By Kat Boushee

In an age where “news” is a broad term, attentions spans are short and the media churns out stories faster than they can be digested by the public, it can be hard to know when you are interpreting current events for yourself and when you’re merely absorbing someone else’s point of view.

Parody has become an important part of the fabric of our news media in the United States. Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have gained such a following that politicians willingly go on their shows to be embarrassed simply because they know there is a faction of people who get their news solely from parody news shows.

I enjoy watching both Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, but more and more I find myself agreeing with Vladimir Nabokov’s statement that, “Satire is a lesson, parody is a game.”

Meaning, that by trivializing the news and current events, we are creating a world in which other news publications must sensationalize the news and manipulate headlines and quotes to gain a readership.

I started out my CCSU career thinking I’d go into education, and I taught for many years at a children’s theatre. Perhaps it is because of that background in education that I find myself asking: is this a teachable moment?

I am a strong believer in reading the news before watching it on television. It is easier, in my opinion, for one to personally analyze each word when you can read it at your leisure as opposed to hearing it spoken at you.

What I am saying is that maybe the time has come in our society where we need to learn to read the news on our own and turn to the television merely to see another viewpoint or to get a fresh spin on what we’ve just read.

Critical reading and analyzing seems to be a lost art and by only getting the news from the television, I fear that we are further consigning these abilities to history.

I’m clearly not blaming Stewart, Colbert, or even television in general for this lack of attention span on the part of the American public, and I know that this storm has been brewing for quite some time. I’m simply wondering if we are relying on the crutch of pre-packaged thoughts in the place of doing actual critical thinking.

So please take your news, however you happen to come across it, and analyze it with your own brain before consulting someone else’s.