:: Pedantic Platitudes ::
Greetings! My name is Sam J and I am a student at Harvard University. Perhaps this blog will present a little look into the mundane yet unique events that make up my life.
:: Wednesday, April 02, 2003 ::
I have always been wary of corporate influences on the news I read and watch, but I never really did anything about it. Now, with the war (plus some interesting points raised by someone whose opinions I respect very much), I have come to realize how truly biased CNN.com is. Its parent company is Time Warner, and the corporate influence is more than apparent. There are frequently articles about the TV show The Sopranos, which is on HBO, a channel owned by Time Warner. Stories about America and conservatives are often given much more emphasis, while world news is relegated to a lower section. Perhaps not-so-important items in the world of entertainment are juxtaposed with matters of more pressing importance (today's top headlines had Sharon Osbourne's cancer recovery right next to the SARS epidemic update - not to say that the celebrity's recovery isn't worthy news... it just seems inappropriate compared to the hundreds diagnosed with the untreatable strain of pneumonia). CNN.com just seems like a big advertisement for the cable channel, and the whole pay-to-watch service for videos on the web page just shows that it's all about the profits.
The point to all this is that I have switched my home page and main news source to Google News. It's fairly new, but it's great. Google News has no bias, corporate influence, or political slant. It culls its news from 4,500 sources, which are reviewed by a complex computer algorithm that seeks out the most relevent news stories at each moment with no human intervention. Each news subject has links to several news sites, so there's a possibility for a variety of viewpoints. This diversity also helps me "read more widely."
:: SL 10:40 AM [+] ::
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