To be well informed, seek diverse views

Recent letters on this page lamenting alleged lies, distortions, manipulations of truth, and witch-hunt mentality of the "far-right-wing-wacko" media and encouraging all to ignore these "faux-news-outlets" display the very bias they so self-righteously condemn.

Such closed-mindedness on both left and right ignores the old but accurate adage "the truth lies somewhere in the middle." It defies the universal truth that no one person, party, or ideology can possibly be 100 percent correct 100 percent of the time on every issue.

If one consciously limits their informational intake to only one side, then it is irrefutable that they are missing some portion of the truth and are therefore choosing to be ill informed. Intellectual honesty dictates that if one only watches MSNBC and ignores Fox News; only reads The New York Times and ignores The Wall Street Journal; only listens to NPR and ignores WIND, and only surfs MoveOn.org and ignores NewsMax.com, one is irrefutably choosing to be ill informed.

To be as fully knowledgeable as possible, one must consciously and dispassionately consume as broad a spectrum of news, views, opinions, and perspectives as possible. Then filter all this information through one's own intellect, reason, logic, and life experiences to determine for oneself where the truth actually lies on any particular issue.

Enough with the hypocritical condemnations, pointing of self-righteous fingers, admonitions to narrow our perspectives, and to simple-mindedly ignore one side or the other. The only sane course is for all to widen their informational intake and actually use their own brains.

Our representative republic can only be better for it.

John Kauck

Grayslake