Ever since the dreaded month of March the only thing everyone has seen on every newspaper and station across the country has been the coronavirus. Many of these Newspapers and stations often seem to contradict each other, so the question is; who do you trust? This can be a difficult question because nowadays you have to take everything you hear with a grain of salt as most if not all news agencies contain some bias. This bias is what makes determining if the information is valid or even right at all. This is arguably one of the biggest questions in today's society and there are millions of ways to get the news in this age of the internet and smartphones. This allows us to get information anywhere at any time with our hand held devices. In this day and age where we get our information can be a difficult question to answer.
Information to me, no matter where I get it from, I take into account that it is bias in some way even if it is what I want to hear. However, I am a very analytical person so I prefer to get the information from the center where most of the factual information comes from, The Center for Disease Control. They don't sugar coat what's going on and don't exacerbate facts because they are there to protect all people no matter your race, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status. I have found some little bias here and determined this as my main source of information because of this. The link attached below can take you to there page on COVID-19 prevention and treatment.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/prevention.html
Because of the day and age we live in bias information or even misinformation is everywhere and the biggest places this exists is on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Don't get me wrong, I love these sites. They deliver me quick tidbits of information that is entertaining and helpful; however, these sites are almost completely based off people's opinions and thus can be extremely bias. This is the main reason why I believe some people I know may be receiving some "questionable" information because their main source of information is martin64's facebook page about how the end of the world is near. These sort of entertainment based information sites should not be your main source of information because they are there for your entertainment and reality may not always be entertaining which is what causes the most conflict between me and some people that I know.
In the video posted above Vanessa Otero has created a sort of chart which ranks each news site on right or left leaning as well as more factual or opinionated. This sort of chart now is used by many to determine where consumers should go to receive truthful/unbiased information. This chart revolutionizes how as a consumer we should get information.
This age of easily accessible entertainment based news agencies makes things such as the coronavirus pandemic more difficult to read because have people thinking its the end of the world as we know it and others saying its all fake. These polar opposite opinions make it more difficult for the general population to decipher whether or not they are over or under prepared for the virus. This spread of misinformation is what is making this pandemic worse but but I feel the virus itself is killing while misinformation is a product of public confusion.
No comments:
Post a Comment