News- As valid as High School Gossip

By: Christina Woldt

Most people have the radar for what is valid news and what is not, but what about others who cannot make this distinction? Celebrity news is all over and insights much gossip that many times proves to be false. When this gossip travels from celebrity to politician, is when the media needs to do a little bit of homework. 

We are at a time where we need our voters to be informed about each political candidate, the problem arises when that information gets overloaded with gossip and here say. I wouldn't consider Barack Obama and Sarah Palin to be celebrities but many think I am wrong. Palin and Obama are seen on the cover of  People Magazine as much as famous actor and actress "celebrities" are. 

 

These political candidates are important but it concerns me that their lives are getting plastered over gossip magazines. Websites like Wikipedia, TMZ, and various news blogs that roam our web aren't an innocent party either. This is where the news vs. false news battle really ensues. When doing a google search for Sarah Palin, the search results are flooded with blogs and opinion editorials about her. There are informational and valid sources along with the gossip but in a time like this, shouldn't we have filters? 

 

When searching the web I came upon a story from  The Los Angeles Times about a blog called, "Blue Tidal Wave", a liberal blog. The blog reported that the CBS News was not releasing information about an embarrassing Palin videotape in order to secure the McCain/Palin Campaign. The article hit the "Top Topics" over all topics on the blog site. Many of this blogs readers know that this blog has a political agenda and bias, but, what about those who don't? 

The LA Times had to prove the blog article to be untrue and clean up the mess that this blog could have or did leave. It shouldn't take a valid news source, like the LA Times to reflect on a meaningless blog.