Bolling: Media Bias Hinders Critical Thinking

One of the things I try and teach my students is the importance of being a critical thinker. Of being educated and informed and making decisions on their own.

Of course, one of the obstacles to critical thinking is getting access to reliable and unbiased information. That’s especially difficult these days, when so much bias seems to exist in most media sources.

Media bias was on full display this week when the major news sources reported on Donald Trump’s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention.

Fox News said Trump “rose to the occasion” in his convention speech. It was so great that they declared, “The election may be over.”

CNN didn’t like the speech, saying it reminded people why they don’t like Trump, asserting, “That speech may be the best thing that has happened to Democrats in weeks.”

MSNBC predictably hated the speech. They declared, “For more than 90 minutes, Trump’s unfocused, combative speech showed that little has really changed over the last week.”

In reality, the truth was probably somewhere in between.

On the positive side, Trump outlined the challenges facing our country and what he wants to do to fix them.

On the negative side, the speech was long, convoluted, and at times more than a little bit rambling and combative.

At the end of the day, the speech will energize the Republican base, and perhaps even the Democratic base. Most other folks will just see it as Trump being Trump.

Overall, Republicans had a good convention. They adopted their platform. They nominated their candidates. and they didn’t shoot themselves in the foot.

But as you consume the news, be mindful of media bias.

Don’t get your news from a single source. That promotes echo chamber thinking and adds to political polarization.

Get your news from varied sources. Expose yourself to different points of view, and then decide for yourself how you feel about the important issues of the day.

Be a critical thinker. Don’t be a lemming!