Your Wednesday Enlightenment 10.10.07
Posted by Matthew D.S. on 10.10.2007
Enlightenment ends here, so now you have to pick up the ball: and run with it.
Today I give you a different column: returning somewhat to my original "Dirty Politics" format, this is going to be more of an op-ed piece more than a news piece.
Why pre tell the difference?
This is my final column - for now - for 411.
So I'd like to examine that which I have attempted to bring you most weeks for the past two years.
Two years? Holy crap.
That being said: I am referring to the news.
News - reporting of events ongoing within an area or population - reached widespread strength with the invention of the printer's press, and the strengthening of a middle class who was literate.
Suddenly people went from sheep - told what to believe, what to think - to wolves: able to disseminate different views from those prevalent of the status quo.
The debate of views within society is one of the greatest rights we have been blessed with in Western society.
The news has done much to shape today's world, and groundbreaking TV shows such as Meet the Press and 60 Minutes called those in positions of authority into the spotlight of examination.
Two ambitious newsmen at the Washington Post, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, helped bring down a president with their Watergate exposés.
News, even only a few decades after the fall of Nixon, has evolved to the point of near saturation: a plethora of sources are available to the average consumer, whether via internet, Blackberry, free daily newspaper one gets on a subway, traditional press, television, or blog.
Arguably two of the most important and significant news sources for Americans today aren't even legitimate news sources: The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. These two programs satirize news itself as much as the newsmakers, something I'm sure those in the media can attest to.
While individuals such as Messrs. Stewart and Colbert are bringing the news to the public in their own way, countless persons on the internet are broadcasting their own diatribes with their own political slant. One can disagree vehemently with what they write - as some of you no doubtlessly have disagreed with me in the past - but at least it is individual voices speaking independently.
Independence of the media is something that is becoming endangered. As more and more news sources are bought up and consolidated by larger media firms, such as Time Warner, FOX, and others. Independent voices are being silenced and voices, whether left or right, are becoming louder as news sources wither away.
That is where you come in to play.
You must be aware of the bias of news sources, whomever it is you are receiving your information of, and filter this information. Dissect it; be aware of the agenda of those airing their views. News is always presented in a certain way, for a certain reason, to advance the beliefs of those broadcasting them.
One may say skepticism is cynicism, but I would disagree. There is nothing wrong with caution.
Continue to enlighten yourself.
Why?
It is said that an enlightened populous strengthens a democracy.
My catch line at the end of my Your Wednesday Enlightenment piece may be cliché, but clichés, as I've said in the past, are often truisms: your enlightenment truly is in your hands.
I implore you all to keep reading the news, keep watching the news, and, if so impassioned, keep writing the news. Look at it through as skeptical a lens as you can.
And then perhaps you can get a bit closer to the answer to that eternal question:
STAY CURRENT