whats real?

Upon the recent discovery that I could access news while sitting at a TTC station waiting for the train to come, I began to wonder how stories change when they have to be told in 20 words or less. To sum up essential facts or details sometimes means that you are missing much more than such an obvious headline would let you assume. And for that matter, who gets to decide the headlines? Seems like a pretty tricky job, selling the entire story in less than 6 words, while being though provoking, informative and straight to the point. For people like myself who don’t go out of our way to be informative about daily events unless its thrown in our faces, this may be the first and last time I will ever get to hear about “Man eaten by Bear.” Take for instance the story of the conflict in Palestine/Israel and how a simple bias can sometimes be the difference between an informed and misinformed public. I actually had my eyes open for what the world was saying and oddly enough I received way more informative and useful information on facebook by citizen journalists who were not being paid or influenced by lobby groups but instead wanted the same thing we all wanted: the truth. It’s disturbing to know that from now on my most trusted form of media might have to come from random university students around the world compiling what they know into easy to read news briefs. Makes you wonder what the future of blogs and pod casts really holds. Of course war imagery is something that you could clearly find more though blogs than any other place. I don’t think I saw one single image of an injured Israeli, but all I could find online were pictures of blown up Palestinian children and the left over remains of school, markets and society. The sheer shock value and real life look at war could not have necessarily been done through main stream media for many reasons. Firstly, probably because the images I saw were very graphic and depicted acts and scenes of violence that would make grown people quiver. Secondly, I’m not sure if such images would be in line with the mainstream media “unbiased” approach to cover events. What war imagery does in many instances is put a face to a disaster, and once that’s done its hard for people to look the other way. This has taught me a lot about what news is relevant and found to be important by our society. If what I am accessing can only be found “underground” than there is a slight chance its because it does not fall in line with the mainstream agenda, letting me know what’s really real and what’s simply just for show.