Don't become a Lemming.

I subscribe to a list of eAlerts and podcasts through newspapers and itunes. I find a tremendous amount of articles to be to the point, well written, and short - without any bias; so that I do not waste my time. On the other hand, the local news or national news on TV has lengthy bits, contain a lot of puffery, and much of it is pure entertainment in my opinion.

One should be careful about forming opinions based on what they see on the news strictly because the news exists for a few reasons: ratings and spreading a message.

There are many people who base their opinions strictly from what they see on the news and do no real thinking for themselves. The average person essentially takes an entertainment piece and turns it into their own opinion. When you have multiple people in the nation who watch the same content and form those same opinions, the general public can become manipulated into believing something they normally would not believe in. But since you have a massive number of people believing in the same thing it is hard to not be swayed.

This is very extreme, but think of the local or national news as puppets and somewhere behind the scenes lies a puppet master - which in my opinion are the politicians. If politicians or any particular group want to get a specific message into the general public, the media is a perfect outlet since it reaches a wide group of people.

I am not coming out to say: Do not watch the news!!! All I am saying is if you decide to watch the news, watch it from an objective point of view. If you really want to find the news without the extra sugar, there are multiple websites, podcasts, videocasts and newspapers I would certainly recommend... that can give you the information you need without all of the drama and political bias. We live in the information age, take advantage of it, but DO NOT be fooled!

- Brandon Laws