So in one of my recent posts, I bad-mouthed Democracy Now and Amy Goodman for their brief report that mentioned George Zimmerman in a contorted and biased manner. As I said earlier, independent news can be biased too, just like mainstream news such as Fox and CNN. That being said, bias has its uses. Democracy Now always rallies behind the lesser man/woman, the protesters, those who are not on the side of Republicans or big corporations. Democracy Now always supports them, even to a fault. But because they always support them, that also means they cover them when they should be covered, while other media isn’t on the ground with them, covers them in their own biased fashion, or ignores them altogether. It is at times like this that I have to have some amount of appreciation for them.

In this case, this regards the whole Dakota Pipeline ordeal, and how the protesters are sick of it all, tired of how peaceful protesting isn’t getting them anywhere, and finally fighting back (Ghandi’s way doesn’t always work it seems, he never protested against something like this, big oil companies). The protesters actually managed to succeed in driving off the construction crews and the private security team after a clash that resulted in some injuries, and a lot of mace.

So while I dislike bias, I just have to live with the fact that all news media will be biased in one form or another, because the news is made by people, and people are biased. Which is why it’s a good idea to listen to several of them for different perspectives. Fox is biased, but so was Jon Stewart. CNN is biased, but so is Democracy Now, and ABC, and NBC, and MSNBC (especially them). All other news companies, independent or otherwise, have a level of bias. Learn from them, but learn accordingly. Things are almost never in black and white, there’s plenty of grey to go around.