Gone are the days where we could trust our newscasters to provide us with a version of the news biased towards the middle of the road. We as a nation may not have been objective, but we trusted our newscasters to be so - even when the news didn't agree with our political views. Today, we have "Narrow-casted" news, where cable channels broadcast to narrow market segments, feeding them the pablum they want to hear, and interpreted through the lenses of people who agree with them - never challenging the viewer to look at the world through a different perspective.
Recently, Brian Williams has been in the news for not being truthful in his news reports. Supposedly, he will be out for 6 months - until things cool down - but I'm not sure if he'll be back for long. I don't think people like him are the real problem in news. Instead, the problem is the firms that encourage excessive bias in the news.
Years ago, I learned a simple fact. If a country had to use "Democratic" in its official name, the odds were that the country had an authoritarian regime. A good example of this is the DPRK - Democratic People's Republic of Korea. I don't believe that anyone outside North Korea believes that the Kim family really cares for its subjects. But I digress. The same idea also applies for news outlets. If an outlet claims to be "Fair and Balanced", the odds are that it is Unfair and Biased. I am very wary of claims from both the left and the right - both tribes are led by opportunist conspirators, and will cloak themselves in the garb of caring for the little fellow.
Why is it that MSNBC ignores Al Sharpton's past? Even though he might be a reformed man now, he still strikes me as an opportunist who works on a more subtle level than when he was younger. And why has Fox News ignored the lies coming from its own editorial staff? If one of its big shows claims to be a "No Spin Zone", why did a high school have to take his show to task for violating journalistic ethics? It seems like both sets of talking heads get their marching orders, and ignore the indiscretions of their own teams in order to sell their agendas to the unthinking public.
One of my friends believes in every conspiracy theory that comes her way. Most have been proven false. However some might be true - but not in the way she understands the world. The way I look at it, 99.44% of us are effectively pawns in the games of the rich and powerful. There are many power blocs among the elite, and they conspire against each other for greater power. Some of them believe in over population (which results in lower wages and fear of job loss), as this is an easy way for this elite to maintain positions of power. Other groups within the elite believe that greater wealth and power can be gained by fulfilling the wishes and needs of the other 99.44%. And still others benefit from dividing the 99.44% against each other. It is plausible that blocs within the elites conspire against each other, and we are affected, being mere pawns in the game.
I attempt to see reality by skipping over the BS being spewed by the two major factions in our society, and by reading media from sources (often overseas) who have less skin in the games being played in America. I compare their reporting against what is being said in America to develop a better idea of what the truth might be, and test that idea against the objective facts as I know them. And so far, luckily, I have been on target more than I would have been otherwise. Is the media biased? Yes. Are the spinmeisters hypocritical? Of course. But that doesn't make it impossible to see the truth - if one is willing to let one's own prejudices drop by the wayside....
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