The media is a valuable means of understanding events and the direction of society. That is why watching the news and reading newspapers matter: we need to understand what is happening in the society we inhabit. But a problem arises here. The media is often biased. Biased reporting shapes our perspectives on society and our thoughts about particular events or people. Its influence is enormous. It may even affect how we behave within communities such as our country, neighborhood, or family. If we consume news from only one political perspective, we begin thinking from that perspective; if we read only newspapers with the opposite outlook, our thoughts may follow them instead.
Consider the taxi driver in the passage above, who calls Katharina a “whore.” Had he not read the Zeitung, he would not have described her in those terms. The media influences even the way we think: the language it uses, the structure of its arguments, and, more fundamentally, the values it emphasizes. The news and newspapers we encounter profoundly shape us. Recognizing this is essential. We must learn to distinguish whether the news we read is biased, which claims are more convincing, what we ourselves think, and what we should believe.