Who’s At Fault For Making Our Problems Harder to Solve? The Media or Ourselves?

Could it be true that the Country’s and our problems are made harder to solve when cable television and other news and media sources such as the internet and the radio constantly debate them with the facts and the faux. Comedians, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, hosted a Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear. The Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear had its comedic parts and its serious parts such as Jon Stewart’s speech towards the end nailing the media shamelessly as some reporters watched on. He said, “If we amplify everything, we hear nothing… The country’s 24 hour political pundit perpetual panic conflictinator did not cause our problems but its existence makes solving them that much harder. The press can hold its magnifying up to our problems bringing them into focus, illuminating issues heretofore unseen…”

Today, according to a survey report from The Pew Research Center for People & the Press people today “consume” more news then before due to all the easy access to different types of media such as digital media these days. However, many news outlets these days tend to lean to one side or the other losing their objectivity. Not all news and media sources are at fault for causing too much noise and sometimes polarizing the nation with opposing conservative or liberal views. This may sometimes be the fault of the people choosing to listen to news supporting their own beliefs. Therefore, people consuming more news may not be a bad thing if they try to choose to listen to both sides of the argument.

Of course, psychology will come in to play trying to prevent us from opening up our minds. The confirmation bias and selective attention will kick in up there in our brains. So, people will mostly only accept the ideas they believe in making their beliefs stronger and confirming their bias. However, it’s always better listening to both sides of the story than just one in the era where reported news does not maintain the objectivity we would like. Maybe we can understand the world a little bit better by finding news outlets covering a variety of perspectives. That shouldn’t be too hard with our ease of obtaining it in the era of technology.