Are Americans getting dumber? Anecdotally I would say yes. Case in point. Just about everyone has a phone with the internet. This is on us all day every day. But instead of doing a basic google search on a news article, we blindly repost it. Dont believe me? Today I have seen several posts stating that U2 hacked phones by installing their album. Oh and big brother was to blame. 2 seconds on google would inform them that apple gave the album out. They did this by simply allowing all the iCloud accounts access (no different than the song being purchased). Many people have all their music on their phones so the album was automatically downloaded. No chicken little, the sky isnt falling. Still want more proof? How about the Facebook messenger debacle? Once again, a quick google search would have turned up dozen of reputable articles stating that the one popular article was sensational at best. You have the world in your pocket, use it. Find out the facts. Because when you blindly post these types of articles, I judge you. The same goes for news articles. 95% of the time news articles posted are incredibly biased. The other 5% are usually sports related or initial reports on events before the spin happens. Look, I get it. You want to read/watch/listen to news that fits your outlook on the world. You dont want to hear about restrictions on guns and why they are good, you want to hear how these restrictions mean the government is coming after your guns. Guess what? The news knows this. They cater to it. Advertisers pick their news outlets based on the demographics. When was the last time you saw an NRA ad on cnn? A pro gay marriage ad on fox? The internet has made this even worse, with many articles being liked, stories being linked and news pages being shared. I cant count the number of articles I see every day that are blatantly biased but shared regularly. If your news source doesnt tell both sides of the story, or reads like x political party bad, y political party good, maybe you should rethink where you get your news. Try this simple experiment. Read an article and think about what it says. Is it exactly what you think? Did this article make one political party appear heroes and the other villains? Was there any evenness to the reporting or was it all sunshine and kittens for one side and mordor for the other? If any of that is true, it was most likely biased. That means there is a whole nother side to the story. Also, try this quick way. If the name of the news source contains the actual political party name, or an offshoot nickname, or words like progressive, patriot, tea party, a direction, right wing, left wing, etc. if it contains those chances are they are a biased source. So, what should you do if you read an article and it meets these criteria? Well first off, go with your gut and do a google search. Its simple, just type in a key subject from the article and look at the first few links. Chances are one of them will say something opposite of whatcha article you just read said. Now read that article. See anything similar or the same in it? Thats called truth. Those are the facts. The rest is bias, conjecture, pandering, take your pick. And as an added bonus, I will help you determine if an article is biased before even clicking to read it. If someone shared it on Facebook and made a comment about it, and words like obummer, libtards, repubtards, etc are used, chances are its biased. So please, spend the extra minute and do a tiny bit of research. Elections are coming up soon, and you need to be an informed voter.
Posted on: Sat, 13 Sep 2014 00:55:30 +0000
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