NEWS: AVOIDING BIAS: The difference between PUNDITRY and REPORTING.

 A friend lamented looking for national news with honesty, truth and accuracy. Got me thinking about a few things. I remember when I was young, we got our news from the evening and morning newspaper, and the local news at 12 and 6, with the national network news at 630. Thirty minutes allotted for news, with 8 minutes of commercials, so 22 minutes total. Walter Cronkite was considered the most trusted man in America. His unbiased reporting nightly was popular because he was concise with his words. The average CBS Evening News story that Walter reported was 15 seconds. In the half-hour broadcast his airtime presence between stories only averaged 5-6 minutes total per episode. The limited amount of time prohibited protracted analyzing of the minutiae of a topic, beating a horse into the ground with a biased whip, as we see every day today.

CNN went on the air in 1980, the first 24hr news network. FOX did not appear until 1996. In the 90s, the focus for network news became ratings and ad revenue. As the number of 24hr outlets appeared, so did the need to fill the time, and keep it relevant to keep people looking at the commercials. As time went on, many of the outlets switched to editorial content with pundits instead of reporters. A pundit is a person who offers opinion in an authoritative manner on a particular subject area (typically politics, the social sciences, technology or sport), and using a bias to appeal to their viewer base. This was the end of actual news and the birth of infotainment. Today, people do not know the difference.

If you are searching for NEWS, be sure you are not watching an infotainment provider. Organic NEWS largely died decades ago when the programs presenting it began to become reliant on ratings and ad revenue.

Pundits on infotainment platforms are not held to the standard of reporters. Even mainstream "news" outlets have blocks of time that they allow pundits to occupy. Keep in mind, FOX News is on court record testifying that they report false info for engagement and ratings and that they are not a legit news source. They have said this in open court, but then continue with false/biased infotainment for those who did not see that admission, or choose to ignore it.

If you understand that and can filter it, great...but if you watch infotainment and pundits on a loop and believe everything as gospel, you are being duped.

A "reporter" reports facts without bias or opinion. Once you hear bias or an opinion, you are listening to a pundit, not a reporter. Punditry and those left and right who accept that as news are what is wrong with America today.

Critical thinking is only dead if you choose not to learn how to use it. Think critically, factually.