Who and what can you trust? Trust is a trait valued in society. However, more often than not, “believers” are often taken advantage of and persecuted. This week I really got to thinking about the validity of the sources I feed from on a daily basis. Are these sources legitimate? Are they true? I often trust the information I obtain from a text, news program, webpage or teacher to be genuine. After undergoing intensive research this week I have come to the conclusion that you must see everything with a critical eye. To automatically believe a source, is to show ignorance.
Many sources may provide accurate information, but more often than not that information is skewed. Everyone has their own opinion, and many journalists seem to find it to be their “duty” to relay and convince others of their opinion.
Politics is dominant in the daily media. However, politics is an extremely wide and controversial topic. It is a rare discovery to come across an article or report void of bias. FOX only presents news geared toward the Republican Party, often insulting the Democratic Party. If one was only exposed or only looked to one place for information, they would collect partial data. I do not think that biased information is truth. Therefore, as I found this week along with looking at sources critically it is important to corroborate information from a number of sources.
I recently came across the website http://tvnewslies.org/tvnl/, it claims to have the real story, void of bias. It explains it’s content to be unique to FOX, MSN or MSNBC saying,” While the TV news industry tries to convince you that you need to know more about personal tragedies than about Dick Cheney’s secrets, PNAC, or about the lies of an American President, we bring you the information that is vital to preserving democracy and freedom. An informed American is a responsible American.” I agree with their last line. However, it seems impossible to be an informed American as well as an American who is free to develop one’s own opinions and viewpoints without external influence. I don’t believe that any news report is entirely neutral. Relevant information is always being withheld from the general public. Therefore, I choose to follow and trust reports that I agree with, and am often ignorant and unaware of other viewpoints and information from opposing parties.
Carolyn- I totally agree with you about what you're saying. I also think the internet has played a huge role in not being able to trust sources. Before the internet, most of the information everyone got was either from books, radio shows, newspapers, or television programs. These sources are all a lot more reliable than the internet because they have been checked and edited by numerous people since they are being published by actual businesses specializing in their fields. Now, any person in the world can get on the internet and write whatever they want, whether it is true or not. Because of this, I think everyone has to become way more cautious about sources than they used to be.
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