By ROBERT JUMPER
Tutiyi (Snowbird) and Clyde, N.C.
I have had an interesting conversation with a reader (not a One Feather reader and not to say that I couldn’t have interesting conversations with One Feather readers). I had submitted a column to another newspaper because I wanted to express my opinion, and a counterpoint to, another commentary. This drew an immediate reaction from the author and started a discussion on the meaning of certain words.
One of the words that came into controversy is the word “gossip”. The writer assumed that the definition of gossip meant that you had to tell a lie about someone or something in conversation. Not so. I pulled this definition from the Oxford Languages Dictionary (because I love spending my spare moments reading the dictionary), “casual or unconstrained or reports about other people, typically involving details that are not confirmed as being true.” That definition does not say that gossip must be a lie, only that it often, not always, contains unverified statements.
My mom used to say that gossip was when people got together and talked about someone or something, sharing more than what you need to know. Gossip is also about intent. Gossip is hardly ever uplifting and is usually intended to share some tawdry tidbit that might be embarrassing or harmful to another, whether the tidbit is true or not. Each session of gossip will include at least a grain of truth but will be told regardless of its veracity.
We love our gossip. Whether in the workplace at a water cooler or at a social event in the community, gossip finds its place among us. “Poor old Granny Fanny. We need to pray for her. She has really gone downhill. You know, I have seen her wearing the same old tow-sack dress for a couple of months now. And did you catch that smell? I don’t think she ever washes. The last time I was at her place, I saw her eating out of a cat food can. Poor thing, she must have run out of government cheese. And…” Do you think that this person sharing information about Fanny, which may have been all accurate and true, was doing so for the good of Fanny or those they are speaking to? Nope. Most gossip is totally self-serving. Once this person went beyond “We need to pray for her,” they began to share information that made them look in the know and they had access to sensational information about Fanny, which made them look special, all at Fanny’s expense.
In an editorial in Frontiers In Psychology, the authors state, “You do it. We do it. Everyone does it: Talk about others in their absence. Estimates suggest that in two-thirds of their conversations, people are talking about others who are not present. But people do not talk openly about the fact that they like to gossip. Rather, they claim that they do it less frequently than others and they do not like those who are known for it. So, gossip is similar to the elephant in the room. Everyone knows it is there, but no one talks about it.” (Why People Gossip and What It Brings About: Motives for and Consequences of, Informal Evaluative Information Exchange, Myriam N Bechtoldt, Bianca Beersma, and Maria T.M. Dijkstra, January 2020) Some research claims that gossip can be a good thing. It encourages social interaction and stimulates discussion. Maybe so, but I am sure that poor old Granny Fanny would not share in the joy or appreciate being the topic of the gossip mill even for a day. Just because there is no malicious intent in the delivery of gossip, that doesn’t mean there are no harmful consequences.
In the workplace, gossip will extend to a person’s performance. It is common to hear coworkers pile on every conceivable failure or error to a recently departed peer. Ex-employees are a dumping ground for the failure of management and poor operational model choices. Former coworkers will take the heat for projects that they may not have even had a hand in because there is no backbone in leadership to correct the gossip that flows from a departure. Many times, when an employee leaves because they see the disarray in an organization, they will be tagged as the cause of disorganization as they head out the door. When it comes to productivity, or lack thereof, you better be there to defend yourself or be ready for the gossip meal to take your reputation over.
How many of us would like to take 15 minutes of our lives and have that be the representative autobiography of who we are? We are a society where gossip is rampant and rumor and inuendo are represented as fact. It has become so normalized that we no longer question the information we receive, especially if the information we are getting conforms to our already conceived notions about a person or a topic. Unfortunately, much of the blame for this societal change falls squarely at the feet of the media. And just as unfortunate is that news outlets that try to stay true to an ethical standard are often drowned out and eliminated by the cacophony of special interest media that have formed in our modern age. In the beginning, there was a concerted effort to report facts in media and to maintain a separation of news departments from entertainment departments within media organizations. But the lure of easy money (shout out to the late, great Glenn Frey) quickly eroded the wall of separation between news and entertainment. Media owners have realized that news departments may be monetized; that news attracts viewers and readers (if the news is sensational and “bloody” enough). True journalism many times now takes a back seat to commentator opinion. Editors and producers are allowing news “personalities” to become “subject experts” and have begun creating the news instead of reporting the news.
We live in a “sound bite” world when it comes to information. We have been conditioned to have some of the shortest attention spans in history. The One Feather has documented responses from readers who decidedly had not read beyond the headline of a story before posting comments on what they perceived the story to have said. The marketing departments of news organizations have picked up on this idea of appealing to the short attention span, headline-only readers, and viewers. Thus, the media presents a short, sensational news presentation and we are to assess complex individuals and situations based on a snippet of a life. 15 minutes of a person’s life or a description of an event is likely less than a half-truth and may be no truth at all.
So, in the end, it is as much our fault as it is the media’s that this is a trend. The media couldn’t make money on it if we didn’t show them that we want it. And, man, do we want it! Just looking at the newspaper industry alone, the total advertising revenue for the industry in 2022 was $9.8 billion (Pew Research). While printed newspapers are in a steady readership decline, newspapers are morphing into electronic media nicely and advertising clients are slowly transitioning into promoting that media.
In a society where gossip is king, we must be ever more diligent in evaluating what we see and hear, which will be counterintuitive for most of us. If it tickles our ears, we will absorb it into our critical thinking process, even if it doesn’t have a grain of truth in it. It only has to fit our narrative. The bad side to that is we will make bad decisions with minimal input. The worst side of that is we will help spread the gossip to others who also will not check the facts or try to see the bigger picture beyond the 15 minutes that our friends and media provide.
Please heed the sage words of those two great philosophers Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson, “Mommas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Gossipers.” I paraphrase. But you get the idea.
Disclaimer: “Granny Fanny” is a fictitious character created to illustrate a point. Any resemblance to someone you know is purely coincidental.
