Escaping the MSM's Umbrella of Ignorance

A reader named Susann left me an insightful comment about this post.  I was going to write her back therein but decided to make it an entirely new post altogether:

Just this afternoon I had a long conversation with a longtime friend visiting from Vancouver Island. She's a smart person, an entrepreneur, is originally from the U.S., and keeps herself well informed.

But when I started hearing her perspectives on current events, especially U.S. politics, I immediately inquired about where she heard such things. The answer was as one might expect: "Oh, on the TV news."

A long standing bugaboo of mine is the severe bias in the media. For the record, I am NOT looking for the media to become a puppet of the Republican Party in the U.S. and the Conservative government here in Canada. BUT I am absolutely sick & tired of the individuals in the media pretending that they are mostly centrist & balanced. News Flash: They're NOT!!!

What I was reminded of today is that most members of the general public are not dumb. But the opinions of most ARE shaped by what they see on TV, hear on the radio, and read in the newspaper. The fact that their input data is severely corrupted (bent, twisted, obscured) has everything to do with the great ignorance of so many.

In the software business there's an acronym known as "GIGO". It stands for: "Garbage In, Garbage Out". I never realized just how appropriate this term is to describe a more commonly known acronym, the MSM!

A great irony of 2009 is that on the political front, Canada and America appear to have switched politically.

Many Canadians seem to have woken up to the fact of just how corrupt much of their media has become in favour of the left of centre Liberal Party of Canada and the Democrat Party in the U.S.  This became blatantly apparent late last year:

• In Canadian politics during the "Coupscam"
• In American politics during the presidential election campaign
  

The most unethical & unprofessional of all was the CBC, but most of the other media outlets weren't far behind.  In times past they would have gotten away with it unscathed.  But the New Media of the Internet has provided an avenue for interested news consumers to step past the stench of bias and even vent at the Old Media if they so choose.  In no small part I believe great credit is due to widely read websites like Kate McMillan's Small Dead Animals and Pierre Bourque's Bourque.com.  They have become de facto watch dogs of the Canadian media and all that is terribly wrong with it.

On the other hand, down south in Amerika, the majority of citizens have not yet become aware of how deeply biased most of their media is to insulate Barack Obama and his Democrat Party from legitimate criticism. But inroads are being made, mostly by Fox News, conservative talk radio, the Drudge Report, and a legion of conservative bloggers. Still, poll most non-conservative Americans and you will find them to be mostly ignorant of huge news stories like the ACORN fiasco and the firings of key personnel in Obama's cabinet.

This next year, with the run-up to the 2010 mid-term elections in the U.S., it'll be most interesting to see if a majority of Americans come out from underneath the umbrella of ignorance imposed upon them by the MSM outlets they get their "news" from.  I, for one, have faith that they indeed will! Or put another way, we'll know in about a year whether the American public takes the red pill or the blue pill:

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Update: Talk about synchronicity, read the comments to this ridiculous editorial.