Narrowing narratives

It's amazing to watch a big news story unfold over time. 

First there is a lot of random reporting. The news is all over the place, like pieces of a game- each one something in itself - a thought, a new fact, a comment or idea - but not necessarily tied to a greater whole.

That's an interesting time because the recipients of the news - if they really care - are actively engaged. They are trying out combinations of pieces, figuring out how seemingly unrelated bits fit together. They are making decisions- to weigh one piece of news more than another. They are truly bothered when they read something that doesn't work with what they have managed to bring together, but they can't quite rule it out.

And then suddenly the disparate pieces all start to merge together into a few big narratives. It's like someone discovered the game that's being played and now the scattered pieces take their rightful places. 

Each new story now serves a greater whole. 

How does that happen? In that initial period, a few interpretations are floated and some are stickier, seem to describe and explain the situation better. There is a certain satisfaction when these strong stories are found. They gain traction- they are repeated, restated.  There is a shift then- one gets the sense that  subsequent pieces of news are actually in the service of the larger narratives rather than the other way around.

I don't know if others are like me, but after a while of hearing these narratives, I often start finding them less rather than more convincing. It feels to me as if news is being squeezed to prove the story and the contrarian side of me starts wanting to poke holes in them and to point out contradictions.

Interestingly, it's harder to genuinely feel in this climate. This is the moment when a lot of people who don't really need to be invested tune out and when others seek like-minded confirmations. It becomes ideological- a question of belief rather than an open exploration of complex facts.

Of course there are still some people who embrace more than one narrative and make the point that it is a struggle to keep two narratives in mind simultaneously. But these voices  grow dimmer.

What am I grateful for? The insight into how this dynamic works, even as I have a horse in these races and care deeply about their outcome. But it feels too easy to have figured it all out, not reflective of a complex and changing reality.