Not too long ago, there were daily newspaper's in every major city, with Opinion Pages, as well as independent reporters bringing investigative work into the regular sections. Art Buchwald and Jack Anderson were the last of this dying breed. Like almost every American Institution, the media has become highly influenced by wall street and powerful corporate institutions. Foxes providing color commentary on the fox guarding the hen house.
For those reading from the future, right now, we continue to see two major wars, Russia and Israel being the invader's, and conflicts exist throughout the world. The ICC just issued war crimes charges against 3 from Hamas, and 2 from Israel. Third party presidential candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. revealed he had once had a brain worm that ate some of his brain. He offer's to eat 5 more and still beat Donald Trump and Joe Biden in a debate. Protests continue in America, primarily on college campuses.
We struggle as a society to have confidence in our news and media. Many get their primary sources of information from live streams and social media. Few on line sources have the editorial review to vet information being shared, and many scam stories have been floating for the public. We also don't trust congress, the supreme court or the presidency. Partisan assaults have questioned the US Attorney General, the department of justice, the FBI, the CDC, FDA, and Immigration. Our country is experiencing greater polarization than any time since the civil war. For now, only time will tell.
Where should we go for our information? My approach to this has a great emphasis on print, primarily books and scientific articles, some chosen journals and magazines. Next, I scatter and focus. I try to sample as many sources as I can, and then, I choose a few sources that I have the most confidence in. Recently major newspaper's have had some Op Ed's and commentary that proved wrong, biased and on the edge of propaganda. Op Ed. The contemporary Opinion's sections of the past. Only problem is, that instead of 4-6 pages, investigative reporters, opinion's, syndicated articles and now, about the equivalent of 1-2 pages with much being the wordiness of some of the contributor's.
I think the moral of the story above is that most of our perceived differences and division's and differences are not intentional, but are source related. At times such as these, it is challenging, to say the least, to change another's opinion's. A strong wind creates damage, no wind; weakness, only a gentle wind creates strength. Often, it is best to know what you have no influence over, and two, to avoid unnecessary attempts to change the inflexible.
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