Journalism is Dead. Colbert is Our New Reporter.

There's no such animal as unbiased reporting anymore. And rather than spend time debating whether a report is biased or not, whether a station has a hidden agenda, it's time we realize Walter Cronkite is gone. We're our own reporter. We digest handfuls of news sources and then decide how we feel about it. A fact and figure is no longer just that, it means something as informed by our own perspective and bias. An earthquake is factual news, then it is horrible, then it's filtered through Bill O'Reilly or Bill Maher and suddenly the tragedy means something else as decided by the pundits. 

The implications of events are now the news, not the facts.

I'm a writer; Psych major, former marketing professional and avid consumer of personal improvement kowledge. I am in no way an expert or a journalist reporting facts. I am however, relatively informed in certain areas but I wreak of bias. We all do.  My generally writing posit in most of my articles and essays is that people can live empowered lives by doing x,y,z..... I provide my own view of x,y,z by choosing scientific usually peer-reviewed findings to support natural health, natural mood balancing etc.  I cite experts but just by selecting certain experts, I am exerting a bias.

What we choose to write about or report is bias.

For example, I chose to state that vitamin D is "critically important" for health and disease prevention. I back this statement with cited reports by noted D scientists, but it also my view because a doctor might tell me that D is now "over hyped"  because the most recent revised RDA is still not as high as the D Council recommends. My traditional doc put me on 100,000mg a week for 6 mos when I was low and she backs higher levels, yet her colleague might back the Food and Nutrition Board's new RDA.

We choose to believe what we choose to believe. We choose to act on what we choose to believe.

Pure reporting, journalism as viewed as "just the facts m'am" is dead. It's up up to the media-consuming public to eat up "news" and information from multiple sources, to digest it and to regurgitate our own informed viewpoint. It's when we, the media-consuming public, only listen to one view that we choose self-defeating bias.

This is why education is a key to opening minds, knowledge provides ramps and roads to ponder alternate views and teaches us the how behind critical thinking. Some argue that colleges only teach liberal views, but an educated mind is far more likely to seek multiple sources of information than to stick with just her own, liberal or otherwise.

I for example, had to be schooled by an MD, a doctor friend about the issue of "unintended consequences" in medical research. He explained to me why it takes so blasted long for clinically PROVEN natural health therapies to become mainstream (besides Big Pharma in bed with the FDA and that drugs make companies very, very, very wealthy.... don't get me started).

Let's take thermography for breast screening vs. mammography as an example. I opted for the former this year while my friends who read my article did not.  Thermo is not yet recommended as FIRST line screening for women despite peer-reviewed research indicating its advantages for safety (no radiation), image quality and early detection. Ask 98% of the docs and they'll tell you to go mammo. But, I often go against mainstream medical advice, but ONLY after I do my own careful due diligence.

It is no longer incumbent for news stations to bring us straight news. We can hope, we can wish, but it ain't happening.  Long gone are the days of one station bringing us just the facts. We are living in a blogosphere where reporting is merely a stations view of the world. You as the consumer are the one to decide based on all the sources you've skimmed, what you think is The Truth.

I would be nice if we could get straight news but we know good and well Fox, CNBC, all stations have a built in bias to show us their view, to edit reports in favor of or against a particular agenda, hidden or overt.  So, it is now up to US, the public, to digest our own news and to decide how we feel, what we want to do with the information we just heard. If we choose to listen to only CNBC or Fox, to Rush Limbaugh or to Rachel Maddow, we choose myopic listening; we choose to feed and reinforce only our own view, rather than to expand it.

Every so often tune into opposing views.   Listen to another side, doing so can dilute our polarity and expand dialogue for the advancement of critical thinking and creative solutinos.

And if listening to the other side hurts too much, default to Stephen Colbert for interesting and entertaining blended partisan views.  He might be the only guy out there who amiably brings all sides togethor in a way that dilutes our defensiveness, although Bill Maher is good at bringing opposing parties to the table as well, but he's ascerbic and obviously on the left.    With Colbert we're too busy laughing at his feigned self-adulation and amusing pretense to get incensed by a particular view he spews.  Stephen's satirical stab at progressives and conservatives sneaks an opposing point of view into us because we're so busy laughing we stop getting defensive and think about the message inside the point he just mocked.  

While we're laughing we ease into and consider the absurdity of a point he just satirized and consider the validity.

Thank God for humor and for Stephen Colbert.   They might be the only two mirrors that save us from polarizing ourselves.

Laura