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The News as a Reflection

I see these statuses all the time--

"This many people have died in a war, but the news talks about the Kardashians."

or

"This didn't make the news, but J.Lo's latest wedding did."

or something to that effect.

You get the point.

People always want to complain about what they see on the news.

I don't.

For one thing, I don't watch the news, but I don't blame the news for that.

(You follow me?)

The news is a reflection of what people want to hear about.

That's evident from the slant Fox News and MSNBC put on the things they report.

A friend of mine once said his conservative roommate loved Fox News because "it gave him the news the way he wanted to hear it."

So when we whine about the news or what's reported on it, we have to remember that we're the deciding factor of how the media manipulates us.

Everything, and I mean everything, is the result of ratings and money.

Don't watch the Kardashians and people won't feel the need to report on them.  The media is just like anything else--it follows the cash.

So if you're pouring cash down a particular well, they're going to do an awful lot of news stories about that well.

Start paying attention to the right things, and so will the media.  Not because they'll want to, but because they won't have a choice.

Turn off your television when a ridiculous show is on, or refuse to see movies with pseudo-celebrities in them, or just stop posting on Facebook about issues you don't eventually want to see reported back to you by The Today Show.

The news isn't telling you what to care about, it's telling you what you already care about, even if you don't know it yet.

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