I remember being taught in English classes how to read magazine advertisements critically when I was growing up. “Our platform offers more flexibility and more options.” Really? More than what? And in Science classes we were taught the scientific method – a questioning mindset that teaches you to systematically observe, question, measure, etc… “How do you know all mammals like milk? You only experimented with six rats.” In short, we were taught to not just take things at face value, as delivered to us by anyone with an opinion. In those days, the news profession was also more trustworthy; there was honor and intent to represent facts in an unbiased way – leading viewers and readers to draw their own conclusions.
This is not the case today. And Huffington Post may be one of the worst examples of that. Last year, they proudly announced that stories about Donald Trump would be published in their “Entertainment” section rather than their “Politics” section. Unfortunately for them, Trump became a serious presidential candidate in spite of their obvious attempt to shape public opinion and they were forced to put him back in the “Politics” section. Not to be deterred, they started adding this note to all stories about Trump:
“Note to our readers: Donald Trump is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, birther and bully who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims -- 1.6 billion members of an entire religion -- from entering the U.S.”
The first mistake a non-critical thinker might make is to believe that HuffPost is a credible news organization. They have some nice fluff pieces about sleep and meditation, but they are intentionally and overtly liberal. They are not pretending to be unbiased. Hence my worry that kids growing up today are taught to read critically and consider the source of their information. It’s a free country and a big internet. Arianna Huffington is free to publish whatever viewpoints she holds today (she flip-flopped from conservative commentator to liberal editor some years back). But we are equally free to get real news somewhere else, or more likely, from a variety of places.
This is not the case today. And Huffington Post may be one of the worst examples of that. Last year, they proudly announced that stories about Donald Trump would be published in their “Entertainment” section rather than their “Politics” section. Unfortunately for them, Trump became a serious presidential candidate in spite of their obvious attempt to shape public opinion and they were forced to put him back in the “Politics” section. Not to be deterred, they started adding this note to all stories about Trump:
“Note to our readers: Donald Trump is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, birther and bully who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims -- 1.6 billion members of an entire religion -- from entering the U.S.”
The first mistake a non-critical thinker might make is to believe that HuffPost is a credible news organization. They have some nice fluff pieces about sleep and meditation, but they are intentionally and overtly liberal. They are not pretending to be unbiased. Hence my worry that kids growing up today are taught to read critically and consider the source of their information. It’s a free country and a big internet. Arianna Huffington is free to publish whatever viewpoints she holds today (she flip-flopped from conservative commentator to liberal editor some years back). But we are equally free to get real news somewhere else, or more likely, from a variety of places.