If you’re flipping on the TV and paying attention to what the pundits say through the looking glass of your television, you’re probably not doing enough to keep yourself informed on national and international events. The mainstream media in the United States is letting down the common citizen.

I recently wrote a column about the protesters of DeKalb and how people with similar opinions are fighting one another when they should be working together. The cause of this separation can be linked to a monopoly on information. Have you experienced a news story being covered repeatedly without any difference in perspective? If you answered yes, then you’ve witnessed the swill of modern news.

These statements stem from a person who considered himself well-informed until a week ago. While browsing through Google news, and after carelessly clicking on the international section, I came across a news story about a U.S. plan for missile defenses to be placed in eastern Europe. Even more fascinating was the fact that the first article I found on the subject was published by a Chinese paper. I dug a little further and found an April 8 story published by KansasCity.com (a good American homeland source), confirming that “the Bush administration is stepping up its efforts to build a controversial missile defense system in eastern Europe.”

It is disturbing that I can watch a half hour of Anna Nicole Smith coverage before I go to class in the morning, but a story of international importance, such as this, escapes CNN, ABC, NBC and CBS. I could have mentioned more, but those are the only news organizations I can receive in Stevenson Tower C. Which is exactly the point I am trying to make: No matter how well-informed we attempt to become, all concerned citizens are still victims to the information we are given. All we know is all we are.

The revered journalist Edward R. Murrow once said that everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences.

The problem facing people today is those experiences. Modern journalism has become equivalent to an Ernest Hemingway novel. There is just enough information on the surface to scrape by with a vague knowledge of people and places, and below the surface is a plethora of hidden information. People who wish to form opinions and feel passionately about issues are now burdened with the responsibility of looking past the obvious. No longer can the apparent be accepted as truth and the unfamiliar be doubted as such.

As you finish this column and begin to form your opinion, allow me to make one more point. Ask yourself how much of the knowledge you have acquired today was formed from news you were familiar with last week. Then, admit that the world has changed in seven days and your immediate awareness has not.