This is the response you will receive from me if you ask “Did you hear the news?”

The Daily Post’s prompt today is: Link to an item in the news you’ve been thinking about lately, and write the op-ed you’d like to see published on the topic.

Well as I do not watch, read or notice the news, I haven’t been thinking about any topic in the news. Do not mistake this for not thinking about the events that are happening in these times. Sandy’s havoc on the people and the devastation she’s caused is always on my mind. I live in Florida so we are usually well prepared for hurricanes as the people up there can be more prepared for snow storms (which would scare the pants off of me and I do believe you need pants in a snow storm). Everyone affected by this Sandy is in my heart.

I do occasionally click on news articles that were brought to my attention by a Facebook status, a family member, or a friend. A lot of the times I will just have them tell me about it. It may seem as if I am obtuse or flippant about the news and maybe I am, but first you must understand my reasonings and if you don’t you can choose to comment or email your thoughts. Or go on your merry way. No harm no foul. My email is in my ‘about what’ page (which may be more opinion than fact).

Journalism is not today what it was made to be. I can’t, in fact, say it ever was what it was meant for. There were two men in the 1920s that had very different outlooks on what modern Journalism was. *Yes I Wikipedia, but only put forth information with valid citations.

Writer Walter Lippman believed (as I believe) that the Journalist‘s role was to simply be a translator/mediator between the elites [facts/story/government nowadays] and the public. The elites would speak and the Journalist would be the middleman to bring it to the public for the public to understand.

American Philosopher John Dewey believed the public was incapable of understanding the issues created by or responded by the elite that it should be discussed and debated. That journalists should not just pass information, but weigh the consequences of the policies being enacted. His form of Journalism developed to be “Community Journalism“.

Now these two types of Journalism can both be beneficial if properly used, but they aren’t. They have been colored and graffiti-ed and there is now no such thing as being completely unbiased. In America, and I am sure many other countries, the news media is a money profiting business.

A news article and an opinion article are blending to where you cannot tell if you are reading one or the other. If you watch the news, local or national, the “talking heads” are using cues given to them by the station on how they should deliver a story; subtle nod here, barely noticeable grimace there, head tilt here, inflections and tones of their voice.

False information can be added, information considered unimportant or damaging to the stance of the news station/paper is taken out. Information is told in such a way they are telling you how to interpret it without giving you the chance to interpret it yourself. This can also be said about independent papers and news websites. People delivering the news to the world may not even realize that they are telling the story how they want it to be understood.

You’re smart to utilize several sources to get the information, but with such bias going on in local, national, world news how are you to know you’re really getting the facts. It happened this way here, but happened that way there. A or B? Which do you believe?

Just my honest opinion.

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