Seeing The Truth Through Arab News Sites

Information helps color how a person sees the world. No one lives in a bubble where information is unnecessary. As such, people often follow and keep up with the hat happens during the day. But the source of this news varies from person to person and from medium to medium, and one such source is Arab news sites.

As naturally curious as people so often are, the news plays a vital role in everyday society. The right story can totally change the way a person sees the world, change a whole outlook on life. Keeping up with everything going on in society also keeps the mind active, perfect for curious minds.

News used to be an oral tradition. Heralds would strand in public spaces and proclaim whatever was going on that day. Then society turned to newspapers, where everything was printed and then distributed. This meant that the news could be consumed at leisure. Then television entered into the fray. Then everything changed. At the dawn of the new millennium came a seismic shift in how information was distributed, it was the beginning of the internet and the websites that people turned to the get the news.

Empathy is important, not just in journalism, but also for life. There is absolutely no way to undersell the importance of being able to emotionally understand another person. In the news, it leads to a deeper truth. A cognitive understanding only leads to a shallow understanding. But an emotional understanding asks the question of why. Human beings are emotional creatures by nature and that nature often drives humans to act. It is that action, or the results thereof, that end up getting reported on by the media, print or otherwise.

It is often said that there are two kinds of people in the world. Much like the world in general, members of the press can be divided into two camps, journalists and pundits. The terms are often used interchangeably, but they are not the same. A journalist chases the truth in order to report it fairly. A pundit does not care much for the truth and will twist it in order to push a narrative.

All too often, stories get spread without facts being checked. When people share fake stories, it erodes trust, not just in the media institutions, but also in the world in general. Fake stories also perpetuate any ingrained prejudices that some people may already have.

Information can be limited in some parts of the world. All too often, stories from certain parts of the world wind up being about some new terrorist attack. While there are parts of the Middle East that are lousy with terrorism, there are also parts of it that are stable and even prosperous, more so than some parts of the west.

A free press is the only real press. If it is not free, then it is not press, it is propaganda. Information must be made free and those freedoms should not be limited in order to protect those in power. There must always be those who speak the truth to power.

What people know will color their perception of the world. It is important then to be aware of sources. Skepticism is healthy, but paranoia is not.