Friday, January 31, 2014

Non-Partisan Political Information Is Hard To Find

By Serena Price


Non-partisan political information is sometimes referred to as facts. They are not referred to in that way by the presenters of most news accounts or by the political persons most often quoted by those news stories. This would get in the way of what these individuals want to tell people about whatever they are working on, legislatively. The facts get in the way of a good emotional story about why the country should get behind something they do not want.

Making it even harder to find is part of the reason for the fourth estate. News coverage rarely, if ever now, present the facts that will put their selected politicians in a bad light. What the party says, the media repeats. There is no investigative desire anymore.

There are many websites that suggest they are down the middle as far as news coverage is concerned. They want readers to believe they only have an interest in presenting balanced coverage of all aspects of each issue. There is a good way to determine whether they are, indeed, presenting facts as opposed to the fiction that is presented by the broadcast media.

Looking at a piece that purports to be balanced, identify whether there are any emotional points made that are not backed up by stable content. Check to see the level of pure bumper sticker rhetoric involved in the item. The pleas to do something, right now, is a clear indication there is something faulty with the reasoning involved.

Partisan talking points, about the gun control issue, will tell us that there are too many guns in the hands of people. They will not tell us that our second amendment rights are in the US Constitution. They will tell us that a law abiding citizen with a gun is just one more gun on the street. The emotional pull is for everyone to believe that a law abiding gun owner can become a criminal quite easily. That is why they want to do something, right now.

What can not usually be found is the facts that gun control laws do not curb gun related crimes. The harshest restriction laws are in the cities with the highest crime rates, and that is after the laws are in effect. The mental health issues, surrounding the largest percentage of these crimes, are not reported on or are denied by the vast majority of the talking heads.

The news media goes along with this very partisan presentation because they have their own agenda. They have invested so much in the political arena, on one side of the aisle, they must do this in order to keep the lines of communication open with their friends. They have given up on the idea of objectivity in favor of being invited to all of the best parties and sharing in whatever comes after their buddies win, again.

A place where non-partisan political information should be on display is in political debates. Not so fast, as the media is moderating the vast majority of them and everyone knows their bias. One side will actually be helped by the moderator and the other side will not know what hit them. The side out of favor with the media will not get balanced coverage. The other side will gain all of the headlines and nothing will be known, again, about what needed to be said.




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