The News is Scary

I have to admit it: Reading this article about the news media's coverage of Sonia Sotomayor scared the crap out of me for a couple reasons. Firstly, I was so caught up in my own little world and my own personal crises that I paid little to no attention to Sotomayor's nomination and the controversy surrounding it. I knew that negativity was in the air, but I honestly did not bother to actually read the articles that were plastered all over the web or stories that were airing all over TV because I was so focused on sorting things out in my own personal life in the late spring/early summer. It kind of disturbs me that I missed all this widespread hullabaloo (even though it seems that the hearings went well) when the same clips literally appeared on every station, but I was so focused on myself that I did not even realize what important events were going on in the world.

The second thing that scares the hell out of me in the Atlantic piece is what Bowden describes as the shift in the media, where rather than reporters seeking to inform the public with information, we now have political activists controlling what we see with the intention of assuring their side victory. While I like to label myself as an independent voter, I realize that my limited understanding on the news is greatly affected by which side of these political activists is bringing forth the material, so maybe I should look for the news elsewhere. I searched the web, and asked a few of my more politically aware buddies to help, and I've assembled a short list of "Independent News" websites that I will be keeping an eye on for the next few days to see just how independent they are, or if they seem to be leaning one way or the other:

http://www.democracynow.org/
http://www.americanfreepress.net/
http://www.medialens.org

If anyone has any other suggestions, I'd love to keep an eye out on any independent news sites to see how differently their coverage of such events like Sotomayor's nomination play out.