Colbert's funny as hell and as likeable as they come. But despite his reputation, he's not exactly an "outside the box" thinker.
He's a deeply religious catholic, is patriotic and apparently believes in the rule of law.
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He's a deeply religious catholic, is patriotic and apparently believes in the rule of law.
He attributes the "greatest threat to security" to not voting and not watching political money. I would politely disagree. Our "greatest threat to security" is that our people take their opinions from the mouths of celebrities and politicians, and not through careful consideration of the facts.
How can you blame our people for taking their opinion from celebrities, entertainers, and politicians when they are more informative than the avenues that are supposed to inform us?
It's a really sad statement on the current state of things; but there's a degree of personal responsibility in not taking this narrative unilaterally, we have these amazing tools of message boards and other channels with which to chat with people firsthand around the world, and while I can't say it's any substitute for proper reporting, it is certainly "another tool" for constructing a more accurate picture of things.
No they don't, they take their opinions from their parents and friends at an early age, then spend the rest of their lives choosing to listen to celebrities and politicians who confirm those beliefs.
This essentially reduces the problem down however, saying that the twisted narratives of media are resultant of a system where early education teaches you to simply accept that message. (I speak in what would be hyperbole in most cases for the situation you suggest, where the parents and friends advocate taking narratives "as faith"), and at that point it's a bit of a chicken and egg problem.
The parents and friends lived in a system that perpetuated their narratives, so they communicate this to their children, to create a new generation of etc.
So where do you break the cycle? I'm not going to be sticking my nose into someone else's parenting, as much as I think it might do them good. Maybe I should, but I haven't been convinced yet. At this point the best approach I've come up with is just trying to _talk_ to more people. Prompt them to think; and be communicative.
There are some unbiased and quality sources of reporting, even on television. E.g. PBS's Newshour does a good job.
More importantly, there is a lot of useful material outside of television land. For instance, Foreign Affairs does a good job covering both sides of defense issues. HIR, Brown Journal of World Affairs, and similar publications are also high-quality.
I think the real problem is that we want our news to be entertaining (or at least not work-like), but truly understanding any given issue in the news requires consuming large quantities of evidence prepared and presented from various perspectives. And that's not always as fun as watching (or making fun of) Fox/CNN/NBC/etc. In fact, sometimes it's pretty boring.