Chenee Castruita

After getting home from my last class of a particularly painful week, I found myself spending my first two hours of genuine free time sitting cross-legged on my computer chair, balancing a bowl of Spaghetti Rings and watching a documentary called Zeitgeist. You might be asking why, and I will tell you. I was eating Spaghetti Rings because SpaghettiO’s are a luxury the unemployed college student cannot afford. I was watching the documentary not for a class, but because my aunt had asked my opinion.

The documentary is in three parts, and so my opinion varied. It’s one of those films that is guaranteed to piss off a good amount of the population, tying Christianity to astrology and painting the American government as a little league of puppet masters, and the public no more than dolls with string. Whatever views one might have on the film, it does raise one very important issue that no one can argue or ignore. That issue, my dear friends, is one of ignorance.

Most of us get our news sources from the welcoming page of our Internet provider, or from rolling words across the bottom of CNN Newsroom. A few of us even venture to pick up a paper, and some even take the daring step of reading the entire thing. Which is fine, really. The million-dollar question is this: Is that enough?

Take a minute, phone a friend and poll the audience. The answer is no. While actually making the effort to get the news from outside of the bubble we call Athens is a great first step and no doubt more than the average bear would bother doing, it is not enough to make someone truly informed. Why not, you ask? CNN is legit. There are plenty of balding men and creepily smiling newscasters, and it’s boring enough to put me to sleep. Why wouldn’t this be enough to get me through the day, the week and the next election?

Here’s the kicker — most, if not all, news comes to your eyes and ears with a bias conveniently attached to it. It is extremely hard to find something without a bias, and if you’re only getting your information from one or two sources, you’re not doing yourself any favors. Point here is, there is so much going on in the way of technology, what with the Internet, podcasts and such, that there is no excuse for being uninformed. We’ve all clicked a couple times to get movie schedules, a quick e-card for Aunt Mildred’s birthday and the complete life story of that new kid we’re dating. Why do we not have time to read the news, or check out a couple blogs?

This is not to say that I am the best at getting all my facts straight, complete with all of the various opinions that come with them. I am guilty of having to choose between the Democratic debate and back-to-back episodes of Family Guy, and I think it’s obvious as to which would have been more entertaining. Give me Stewie’s squinty little eyes over Hillary’s low-blow campaign tactics any day.

The thing is, too many people ignore hearing the other side of the story because it doesn’t interest them or because they already know they don’t agree with it. You can never read some blasphemous book or never watch that documentary because it’s a waste of time and it’s a load of crap anyway, but you’re only losing the opportunity to be able to argue your point more effectively, as well as to share your own ideals and opinions. Believe it or not, you do actually have an opinion, even if you never cared about the topics in SOC 101. You just haven’t taken the time to ask yourself what that opinion might be.

Some terrible things have happened in this world because we are so willing just to take someone’s word for it and go with the flow. This is your life and your world — the least you could do is make the effort to know what’s shaping it.

Chenee Castruita is a junior journalism major. Send her an e-mail at cc282705@ohiou.edu.