Does the Media Shape Your Views?—FiresideChat Ep. 327 | Fireside Chat

hello everyone Dennis Prager here with fireside chat number 327 327 I got a call from a very dear friend who lives in New York City and I was a bit surprised because it was it was pretty late here which meant that it was 3 hours later I I live in California and it was 3 hours later in New York so he was calling at about 1:00 a.m. his time I'm always up at 1:00 a.m. my time but I'm I love the night and he goes to bed at normal times so I go is everything okay he goes yeah that's why I'm calling I what are you talking about is everything okay with you Dennis so I was thinking is everything okay with me and I was thinking what did he possibly he my life is quite blessed he goes I'm I'm watching uh the the news and I see the these horrible storms in California H how is how are those rains affecting you so I thought for a moment and I said it's raining that's it that's all it's doing it's raining he goes oh I'm watching these things and I'm seeing these horrible storms and I'm seeing cars in water and so let me just reflect on that for a moment because this is a very longstanding theme in my life how people are affected by media in in in bad ways I tell the story I wrote a book I'm I'm jumping here forgive me I wrote a book in in in in the 1990s called think a second time it's it contains 44 essays that I wrote on 44 subjects it's a really good introduction to my thinking about life because it's about all different subjects religion happiness politics every everything so one of them I is about the impact of media and this is really a while ago this is so we're talking now 25 years ago so I tell the story it it it made such an impact on me I was in New York City uh and I I was I broadcast from my New York station and then I headed on on that day to a speech I was to give that evening in Cherry Hill New Jersey which is right over the border from Philadelphia so I went to I woke up excuse me not went to bed I don't remember if I even was aware of this I woke up in the morning I saw that it was you know light snow a couple of inches of snow on the ground I grew up in New York I'm totally used to snow and a couple of inches means nothing I turn on the radio and station after station is warning people don't drive unless it's an emergency and they will will be a disaster on the roads if you must drive go hours early and I remember entering that famous State of Mind called cognitive dissonance on the one hand there was the radio and on the other hand I looked out my window cars were driving everything seemed normal except there was it was snowing wasn't blizzard snowing just snowing but I anyway I was influenced by the radio report and I left early and I thought my trip to Cherry Hill basically Philadelphia from manhatton would take me at least four hours anyway I got on the New Jersey Turnpike and there were no cars and the the road was basically clear I got to Cherry Hill in record time because I I had gone to Philadelphia from New York many times and I remember I I I thought wow everybody got so influenced by the reports they they avoided driving and I I had the New Jersey Turnpike to myself so I went to a bookstore some of you may have never seen a bookstore but at that time they were still many bookstores so I went to a bookstore in Cherry Hill it was empty I was the only customer and I said to the woman who read the bookstore I said how come it's is this normal for there be be no customers and she said no no no not at all uh but people watch the news or listen to the news and they and then I'll never forget she opened my eyes so let me take a moment to tell you as I do each week that because we don't trust big Tech not to bump us off at some point unfortunately we have reason to fear that we want to have everybody watch the fireside chat straight away from at prageru to start watching it just at prageru but if you're watching it now on any social medium like YouTube we'll ask you to go immediately over to prer to see the rest of the fireside chat prageru.com and best get the prageru app it's the easiest way to watch all of our content