UnSpun

The Huffington Post discusses a study that indicates 63% of Americans believe that the news media is biased and inaccurate (up from 34% in 1985).  The article seems to color this as bad news for journalists, but I think this is distrust is good.  I’m happy to hear that more people are questioning the media and becoming aware of bias.  The only thing I don;t like is the association between bias and inaccuracy.  To me, bias doesn’t inherently mean untruth.  It means a specific way of representing truth.  I think that objectivity is near impossible in the media, as we humans can never entirely divorce ourselves from our feelings and beliefs.  An open bias is often better than proclaimed objectivity.  I always prefer to get news from several different outlets in order to hear different takes on an event or issue.  I think that we as Americans should accept bias, do away with impossisble objectivity, and start to sample from the ever-increasing pool of information that’s available to us.  There’s always a balance of trust and distrust when it comes to the media, but we can have more agency if we explore it actively and come to our own conclusions.