Here's Something

      It's funny, people are quick to accuse the media of bias -- not just unconscious bias, but deliberate slant -- while ignoring their own agenda.

      Take, for instance, any large protest that turns to riot.  Generally, if you were sympathetic to the aims of the protest, you will carefully distinguish between protesters and rioters; and if you did not agree with the intent, you're a lot more likely to lump them all in together.  If you were neutral and fair-minded, you will also make note of any difference between the people who protested and those who rioted; if you were neutral and annoyed by it, you probably won't.

      So telling me "None of the media are unbiased," well, gee, you're right -- but some are less biased than others, some make more of an effort to be fair than others, some go into greater depth than others, and there is some variation even within them, story to story, issue to issue.  (If you dig into the interactive chart at Ad Fontes, you will find that the position of each media outlet they rate is defined as the centerpoint of a scattergram comprising multiple stories, a sampling that quite often covers a very wide range.  It's a complicated truth.)

      When we read, listen to or watch the news, we each have our own narrative going.  If the source we're following is aligned with our own outlook, we're liable to nod along, and consider them good; if they are not, we'll be irked by their obvious bias. 

      There were people -- a lot of them -- who only went to the official rally in Washington, D.C. on 6 January and drove home, all charged up by their great day.  There were people -- a lot of them -- who showed up at Black Lives Matter rallies, waved signs, listened to speeches, marched, sang songs -- and went home, pleased to have stood up, before the first flung brick.  Conversely, there were people who went to (or near) those events and then went on to break down doors, make messes and steal things.  There were people who protested and rioted, and there were people who only did on or the other.  All of those things are true.

      Truth is messy.  Truth is complicated.  Humans like simple stories.  We like it when virtue (as we define it) triumphs.  We like it when evil (as we see it) is defeated.  And we don't want any gray areas.  We grow annoyed when the choice is between a greater or lesser evil, or when the story just trails off. 

      But in reality, that's what we get.  And you can either fight with it or understand it and use it as a tool to better grasp the world around you.