Make effort to get both sides of issues

PHOTOGRAPHER: Letters to the Editor

As often happens, we wake up to the media blitz about some terrible upheaval happening in the world. Today it concerns the appalling separation of children from their parents at the Mexican border crossing into the America.

On such occasions, give this a try. Choose a couple of the 24-hour news channels, one you agree with and one you don’t. I chose Morning Joe on MSNBC and as a counter Fox News. We should probably make an effort to listen to both sides — and neither of these could ever be called unbiased. Try it sometime. You’ll learn a lot about yourself and also about what the media has evolved into. Mostly it seems to be 5 percent news and 95 percent commentary.

What is so frightening and distressing is that most of us seem to accept the commentary as fact. It’s not. It’s just opinion. If we don’t keep that in mind, then we are being brainwashed 24 hours a day. We were probably better off years ago with Walter Cronkite and his 30-minute news program. So what to do now?

Perhaps watch only the first five minutes, which is the best time to just get news. For me, the best news program is Amy Goodman on Democracy Now, which airs on our local public access channel. Or, perhaps turn off the TV and pick up a newspaper.

Livia Carroll

Schenectady