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notfro · 8 years

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Media Bias - Fox News Channel Part 1

Roger Ailes. He is the why.

Ailes started as a TV guy in the 60s. Around Nixon’s ‘68 campaign, he started ingratiating himself in the world of the GOP. He produced some specials for Nixon, advised him on television appearances, and became the go-to guy for making a Republican president. He worked on Reagan’s re-election, H.W.’s first, and notablly NOT in H.W.’s re-election, where he lost. I’m not saying H.W. lost because he didn’t have Ailes, but let’s just say, Ailes kept his perfect record.

Now, it is important to note, Ailes had no aspirations for a job in government. His experience in politics is exclusively in election campaigns. This is not a guy who wanted power in the tangible sense or even glory in having made a difference. This is a king-maker. He is a broadcast news careerist with strong political views and to mince no words, he is straight-up BRILLIANT at what he does. Taking my own bias and morality out of my judgement of him, I believe he built one of the most successful, important, and influential organizations in American politics and American media, if not THE most successful, important, influential . . .

He founded the Fox News Channel in 1996, and by 2002, they passed CNN in the ratings and have never looked back. Fox News had a team of journalists and TV personalities, providing an “alternative” to rest of the media, the MSM. Ailes was a revolutionary General and his network was the army. They filled in a space in American media and created the spectrum. They were and still are today THE conservative counterweight on TV. And people wanted it. They proved that they wanted it. And they made Fox News motherfucking Coca-Cola.

Of course, I keep using that metaphor as if everyone likes it despite the fact that many (if not most of) Americans HATE Fox News. But Fox News is number #1. And just like Trump, they all may hate him, but at the end of the day, they’re winners.

So, what do we do then with all the power of influence, money, and infamy? As I imagine Roger Ailes asking himself as CEO of Fox News. Answer: Let’s make shit happen.

Let’s bring in hosts like Lou Dobbs, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Steve Doocy, Neil Cavuto, Geraldo Rivera, Chris Wallace, Megyn Kelly, Greta Van Sustren, Tucker Carlson, etc. Let’s bring in personalities like John Bolton, Charles Krauthammer, failed GOP presidential candidates, half the W. Bush White House staff, even more obscure but just as loud conservatives, and Donald Trump. Let’s talk about how black people commit voter fraud or voter intimidation, how poor people in America actually have it really good, how immigrants are spilling over our Southern border and taking our jobs, how America is an entitlement society looking for government handouts, how President Bush 43 is doing amazingly and all critics should shut the fuck up because we’re in a war or two and its unAmerican to criticize the president during two wars, how Iraq was a good idea and still is, how Obama is a socialist authoritarian wanting to take away your guns and tax the shit out of you and strip the American military of its power and integrity, how Obama was born in Kenya maybe?, how Obama is the worst president in American history, how Hillary’s corrupt, how Trump’s brilliant, how liberals are cry baby treehuggers who care more about the Communist Manifesto than the U.S. Constitution, how the heartland of America is filled with good decent hardworking Americans, how the cities of America are increasing the crime rate and mooching off the government, how America is a Christian nation, how there’s a war on Christmas, how good Christians are being denied their religious liberties by being denied the right to refuse service for gay people, how Muslims want to kill you, how China wants to beat you, how the Democratic-led government wants to fuck you over, how the MSM is lying to you.

They talk about a lot. But make no mistake, there’s an over-arching theme. There’s a narrative. Fox News does not just report the news. They tell the story of the news. They read between the lines FOR YOU. They think FOR YOU. They curate the news out of real stories and make it into ONE story. FOR YOU.

Because it’s not just news. It’s “the other side of the story.”

For elaboration . . . Jon Stewart and Chris Wallace, ladies and gentlemen!

With a grain of salt,

Bryan

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notfro · 8 years

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Media Bias - Corporate Bias

If you’ve ever seen Sorkin’s “The Newsroom” or the Dan Rather movie “Truth” starring Robert Redford, you’ve heard about the bill Congress passed in the rise of TV, requiring the networks to produce a 1-hour program everyday about the news. The punch line from both of those works goes like this (paraphrasing): “The only thing they forgot to put in the bill was . . . No commercials.”

Now, back in the day, TV news used to be what they call a “loss leader,” something that didn’t make the network money and, in fact, lost the network money, but was important to do therefore important to keep.

CNN was the first cable news network in 1980. It was 24 hours long. It was the only one in the business for a LONG TIME. Make no mistake, this is why they have the reputation they have.

They were able to cover stories well past the requisite hour on other networks. They could provide all-day coverage for stories that kept unfolding, LIVE. The Gulf War. OJ. Etc.

And CNN quickly became what we know today. They didn’t even skip a step of being boring old news for decades. They covered what was popular. Like OJ. Suddenly, news on TV was not just informational. It was infotaining! And they changed that “lost leader” bull shit.

Reality TV.

Maybe that’s not a fair label, but let’s be real . . . the rise of 24-hour news coincided with the rise of reality TV. Maybe not the same thing, but they had the same viewers.

America’s Talking came on the air in 1994, created by NBC. 2 years later, an NBC exec working at the channel decided to leave and start his own network to provide what he felt was a needed and absent perspective on the news. His name was Roger Ailes. His news network was Fox News Channel. In that same year, NBC got together with Microsoft’s MSN to replace the failing America’s Talking. They called it MSNBC

So 4 years before Y2K, we’ve got everybody at the party. Competing.

And let’s be clear. In the same way that CBS, NBC, and ABC compete against each other. CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News compete against each other. They fight for viewers, at specific primetime hours, looking for the best advertisers, providing the “best” programing for advertisers. But of course, the most important part is getting eyeballs.

Ratings matter. For the people running the networks . . . let’s just say it matters A LOT. Now, of course, that doesn’t mean they just throw out their journalistic purpose or that they start covering Kim Kardashian’s haircut instead of the State of the Union. But if they could . . . they would. Probably.

The truth is when you start thinking or researching this topic, the idea of Fox News being conservative and MSNBC being liberal genuinely seems unimportant. Political bias is by no means more demanding or influential to the everyday operation of cable news than corporate bias. Honestly, I should talking about corporate bias instead of political bias.

And I will, at times. This is not gonna be the only post on this, but I’m looking for a broader meaning on this subject, so I’m not gonna shift focus radically.

THAT BEING SAID, I believe this is the only real, provable, tangible bias that exists in the major cable news networks. Simply, it’s all they really care about. News is not so much politicized as it is sensationalized. Sure, maybe MSNBC and Fox News have a slant, but when push comes to shove, when there’s a shooting or an election or Justin Bieber fucks a mailbox or something, all 3 networks are covering it FOR HOURS, filling in the silences with nonsense and repetition, giving their viewer’s something to stare at and listen to until they lose interest. Because . . . eyeballs.

Mind you, I’m not saying they shouldn’t cover those stories. After all, as Jon Stewart has said (multiple times), the 24 hours news networks are built for 1 thing and 1 thing only. 9/11. And that’s a good thing. But also as he elaborates (every time), whenever there’s not 9/11, each network has AT LEAST 16 hours of LIVE news programming to put on the air each weekday. And they need to compete. If they stop swimming, they die. Just like every other network making any other type of entertaining content. Because they have advertisers and they can’t afford to lose money. Because Congress didn’t put “no commercials” in the bill.

So the result is what we got. Sensationalizing. Countdown clocks. 5 or more commercial breaks every hour. Everything’s a game. And while it’s not easy, it’s cheap. We’ll get back to that.

At the end of the day, I can only think of one appropriate metaphor for the competing cable news networks: Cola wars. So here’s the corresponding drinks (accurately representing the popularity differences):

CNN is Diet Coke.

MSNBC is Pepsi.

Fox News is motherfucking Coca-Cola.

so . . . let’s talk about that motherfucking fact.

With a grain of salt,

Bryan

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notfro · 8 years

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Media Bias - Climate Change

Is climate changing? Are humans responsible for causing that change? If it is and we are, should we do anything about it? Is it the responsibility of the American taxpayers to fix it?

Now, I’m not using this post to explain what climate change is. I’m not gonna reference data or scientific research or the effects of research or solutions to climate change. I’m gonna talk about those questions.

Bear with me . . .

Back in 2012, I was 18 years old, going to school in Washington, D.C. (Georgetown). I wanted to go into politics and study politics at a school that is more than qualified to teach it. In my first semester, I took a class called United States Political Systems. It was basically a civics class taught by a very smart guy. And my classmates and I were lucky to be in that class at that particular time because a big Presidential Election was hitting it’s stride, and we would get a very knowledgable person’s perspective on all the events.

This guy - the professor - didn’t talk about politics as a liberal or as a conservative. He felt it was important for us that he didn’t color our basic knowledge of government systems with his subjective political beliefs.

I realize now after typing this how relevant that part of the story is to this blog, but that’s not why I bring it up. Maybe later . . .

Anyway, I can’t remember how the subject was brought up. Maybe the media or cable news, something like that. But he started talking about facts. And I don’t have to tell you how much “facts” as term and as a reality has been politicized maybe throughout the history of politics, but particularly during the last two Presidential elections. He gave a real life example: Climate Change.

Fortunately, there isn’t much of this anymore (I say completely hopeful that it actually isn’t), but at the time, cable news (typically CNN, but all of them did it) was having discussions about Climate Change. But they weren’t just having discussions. They were having debates.

They invited talking heads to discuss the very serious subject: one, a scientist with extensive experience in studying climate, and the other, a guy. Now this guy is an amagalm of dozens of people from all walks of life, but the defining characteristics, which make me confident in creating this amalgam, are that he does not study climate and he believes that Climate Change is not real.

Quick HISTORY Detour: Climate Change (a.k.a Global Warming) has been discussed publicly since the 90s. I remember seeing clips of people like Next Gingrich, maybe Dick Armey, talking about it from Congress. It wasn’t exactly a controversial subject. Most people accepted it as science and you know . . . it’s any other environmental issue. At the time, I’m not sure how dire the public thought the situation was, but they certainly knew what Al Gore was talking about when he made “An Inconvenient Truth” in 2006.

Now, perhaps the rise of Climate Change skeptics started picking up steam long before Gore’s doc, but I can say for a fact, Gore’s doc to this day is used as exhibit A for why Climate Change must be a politically manufactured hoax.

All of sudden, “believing in climate change” became a political stance. The left took the side of saying it’s real; the right took the side of saying it’s not. And ever since, Climate Change has been a politically divisive issue.

So, it makes sense logically as CNN or as any other media committed to the appearance of being “unbiased” that you should have one righty pundit and one lefty pundit on the air to talk about Climate Change - i.e., a politically divisive issue.

This brings us to the scientist and the guy . . . on TV . . debating Climate Change. And this happened a lot back in the day. I remember the visual of some bespectacled nerd in a bow tie (coulda been Bill Nye) talking to a short loud guy looking like Saul Goodman sitting in front of (what I know couldn’t have been but I remember being) oil drills in TX at sunset. At the time, I thought this was normal. Yeah, I was a liberal and sure I believed in Climate Change and that skeptics were assholes, but I thought that about a lot of issues and Climate Change was just another issue, so why would I oppose having a debate on it like every other issue?

Because of the facts.

My professor wasn’t having a Howard Beale moment, revealing his political beliefs in an “I can’t take this anymore” outrage. He was calmly establishing that journalists have a responsibility to the truth and the media has a responsibility to report on the facts. The facts are on ONE side in the issue of Climate Change. The guy - the oil drills guy - might be connected in high places, he might have a lot of money in the bank, he may be a smart individual, but he is NOT qualified to talk about Climate Change and the position he has taken is not just wrong, it is FALSE. AND his elevation of status to being equal to Mr. Scientist is FALSE EQUIVALENCY, and it’s a dereliction of journalistic duty because it creates DOUBTS on FACTS that are PROVEN. Therefore, having a debate on climate change is irresponsible and NOT proper journalism.

This blew my mind. I began to look at the news media in a completely different way. I began to look at this issue in a completely different way. I began to look at those first questions (at the top of this post) in a completely different way.

How do think of a political question? I don’t mean a “politically charged” or a “politically biased” question or a loaded question. I mean a political issue in question form.

Should gay marriage be legal?

Should abortion be legal?

Do you believe in a libertarian small government or an effective big government?

Do you believe the military is a tool that should be used more/less/never?

My feeling about the answers to these political questions was that I had one answer but I knew there was another or more. Essentially I felt that there were two answers (or more) to every question as a rule. Each individual picks one, but each answer is equally correct.

And the truth is, for a lot of political issues, that is the case. Because the answer requires a subjective response (i.e. how you believe something should be). I mean sure . . . maybe the Constitution lays something out a certain way or the law does, but even then, there are even many issues where INTERPRETATION of the Constitution or law is required to yield an answer.

But what this moment taught me was the 2-answers-for-each-question rule is NOT a rule. It does not necessarily apply to every single political question. Both sides are capable of believing in the wrong thing, believing in a LIE. Therefore, the conservative Republican position on Climate Change is NOT equally correct to the liberal Democrat position. It is a LIE and should be treated as such.

I’m not here to discuss how I think Republicans have done a great disservice to themselves for believing in something that is objectively false, contributing to the problem and seemingly being incapable of looking at facts without political slant. I could . . . I might want to . . . but I won’t.

I’m here to talk about the media, who propped up these LIES because they wanted to seem “unbiased,” because they were afraid of being criticized by conservatives and being labeled a part of the MSM (mainstream media), because they care more about their ratings and between-the-aisle “respect” than their journalistic integrity. It was a mistake of epic proportions and dire consequences. AND they got there because they wanted to be “trusted.”

Which brings us the IRONY-ORGY of today. No one trusts the news media. Everyone thinks they’re biased. AND they got there because . . .

Well . . . we’ll get to that, but before we do . . .

Let’s talk about their corporate bias.

With a grain of salt,

Bryan

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notfro · 8 years

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Media Bias - Jon Stewart on Crossfire

First off, this is a clip from 2004. Crossfire no longer exists. Neither does its almost decade later reboot. But the spirit does! Black and white, left vs. right. Awwwwwyeeeeeaaaah! It’s OOOON!! That’s why it’s relevant.

I actually didn’t know about this show until CNN decided to reboot it with Van Jones, Newt Gingrich, S.E. Cupp, and Stephanie Cutter. At the time, I remember thinking: fuck yeah! A debate show where the pundits stay for the whole hour discussing the news. Alright! Let’s do it! . . . . What? They did this before? Why did they stop? It looks awesome? . . . Really? I love Jon Stewart . . . Ok, cool, I’ll watch it.

So I watched this. And it broke me down. I wasn’t instantly convinced that Crossfire could “hurt America,” but it gave me a lot me to think about. And luckily Jon Stewart speaks long enough to answer most of my questions. Wait, so are debate shows are bad thing? “No, I would love a debate show.” Ok, so is it that they aren’t tough enough? “No, it’s because they’re hacks.”

What do you mean by hacks?

Now, while Jon does answer that question too, I think it would be better to delve in deep on just this word for a while.

I usually only hear the word “hack” (the noun) used to describe an artist who produces shit work, dull, uninteresting, purely marketable, completely useless, unoriginal work. And to be honest, after watching this video the first time, I didn’t really understand Jon Stewart’s usage. I know he didn’t mean the show because there weren’t a lot of shows like it.

He meant them. Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson. Each a pundit. Each holding strong political views. I knew Paul Begala was a Democratic staffer turned pundit, analyst and professor (teaching where I went to school, Georgetown). I even remember seeing him in the documentary about Bill Clinton winning the 1992 election, “The War Room.” On the other side, I knew Tucker Carlson as a conservative talking head and a news anchor, who had that show called “Tucker” on MSNBC, I wonder what happened to him? Oh he was on CNN before. Oh he’s on Fox News now. Weeknights at 7pm. Scratch that, Megyn Kelly left. Weeknights at 9pm. He lost the bow tie.

But okay, I know them, so what? They’re our representatives of the right (Tucker) and the left (Paul). Balance. And yeah, a debate of theirs can get heated, so what? That’s what happens when you get a liberal and a conservative in a room together. I mean I guess I would ideally want civil discussion instead of heated debate. But that’s more of a preference. Sometimes yelling is necessary. No it’s not always necessary, but I’m just happy we have both sides of the argument here together. Well, I guess they’re more “pitted against each other” than “together,” but at least they’re in the same room on the same channel communicating in one form or the other with each other.

Are they making honest arguments? Yeah, I think they believe what they say.

NO, Are they making HONEST arguments? Or is it as Jon Stewart put it: Do the ends justify the means?

Wait, do you mean to ask me if I think Tucker and Paul are making dishonest arguments to simply WIN the debate? In other words do I think they are supporting the ideology they believe in not by defending it or explaining it rationally but by simply undermining the opposing ideology in the rules of a debate.

Oh. Shit. Yeah, I guess they have no problem doing that.

“Hack” in this context means a pundit who takes an unoriginal talking point or an unoriginal stance simply and blindly arguing against the opposing viewpoint, someone who chooses not to have an honest, rational conversation about each issue in the news, reducing every issue to a political argument or a political attack or a political self-congratulations.

Watching two hacks talk about the news doesn’t teach you anything about the news except for what the two sides are uniformly saying about it. A debate on TV is not seen as an opportunity to give viewers two rational explanations of political solutions to problems. A debate on TV is seen as an opportunity to extend the game of politics from Washington to your living room, giving you “infotainment.”

“Infotainment” is the only value. Not “education.”

So maybe balance isn’t really the cure-all we thought it was. Maybe we shouldn’t drink so many White Russians.

But you know . . . I mean . . . how does that affect the issues? If one side comes up with lie to support their argument, won’t the other side be enough to counteract that? It certainly doesn’t help to only include one side of the argument because that’s how lies go unchecked. The only true way to talk about politically divisive issues is still BALANCE. Sure it’s not great, but it’s better than any other way of doing it. Because you know . . . you can’t have your objective journalists become a truth squad or something?

Wait a minute . . .

We’re taking about climate change next.

With a grain of salt,

Bryan

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notfro · 8 years

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MEDIA BIAS - video supplement

I am not the publisher of this video, so the description above is not mine. I’ll say what I need to about Jon Stewart on Crossfire in the next post.

With a grain of salt,

Bryan

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notfro · 8 years

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Media Bias - objectivity

Fox News - “Fair and Balanced”

MSNBC - “The Place for Politics” (formerly “Lean Forward”)

CNN - “This is CNN” (formerly “The Most Trusted Name in News”)

These are the slogans for the major cable news outlets. I guess we can consider them as advertising tag lines that explain these channels, in the same way that “badabumbumba! I’m Lovin’ It!” explains McDonald’s.

And following that logic, the slogans don’t necessary mean shit. Not everyone is “lovin’ it” at McDonald’s. But it does establish how that company wants to be perceived. McDonald’s WANTS you to be “lovin’ it” (not be “diarrheain’ it”).

Therefore, Fox News wants you to think of them as “Fair and Balanced” (not as “The Conservative Balancing Act”), MSNBC wants you to think of them as “The Place for Politics” (not as “The Place for Political Correctness”) and I guess, CNN wants you to think of them as “CNN” (not as “Animal Planet”).

One thing that’s clear, especially if you look at MSNBC and CNN’s former slogans, is that these networks want you to think they are not taking sides and that they are trustworthy because of it. But how do you accomplish that goal beyond making a slogan? What does not taking a side look like?

For the sake of this argument, I will talk mostly about CNN because they try the hardest to be in the middle.

Have you caught an Anderson Cooper hosted panel lately? Having guests like Van Jones, Kareem Jean-Pierre, plus another liberal, and Jeffrey Lord, Scottie Nell Hughes, plus another conservative? Do you see what they’re doing?

Well, if you didn’t guess it yet, don’t worry, CNN will physically separate their panel by political ideology LITTERALLY putting the liberals on camera-left and the conservatives on camera-right. The panel is not just a forum of political discussion by respected high profile thinkers. It’s a debate program filled with shouting matches and political hackery a la high school debate format. BUT it’s balanced.

And it doesn’t stop there. Flip on CNN at any time of the day, and unless their guest is a celebrity, historian, specialized reporter (i.e. not gonna get political), each pundit comes package deal with another pundit of opposing views. Balance. Furthermore, if you look at their hosts, CNN journalists rarely if ever take positions on hot button issues. Sometimes to their detriment. Ask a black person what they think about Don Lemon.

But in all fairness to them, it’s not just CNN. You can find other journalists at other networks (usually in the day time) who choose not reveal their politics because they feel it is important to do so. Thomas Roberts or Chuck Todd at MSNBC, Shepard Smith or Chris Wallace at Fox News, and yeah, there are a lot more. Now for many people, being “objective” is not always convincing, but for now, let’s just say it is.

Not getting political is clearly a philosophical stance that some journalists choose to take. They believe it is important because their job is reporting the news. Period. Not interpreting it. Not breaking it down. Explaining it. They believe that reaching or earning the trust of the most amount people comes from objectivity, not taking sides. They believe that taking a stance can undermine their reporting because those that disagree with the stance will simply write them off as “biased.”

Being considered “biased” is game over for these journalists. They want to be viewed as trusted journalists like Walter Cronkite or Tom Brokaw or Dan Rather or any other from the time when we weren’t as divided. Being “biased” is considered by many, if not most, as a reason not to trust. A “biased” news cast is considered to be a version of the news that is incomplete and motivated purely by political ideology, not journalistic ethics. So we understand why all networks, however successful they are at accomplishing the illusion of balance, want to be trusted and not to be “biased.”

And I understand where they’re coming from. The job of a journalist should not be an opportunity to become a partisan hack or a political activist. If they wanted to do that, they would do that as that. And maybe the blurring of the line between activist and journalist has led to lack of trust in the news media. We can’t be sure that Fox News is actually a news organization anymore, perhaps they’re just a political operation for the right. Same goes for MSNBC on the left.

Maybe CNN is actually the best because of their commitment to balanced news broadcasting. Maybe they’re the only ones we can trust because they let their pundits do the politicizing of the news, and as long as they balance the discussion of lefty pundits and righty pundits, watching CNN is best way to hear both sides of the argument and be able to see the full picture of every story in the news. Because if you’re gonna hear the pundits spin the news, you might as well get spin from the other direction to counteract it. You don’t want your White Russian with just the vodka (conservative) or just the kalua (liberal). You want your drink with vodka AND kalua AND cream (Anderson Cooper). But the cream is optional really. Without it, you still gotta drink: Black Russian (Crossfire). What’s important is that you get the full flavor of the news. Drink Responsibly. Drink CNN.

Right?

How bout a counterpoint? . . . stay tuned for a link to a YouTube video.

With a grain of salt,

Bryan

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notfro · 8 years

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Media Bias - introduction

You know what I’m talking about. Regardless of whether you agree with me or not, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

Fox News - Conservative

MSNBC - Liberal

CNN - Center/Liberal/MissingPlaneBiased

Most of you stop there. Some of you go further and talk about the more obscure: HuffPo, Breitbart, NPR, Limbaugh, Olbermann, etc. Or you might go bigger: “THE Mainstream Media” (aka Liberal Media; i.e., CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, Bloomberg, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Your Local Paper, Comedy Central, Oprah, Ellen, Celebrities, Hollywood, Europe, Society, et omnia).

But we all know what “media bias” means: a person or persons with a platform to comment on the news of the day, doing so by filtering/shaping/distorting information with (and because of) their previously held political beliefs. Basically, we have people using the news as way to add to their “narrative” of what is happening today. A headline becomes a glued piece of paper to the vision board of their political world view; the news they report becomes evidence for their argument, instead of cold, hard facts that accurately describe what happened.

The first consequence is division; we each go to our little niches of the media and only hear about the news from people we already agree with. The second is lack of trust in the other faction(s); conservatives don’t trust liberals on TV, liberals don’t trust conservatives on TV, moderates don’t trust anyone on TV. The third consequence is loss of truth in the debate over it: is climate change real?, is universal health care a good thing?, can we prevent gun crimes?, do poor people deserve to be poor?

The ultimate consequence is ugliness without direction: a political division that grinds government to a halt and segregates citizens by ideology.

But is the media to blame? Is it not just a reflection of who we are and what we’ve become?

Do our political divisions speak to deeper conflicts of race, gender, and economic standing, education level, the unequal distribution of opportunity?

Yeah, I mean . . . probably, right? We’re all just people who make mistakes. So I wouldn’t put it past our institutions to make mistakes also.

BUT STOP FOR A SECOND. This could be about big stuff. This could be about little stuff. So I need some focus. Direction, if you will.

Do I talk about this from a purely outsider’s perspective? Like I don’t have strong political beliefs? Is that the best way to reach people? Withhold my views, so that I could reach those who disagree with me about points that they should agree with but otherwise wouldn’t if they simply knew what my opinions were? Would I just be a empty vessel of thought? Wouldn’t it limit what I could talk about? Couldn’t I just be honest and appeal to people’s sense of humor, or curiosity, or irony so that they will listen to me? Wouldn’t it be more dishonest to say I don’t care when I do and defer to those who choose to lay themselves bare, come of the closet with their political beliefs? Have you already guessed right or made up your mind about my political beliefs that my pretending to be unbiased is an uncomfortable ruse that no one wants? Are you seeing what I’m doing here?

I care about the truth. And I know, bold statement, right? But my point is that I don’t care when people on TV get political, even and especially if I disagree with them. I savor the moments I get to listen to someone I disagree with because it makes me feel connected to the world. Exclusively hanging out with likeminded people, only talking to and living with people who are just like me SCARES ME. I don’t wanna be a symptom of a broken, fractured society. I can’t be. (I can be, but I won’t!) I will fight for the opportunity to have an honest, open discussion because I know it’s the best way we all can fix this problem of division. Allowing ourselves to respect and trust in those we disagree with can be the medicine we’re all looking for.

So, here’s the truth: I’m a liberal. Call me a progressive, you don’t have to. I come from a family of conservatives. I don’t consider myself partisan or a Democrat, but I do vote for them. Bernie is my guy, but I’m not one of those guys who didn’t vote for Hillary. I will go so far as to say that I badly wanted Hillary Clinton to become President. I will go even further to say that Donald Trump will be dangerous for this country, and that he is the last person I would put in charge of making toast for Americans let alone making executive decisions for them. But I do not root against him because he will be our President and that is more important. I am open minded and curious, but I have passion and the courage of my convictions. And I care about the truth.

My goal is not to distort information or use it to merely support my argument. Which means I will talk about things that I disagree with, giving justice to the argument that is not my own. But at the same time, I will always give my thoughts on everything I bring up.

To establish that, my next post will be about why I shouldn’t have been honest and why journalists should shut up about their political beliefs when reporting the news.

To conclude, I wanna say something that I never hear other people say: take my words with a grain of salt. Now, that is not to say “don’t trust me.” I would like you to trust me. But it is a way to establish a definition of TRUST, which I think is critical to my perspective on this entire issue. Trust (at least when it concerns those in the news media) should not be about blindly believing in every word a person says; trust should not be faith. Trust should be about knowing a person to be honest but also capable of being dishonest at times and acknowledging your own responsibility of your reaction to their honesty or lack of it. I know that’s oxymoronical and confusical, but just think about it. A single lie should not disqualify a person from being trustworthy because c’mon . . . we all have told a lie. And more importantly, believing in a lie is not just the lie-teller’s fault because believing in crazy shit . . . makes you crazy. To keep a very long story short, I have had many experiences in finding out about lies that I believed in, ones that even shaped my world view, but over time, I have found the only way to protect myself from that was to question my own beliefs. “Maybe I’m wrong.” “Maybe I don’t really know what’s happening or what I’m talking about.” Having doubts in your beliefs is not wrong, it’s insurance. Sooooooo, be vigilant.

With a grain salt,

Bryan

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