Let's get one thing squared away right off the bat; news is important. In today's world, if you can't keep up with some form of news outlet to stay informed, you will get lost in the shuffle. You'll become just another uninformed citizen basing decisions in the voting booth on 'making history' or 'because the candidate is super cool'. The important thing to realize, though, is that every new media also has an agenda similar to your own.
I used to love Fox News. In a world that seems to drown in liberal and left media (sorry NBC and CNN, I'm on to y'all), they are one of a few choices in seeing the right side of the story. It probably helps their case that I am generally a conservative individual. That being said, seeing the right side of a news story doesn't mean it's always 'right'. Right? Right. The 'right and true' side of a news story comes just that: the truth. The problem with the truth is there is always one more side to the story than the one(s) that you get to hear. That's true in all walks of life. You may be sitting there thinking, "but Drake, if this is prevalent and relevant to all walks of life, why does it matter? I've got my opinions and ideas and I'm sitting just fine. I feel like I've got the whole truth figured out on the topics that matter to me." If that is you, that's great! At least you still follow the news and can form your own opinions from that.
There is one thing to keep in mind, however, All news outlets have an agenda similar to your own, remember? That means the news that you are getting to see is the news that they want to influence you with, whether it be for shock appeal and higher ratings to drowning out a single side of the story for the bureaucrats that pad their pockets. That's why it's important to draw conclusions from many different news outlets so you can see the common areas and form opinions that are drawn from multiple sources. It becomes much easier to see the biases as they appear and counter them with 20/20 truth vision.
Even with these countermeasures, though, don't count on seeing all the news stories that you need to or should see. That's the glory of American journalism: they report on the things they think we should see, and those actions often leave out stories that citizens should be hearing about. When in doubt, do your own digging. In a world like this, it pays to stay on top of the truth.
