Monday, June 11, 2018

...and that's the way it was.

When Walter Cronkite uttered those words, "...and that's the way it was," not a single American, left, right, Africain American, Asian American, etc., would disagree on the content or bias of the facts presented.

As divided as this country was on so many issues during Mr. Cronkite's tenure, from the Vietnam war to racial or gender inequality, we didn't waiver or argue in our perception of reported facts by any of the popular news sources simply because it wasn't what we wanted to hear.

I try, VERY hard to be an objective person.  I try to use news sources that are not tainted by the left or the right.  As a citizen of the United States, it's almost unbelievable that I need to go OUTSIDE the United States to find one.  I go to the BBC for major headlines and news.

Unfortunately, Snopes.com has become necessary for almost any political or news post on social media, left or right.

What is worse, is that we cloud our own perception of what public opinion is by listening to news sources that tell us what we want to hear.  We tend to surround ourselves with people on social media who have the same left or right viewpoints.  To top it off, we have a president who feeds this left-right polarization and actually treats the media sources' ratings like they are a more important fact than the events that are shaping the world.

This has to stop! 

We will find ourselves in a new civil war, that is not separated by geography, but by left, and right ideologies that are being influenced by media ratings and external (possibly Russian) influence.

I have done my best to try and keep any of my opinions of left or right issues out fo this, in the hopes that this post can spread without political bias when we all agree we need a search for the real truth.