How do you get yours? (News that is)

I have stopped reading the newspaper and I miss it. I have been unsuccessful in my efforts to get into a newspaper habit in the US, I am not sure why that is, I think the New York Times is a very worthy newspaper.

So instead I read the Guardian and the BBC News on line, which quite frankly is not the same thing, although it is a very good second. I no longer watch a daily news program/show, I will occasionally watch BBC America (which is not the same as watching the BBC at home), Anderson Cooper on CNN or Rachel Maddow on MSNBC but I find the commercial breaks, the repetitive nature and actual lack of any news content annoying. The big saving grace to date has been National Public Radio (NPR) (which I know, I have already said, I absolutely love, elsewhere on this blog)

It is this lack of actual News content that I have been thinking about recently. I increasingly find myself watching, listening and reading opinion pieces, and this worries me. Instead of the getting the "factual" story I am getting someone else's opinion. I have to admit, although in my defence I do think it is human nature, I find myself seeking out opinion pieces which support my previously held opinion, thereby simply re-enforcing my opinion without challenging me or making me consider the other side(s). This is not good News. So I sometimes go out of my way to read opinion pieces or expose myself to viewpoints I do not share, this more often than not does not challenge me nor does it encourage me to re-consider my already formed opinion instead it just frustrates me at how "stupid" some people are and how they clearly do not have the "facts" to make a correct judgement, which is invariably my opinion.

I do agree that any News story/report, even those which attempt to be investigative and impartial will have a bias, it's inevitable, it's human nature, but at least with investigative or "traditional" reporting/journalism an attempt is made to gather and report the "facts" in an impartial fashion with at least some effort being made to portray all sides of the story. As opposed to opinions which often repeat stories without any effort to gather the facts and find evidence in support. Often any attempt to do so is perfunctory and superficial, the time and expense to carry out a thorough investigation, would mean that the story will have moved on, it is no longer considered relevant and the audience will have been lost. In addition to which an in-depth report will not fit into 140 characters or less. This insults our intelligence, we need to demand more.

Do not get me wrong there are some great pluses in the "twitter" revolutions, Internet campaigns, blogs (obviously) etc but the demise of the "paper" and the investigative or "traditional" reporting/journalism is a sad reflection of modern society and damages democracy. Fundamentally; how are we to vote, if we don't have the facts?

But how are people to get the "facts" if the options seem to be limited to the never ending parade of talking heads, "entertainers" posing as "journalists", and the revolving door of the never ending blogs and opinion pieces all fighting each other for space by becoming increasingly extreme and hyperbolic in their efforts to demand our rapidly diminishing attention spans.

W. recently heard Alex Jones author of, " Losing The News', And why it matters" being interviewed on NPR, I have to agree with a lot of what he talks about, as he says "opinion is cheap". And so ends another "opinion" piece.

Jigna