of the sound of their own voices that they now feature them as being as newsworthy as the news itself.

Ever heard of ‘confirmation bias’? This seems to define it.

Same thing for celebrities. It’s nothing to see George Clooney, James Woods, or any number of Hollywood types ‘featured’ for their views on different topics – normally based on whether or not their political views align with those of whatever network is featuring them.

I always go back to what Johnny Carson said when Mike Wallace tried to corner him about not taking on more newsy, serious topics as part of his Tonight Show persona.

“Do you get sensitive about the fact that people say he’ll never (joke about) a serious controversy?” Wallace asked. “Well, I have an answer to that,” Carson replied tersely. “Tell me the last time that Jack Benny, Red Skelton, or any great comedian used his show to do serious issues. That’s not what I’m there for. Can’t they see that?”

“But you’re not…,” Wallace began before Carson cut him off.

“Why do they think just because you have a Tonight Show that you must deal in serious issues?” he asked. “It’s a danger. It’s a real danger once you start that. You start to get that self-important feeling that what you say has great importance. And you know, strangely enough, you could use that show as a forum. You could sway people, and I just don’t think you should as an entertainer.”

Don’t get me wrong: celebrities are of course entitled to an opinion just like anyone else. While there are clearly celebrities much more rooted in reality than others (Denzel Washington needs to run for office – just saying), the hard fact of the matter is that most of them are basically clueless about life lived outside the spotlights and glitz and glamour.

As a result, it would seem most of us would take anything ‘newsy’ originating from those celebrities with a very large grain of salt, even if those networks are pretty much banking on us not doing so because of the star-driven gravitas attached to the voices behind it and too many of us being powerless to keep from listening to them because of it.

I am reminded of the remarks from Ricky Gervais, speaking to the room full of celebrities at the 2020 Golden Globe Awards:

“So if you do win an award tonight, don’t use it as a platform to make a political speech. You’re in no position to lecture the public about anything. You know nothing about the real world. Most of you spent less time in school than Greta Thunberg.”

And that’s the way it is – or at least, the way it should be.