Saturday, July 2, 2011

Get your news from more than one source

One of the neatest things about the American Constitution is it protects our natural born right to free speech. This is great because every opinion, every fact, and every new idea can be communicated.  This allows us an opportunity that many of our ancestors did not have.

In the past most people received all their news from one or only a few sources.  Most of the time it was from the government.  Even as recent as the 1980s we had only three sources:  CBS, ABC and NBC.  And all of these were based in New York, and based their news on the New York Times and Time magazine.

Today we have so many news options threr's no way any idea can be shunned.  Yet we still have some who want to go back to the old days where voices not agreed with are shut up. 

Personally, I think it's a great thing to have every voice heard.  I also think it's good to listen to voices you don't agree with.  You might even learn something.  This is why I don't understand how some people can email me and tell me I shouldn't watch Fox News or listen to Rush Limbaugh or read the Wall Street Journal.

I think it should be just the opposite.  I think you shouldn't get all your news from one outlet, yet you should get it from a variety.  Personally I sometimes check out every one of the above mentioned media outlets.  I get my news from liberal, conservative, neutral (if this exists), libertarian and all sorts of sources.  It's harder this way, yet it keeps me honest.

I often hear conservatives saying that the old media sucks, and then you have liberals go as far as to try to make laws banning conservative media outlets.  I think all these people ought to can it.  I think all opinions ought to be on the air.  I think everyone should have an outlet.

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