Maintaining unbiased views

I attended a meeting last night where there were two very opposing views. The question under discussion involved whether the media portrays the Muslim Arabs and the Palestinians negatively and the Israelis positively. Does it matter? Why is it important that we treat differing views equally?

Along the same vein, I read that Obama is getting more media attention than Clinton. Why does it matter? It matters only if we trust the media to give us unbiased information.

It could be said that bias is a strategy – a method to plan to get the most out of an opportunity. What is the right move to make in Scrabble? The one that gets the most points now or the one that might get more points later? In the same way, why do we do a cost analysis? To make sure we are making the right investment of time and money.

How important is the media? Do they seriously take the responsibility to report the news without bias? I don’t think so. I’m suspicious that the media reflects the prevailing majority’s attitudes or the prevailing government’s attitudes. Or maybe reflecting the CEO’s beliefs. What about the fifth estate? Do bloggers represent the views of the minority, the dispossessed, the disenfranchised, or their own narrow views?

Who’s right? Who’s wrong? Why do we listen to Point-Counterpoint? Amy Goodman? Rush Limbaugh? Why do some approve of President Bush and some don’t?

Why do some think we should spank and some think we should discipline by depriving children of privileges? Why do some think having a plasma TV is the bomb and others want to bomb plasma TV? Because we all have different views.

What would happen if we all had the same views? We would agree on something that might be way off base – like the world is flat or the earth is the center of the universe. The reason why we have differing views is because no one knows absolutely which view is correct so we must examine all sides of an issue and decide for ourselves.

There are two keys to making a decision. One is allowing dialogue so that all sides can be examined. Only dialogue can expose erroneous views. And the other is allowing free will so that each person can make up his or her own mind. That’s what allows democracies to work. But it also allows people to have wrong or misguided views that may lead democracy in the wrong direction. So the key is to be aware of what the views are and make an informed decision as to which side of an issue one wishes to support.

Theoretically, we hope that the media gives us an unbiased view so that we can see all sides of an issue. But if we acknowledge that the media may be biased, we must choose our media outlets carefully in order to clearly see all sides of an issue.

If we choose a biased media outlet, we choose to adopt a biased view, thus jeopardizing our ability to defend our views on an issue making us vulnerable to misguided beliefs that may be erroneous. Erroneous views corrupt our minds and damage society as we can see by the way TV and movies portray Muslim Arabs or Palestinians as evil and Israelis as good. So if we choose a biased media outlet, then we must also choose one that is biased in the opposite direction and treat the news from each with a clear mind.

If we choose balanced media exposure and view it with an open mind, we may still choose an erroneous view, but at least we have opened up the possibility of seeing the world as it really is with humanity suffering on both sides of the conflict and learning to consider all views as having the potential for truth.