Television's paradox: news is only "true" when reporting the Three Kings
Spanish news bulletins cover the Three Kings' arrival with the same format as any other story. The paradox: the only segment that admits being fiction is the one…
English · Original discussion in Spanish · Published
TV is only "true" when it reports the arrival of the Three Kings
Every January, the news opens with Their Majesties' arrival at the airport, the live parade and the tracking of Santa's sleigh. Correspondents, banners, theme music. The same formal treatment as a cabinet meeting. The paradox raised is one of uncomfortable logic: the only news segment that openly admits it is an invention is the one broadcast with all the trappings of rigour. The rest of the year, the same format serves stories that allow no knowing smile from adults.
The thesis is not that television lies to children. It is that the Christmas pantomime works as a warning for adults: if a broadcaster can air twenty minutes of fiction with a poker face and call it news, the question of which other segments rest on the same technique stops being eccentric.
The parade as a news format identical to the evening bulletin
The formal parallelism is the central argument. The parade broadcast uses the same resources as any special coverage: studio anchor, special correspondent, graphics, live links and a tone of solemnity that never breaks. In the United States the phenomenon reaches another scale: NORAD, the North American aerospace defence command, has for decades tracked Santa Claus's flight every December, with the same institutional seriousness it would apply to any other operation.
That is the detail being underlined: the same institution that manages North American airspace alert puts on the hat and narrates a flight that does not exist. The adult smiles and files it away as a heartwarming tradition. The alternative reading is less kind: it has become normal for an official body to broadcast fiction as information without anyone raising an eyebrow.
The December 28th precedent and the vaccine against distrust
There is one date that concentrates the exception: December 28th. On that day everyone questions every news story in case it is a prank. The rest of the year, the mechanism switches off. The comparison is inevitable and comes up in the conversation: one single day of annual scepticism versus 364 days of credit by default.
It is also argued that the Christmas ritual performs a function of involuntary training. Millions of adults coordinate a common fiction every year that children eventually discover. When the child uncovers the mechanism, they learn two things at once: that the people they trusted most lied to them, and that collective lies can be sustained with everyone's complicity. The hypothesis put forward is that this learning acts as a vaccine: a first dose of scepticism which, properly administered, leaves the subject immune to suspecting other stories. Or, read the other way round, that it teaches them to accept that there are benign lies and lies that are never questioned.
From the sleigh to Ebola: the same emotional packaging
The conversation drifts towards other news segments that, it is argued, share the technique: building a narrative with striking images, correspondents and urgency. The Ebola case is cited as an example of transferring patients to the first world with coverage that prioritises spectacle over health sense. The comparison made is explicit: the parade dazzles children, the other parade frightens adults. Both, mere simulacra with television production.
The thread does not stop there. Over the years other fronts appear: the treatment of parades when they change the traditional script, the broadcast of institutional events with the same packaging as a real event, and the suspicion that crime shows also manufacture expectations that are never met. The conclusion repeated is that the mixture of truth and lies is the technique, not the accident: truth serves as the cheese that helps the poison go down.
What scepticism says about scepticism itself
The strongest objection raised is that of scale. That a broadcaster airs a Christmas fiction identifiable by all does not prove that the rest of its schedule is fiction. The logical leap exists and is worth pointing out. Those who defend the thesis respond with an argument of internal coherence: if the same format serves the verifiable and the invented with no visual distinction whatsoever, the burden of proof shifts to whoever claims the rest is verified.
The point where the analysis gets stuck is exactly that one. There is no way to tell, from the packaging, a news segment built on facts from one built on consensus. Television offers no signage. And the viewer, educated since childhood that some lies are accepted with a smile, does not demand it either.
Every January, the news opens with Their Majesties' arrival at the airport, the live parade and the tracking of Santa's sleigh. Correspondents, banners, theme music. The same formal treatment as a cabinet meeting. The paradox raised is one of uncomfortable logic: the only news segment that openly admits it is an invention is the one broadcast with all the trappings of rigour. The rest of the year, the same format serves stories that allow no knowing smile from adults.
The thesis is not that television lies to children. It is that the Christmas pantomime works as a warning for adults: if a broadcaster can air twenty minutes of fiction with a poker face and call it news, the question of which other segments rest on the same technique stops being eccentric.
The parade as a news format identical to the evening bulletin
The formal parallelism is the central argument. The parade broadcast uses the same resources as any special coverage: studio anchor, special correspondent, graphics, live links and a tone of solemnity that never breaks. In the United States the phenomenon reaches another scale: NORAD, the North American aerospace defence command, has for decades tracked Santa Claus's flight every December, with the same institutional seriousness it would apply to any other operation.
That is the detail being underlined: the same institution that manages North American airspace alert puts on the hat and narrates a flight that does not exist. The adult smiles and files it away as a heartwarming tradition. The alternative reading is less kind: it has become normal for an official body to broadcast fiction as information without anyone raising an eyebrow.
The December 28th precedent and the vaccine against distrust
There is one date that concentrates the exception: December 28th. On that day everyone questions every news story in case it is a prank. The rest of the year, the mechanism switches off. The comparison is inevitable and comes up in the conversation: one single day of annual scepticism versus 364 days of credit by default.
It is also argued that the Christmas ritual performs a function of involuntary training. Millions of adults coordinate a common fiction every year that children eventually discover. When the child uncovers the mechanism, they learn two things at once: that the people they trusted most lied to them, and that collective lies can be sustained with everyone's complicity. The hypothesis put forward is that this learning acts as a vaccine: a first dose of scepticism which, properly administered, leaves the subject immune to suspecting other stories. Or, read the other way round, that it teaches them to accept that there are benign lies and lies that are never questioned.
From the sleigh to Ebola: the same emotional packaging
The conversation drifts towards other news segments that, it is argued, share the technique: building a narrative with striking images, correspondents and urgency. The Ebola case is cited as an example of transferring patients to the first world with coverage that prioritises spectacle over health sense. The comparison made is explicit: the parade dazzles children, the other parade frightens adults. Both, mere simulacra with television production.
The thread does not stop there. Over the years other fronts appear: the treatment of parades when they change the traditional script, the broadcast of institutional events with the same packaging as a real event, and the suspicion that crime shows also manufacture expectations that are never met. The conclusion repeated is that the mixture of truth and lies is the technique, not the accident: truth serves as the cheese that helps the poison go down.
What scepticism says about scepticism itself
The strongest objection raised is that of scale. That a broadcaster airs a Christmas fiction identifiable by all does not prove that the rest of its schedule is fiction. The logical leap exists and is worth pointing out. Those who defend the thesis respond with an argument of internal coherence: if the same format serves the verifiable and the invented with no visual distinction whatsoever, the burden of proof shifts to whoever claims the rest is verified.
The point where the analysis gets stuck is exactly that one. There is no way to tell, from the packaging, a news segment built on facts from one built on consensus. Television offers no signage. And the viewer, educated since childhood that some lies are accepted with a smile, does not demand it either.
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Summary of a discussion on Burbuja.info - Foro de economía, actualidad y política., translated from Spanish and reviewed before publication. Read the full discussion (88 replies).
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