Monday, May 3, 2010

Bring on a Liberal Media

When presented with facts that make your world view untenable, do you criticize the source as biased? Or do you take the opportunity to reexamine your world view? It seems that Conservatives' obsession with accusing the mainstream media with a 'liberal' bias has scared the media away from reporting actual facts that contradict the conservative narrative of the world.

Fox News is legendary for its misinformation and ridiculously opinionated coverage. But when CNN completely abandons actual news, it's rather sad. Using viewer Tweets as 'news'? I'm sorry, but watching CNN while Tweeting does not mean you are qualified to comment on the news.

In a democracy, whoever controls the information controls the people. Democracy is only possible with a liberal media. To be 'liberal' means that one is open to various points of view and many sources of information. When the media is not liberal, it's not doing its job. To complain about this as 'bias' is much more likely a stubborn unwillingness to admit we might have been wrong about something. 

When Jesus was presented with facts that contradicted his world view, he was, yes, liberal enough, to change his position (Mark 7:25-30). We'd all be wise to follow his example. 

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