Believe The Media?

Can a person believe the News? Some of it certainly. Some news is just news such as a fire perhaps or an emergency situtation. However, there are times when news is about political events or business events, and in those cases, a person should be more careful. I mostly read the news to find out what the subjects are. As for believing the details, I then try to get both sides of the story, and that often can mean much more work looking for articles that either give each side of a story, or at least the side of the story that I do not have. And we have to be careful.

"If you don’t read the newspaper you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed." - Mark Twain

There are several ways that news can become biased. But we should at least look at the most obvious way. News articles are mostly made up of news releases. Who does the news releases? Sometimes news releases are done by political parties or by companies, who often want to make themselves look good to the public, and also make their competitors look bad. And who are these people? They are the rich and powerful. Perhaps at some time in our lives we have had others talk about "Well that is what THEY want you to believe." Well, the truth is not so much different. Much of what we call news can be news releases by the rich and powerful. There may be at least one more side to each of their stories.

How can we tell if there is likely bias in news? Mulitple ways. The source itself might give it away, if it is a group or person who is very much involved with that news story. Or the news story might deal in extremes claiming that this group or person is always right and this other group or person is always wrong. Extremes often should make us be concerned about whether this is the truth or not. And if something seems "Too good to be true" for one person's perspective, likely it might not be true. It is often good to get a second opinion, and to get a second opinion from a source that might not have the same loyalties as the first.

Loyalty? Can be a good thing of course. But blind loyalty to a political party begins by becoming blind. Blind loyalty to a company begins by becoming blind.

Was News Ever Accurate

I believe that long ago, in the days of Walter Kronkite and people like him, that news was far better. You see? It should be easy to give unbiased news. All you have to do is to say what happened and leave off the adjectives, adverbs and comments that "bias" the situation one way or another. That would seem easy. But it seems quite hard to find some days. Some of us believe Walter Kronkite did that years ago. He did not take sides, or try to get his customers to take sides. A bit off the subject but comedian Johnny Carson was also highly regarded. As some have said, no one knew what political party Johnny was in, nor did they care. He just stuck with humor. And he was funny.

Ronald J. Plachno