Government shutdown: students disillusioned by media

When the government shuts down for 16 days, it is natural to point fingers at one political party or one person. However, the shutdown only magnifies the country’s ever-deepening political split.

For current teenagers, political views are becoming more a reflection of media biases and their surroundings and less a reflection of a person’s ideology. With many news outlets taking either strong liberal or conservative stances, it becomes harder for students to separate the fact from spin.

Some students find classes to be the most helpful in learning the straight facts without being strongly influenced by either political party. Senior Cameron Borch, for example, a student in government teacher Kirk Abe’s class, finds that Abe does a “good job keeping the class objective and bringing both sides of the argument.”

It is evident that students’ political ideals are also easily shaped by family members. Wanting to please their parents and fit in, many teens mimic their parents’ political views.

The combined forces of selective media and family often act as blinders for students, keeping them from knowing the complexity of policy debates. It is important for students to know the whole situation, regardless of their family’s political beliefs, before forming an opinion on the matter.

Senior Jacob Camp, for example, who receives most of his information from the internet sources such as the New York Times and The Washington Post, tries to find articles with no obvious bias.

“It’s so easy for people to believe everything on the Internet not knowing there are heavy biases,” Camp said.

Until college or beyond, many young people have trouble forming their own opinions, and the constant flow of biased viewpoints from different media sources does not help the problem.

The first step to fix this issue is encourage students to learn the objective and nonpartisan facts instead of relying on mixed perspectives from questionable sources. Maybe then, fewer students will linger in the shadows regarding the truth on government action and be able to form opinions of their own.