¹ A couple of days ago I asked you to imagine a world in which news media could possibly be neutral. The problem is...I don't actually think that news media can ever be neutral. With humans running the show a natural bias is always assumed, if computers ran the show their analysis of humans would be skewed due to the unpredictable nature of people. I do feel however that changes in the Internet over the past few years have altered the way we get our news in a really interesting way, possibly moving the news we consume towards a less biased place.

The introduction of RSS feeds, APIs, vlogging, blogging, and other social media sites have dramatically altered the way in which many people consume informational/news content. Audiences are no longer tethered to a piece of paper or television at a certain time to receive the news for that day. They don't have to hope that the news will cover the topic that is important to them, nor do they have to remain bound to a news source they don't like simply because that's all that is available. Consuming news content doesn't have to be a one-way passive activity anymore.

The audience can now choose where they get their news from, what their news is about and when they receive the news. More importantly the user can compare the same story from multiple sources to check accuracy, comment on stories, read expert (and not so expert) analysis of a situation, search the Internet for raw facts regarding what they have read and if they feel inclined...they could even add their own opinion, analysis or knowledge to the mix.

With the Internet at our finger tips we have a broader base of news and information to choose from. By diversifying the information channels we consume, we are able to see multiple view points, therefore giving us a more vast set of information from which we can formulate our own opinions (or biases). So while this method of consuming the news does not eradicate biases from individual news outlets it does collectively give the audience a more neutral experience with the news. By giving the audience a set of stories from multiple outlets about the same news event the audience can draw their own conclusions rather than just believe what one news story from a single outlet has told them.

In many ways the audience has gained some controls over what is being fed to them, what I wonder now is what the danger of that control really is.