This is just a placeholder for now. I want to talk about how people get their news and what I think we’re missing by limiting our exposure to opposing ideas.

Back later for more…well, I’m back and to elaborate on the title…and try to make sense to both you and me. This post was in response to the news of the week that the news magazine “Newsweek” has been put up for sale with a future that looks like what has happened to other icons of the American news scene; it’s eventual closure. This has made me somewhat nostalgic for the news environment that I grew up in…that included Life, Look, and other magazines where we could get an unbiased, in-depth type of news that exists in few places today. But, I think I’m using nostalgia not as a wistfulness for what was, but more to point out the differences in the news and it’s reporting from my youth and what it is today; a partisan tool that is used for distraction or political gain.

I think I was really fortunate to grow up in my time, where you could trust the media to report the facts but that has handicapped me somewhat for today…I still trust some outlets to report facts and I am well-read and intelligent enough to be able to see those that don’t. As I talk to my youngster friends and others, I see a large problem that has arisen from this polarization of media and government in general…the public been taught over the past 20 years not to trust anyone; and that their analysis of the news etc. no matter how puerile or shallow , has the same value as someone who is an expert in the field. In this environment, opinion has taken on the same weight as fact, and facts seem to be changeable related to how many times you repeat falsehoods.

As more and more of the truth-tellers in the media fail and disappear since the appetite for truth has been replaced by polemic, the opportunity for a person to get to the truth is drowned out by the loudest, most well-funded voices. Geez….