One of the undeniable truths of life is that every news report you read, listen to, or watch is biased. And the bias is always intentional. However, it is not always done to deceive or mislead the consumer. If you are in broadcast media, you have a limited amount of time for each story. In traditional print media, you have a certain amount of space that is limited. In all of these cases, you must decide what information to include that will interest the consumer of the news. A reporter will draw upon his or her personal experience in making that determination. An individual success as a reporter and a company's success as reporting agency depends upon attracting news consumers. Which is why it amazes me that a huge percentage of the mainstream media reports the same information as their competitors on a regular basis. I also want to make it clear that not everyone in the news business engages in conscious, manipulative reporting so as to influence the consumer.

All of that being said, we know that throughout history news reporting agencies have been biased in order to help promote an individual, a cause or to achieve some other end. Politicians have used their friends in the media by granting them special access and confidential information in order to get them to report certain stories in a favorable light or to ignore other stories. But it does seem that in the past there was, even in those instances, a desire to report some of the truth. Today it seems that many news organizations have thrown their integrity out the door and are involved completely in being propaganda machines.

Look at how many stories about President Trump have been not just misreported with key facts being left out, but also being completely false with no modicum of truth involved in the reporting of the story. Take the example of Jeffrey Golberg at the Atlantic. His story, which was repeated by Joe Biden in a recent appearance and is being used in one of his television commercials, who reported that President Trump called our World War II soldiers losers. Everyone that was involved in that trip has said no such words were uttered nor words that were even similar. Goldberg has stuck by his claim for the most part citing four confidential sources but has admitted that maybe they got it wrong. The problem is, that the narrative is now out there and is believed by too many people to be true.

In the case of Brianna Taylor, the narrative is that she was asleep in her bed with her boyfriend when police ignored all legal protocol and shot her to death. She is described as an EMT and a good person in the community. Now that the grand jury has seen the actual facts and found the police officers acted appropriately, with one exception, people believe the narrative and are rioting in the streets. The truth is that independent witnesses confirmed the police announced to themselves prior to the exchange of gunfire. Brianna's boyfriend had an outstanding warrant which was being served on him by the police and he was the one that jumped out of bed grabbed a gun and initiated the gunfire. She was also out of bed running to get in between her boyfriend and the police. She also was part of the investigation as she had been recorded on jailhouse phone calls talking with her boyfriend about his drug running operation and her involvement in it.

Move on to Black Lives Matter. The narrative in the media is that this is a grassroots organization concerned with ensuring that black Americans are treated equally under the law and that the wholesale persecution of that community by police and our governmental entities needs to be stopped. Never mind that not one cent of the $6 billion raised by BLM has gone to inner city neighborhoods to promote education or economic activity. Never mind that BLM's buses have not shown up in those areas hit hard by the hurricanes to help out black Americans whose lives have been destroyed. Never mind that BLM's founders and leaders are all on record as promoting communism and the Marxist doctrine. Never mind that they are also on the record as demanding a separate nation rather than true equality and inclusion.

This all leads me to the conclusion that our educational institutions are teaching the future journalists that there is essentially no difference between reporting the news and expressing opinions on the editorial page. At the very least the professors or not making a distinction between the two and the corporations running the news companies are certainly allowing this behavior to continue. Combine that with the fact that so many of our fellow citizens or incapable of thinking critically when consuming news reports, thus they believe what they are told even when it is completely illogical. And thus, we have riots because people believe a false narrative.

Another undeniable truth of life is that we don't want to believe people in positions of authority will lie to us. So when the reporter is telling us what we believe are facts about a specific situation, we tend to believe what we are being told, even though our own experience tells us that what we are being told may not be true or accurate. Yet, here we are with politicians and media personalities out right lying to us on a regular basis. It's funny in a sad way that so many people do not possess or know how to use their critical thinking skills when it comes to consuming the news yet they use those skills in their everyday lives when making purchases or deciding where to send their kids to go to school.

Once again it comes down to a simple but difficult solution: we must take the time to find alternative sources of news or multiple sources from which to garner the information we need to make a decision about what is accurate and what is not. That can be a time-consuming process for which many people believe they do not have the time. But the consequences of failing to do so are so important, not only the future of our country but that of our children, that we should be putting that effort into trying to find out the truth.