With many essays to write and more than a hundred math problems to solve, is there even any time to consider reading about what is happening outside of our little bubble? Probably not, the pungent pressure and stress inflicted by scholar duties make it almost impossible to focus on things that might not – or actually might – affect our lives directly. The only chance you may have to glance at it with your tight schedule is during your history classes, but that is not even the case sometimes. When was the last time you ever turned on the TV and tuned into a news channel, held a physical copy of a newspaper, or decided to go on to some online source? It has been a while.

Besides having barely any time to learn about the news, there is also another factor that undeniably affects the way students watch or read the news. Senior Gael Ortega mentioned that a reason to not watch the news nowadays is their lack of trustworthiness; transparency is a rare occurrence. In the days before professional journalism became a thing, the newspapers were just a media where the publisher could express what they believed in and thought about, looking forward to attracting an audience with the same idiosyncrasy or persuade someone to join a certain faction. It can be said that as of today, things have not changed a lot in that regard. Media companies that seem to not hold a bias are accused of being biased. AP Government teacher, Michael Castor, said that even if news sources nowadays report on the same important events such as wars, feuds, foreign policy, etc. They seem to be ” way more partisan”. So, what do we do then?

So far it looks like watching or reading the news is not worth precious time that can be spent on working on assignments or maybe just relaxing, but not everything is lost. When asked about sites to rely on, Ortega said that The Flipside is probably one of the most reliable news sources since it provides you with different perspectives about the same topic. Also, when you sign up to The Flipside with your email you get sent various segments of news daily, so you don’t need to worry about dedicating time to search for them. On the same topic, Mr. Castor also mentioned the existence of Ground News, a website able to recognize the appeal of certain national and international events, which hi expressed that ” it lets the reader know what they are getting into.” However, this is not the only way to stay informed; in the end, news are passed around like rumors and with the speed of intercommunications today you will learn something new about important events involuntarily.