Politics & Current Events

Politics & current events involve the latest news, scandals and controversies involving the political arena, social issues and world events. You might say that current events are those news events which might one day become historical subjects. Keeping up with politics and current events is not just a civic duty for the American voter, but it allows a person to maintain a sense of where our culture, society and economy are headed.

Staying informed about politics and current events stories requires a person to do a lot of reading and listening and even a little bit of watching. Where you get the news is important, because you can get your primary explanations of world events from newspapers, magazines, books, news websites on the the Internet, blogs, cable television, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, PBS, C-Span or talk radio. You can learn most of what you know about politics from the water cooler at work, your neighbor down the street or your spouse.

The important thing is you back up your sources, as they say in the journalism field. Don't have one primary source of political news and simply filter everything else through that news source. Many of the media and other sources I mentioned above aren't hard news at all, but deal with opinions and commentary. While you might find these comments entertaining, encouraging or reassuring, if that's your source for news, you're uninformed or (worse) misinformed. So I would suggest you diversify the news and opinions you get about current events.

That diversification is probably best served reading a sober news and current events magazine or two.

Politics & Current Events Magazines

One of the best ways to keep track of current events is to read the top news magazines on the newsstands. I'll give a brief review of each of the best current events magazines to read. While I will mention a slant to one side or the other, I would urge you not seek out only the magazines which reinforce your point-of-view, no matter which side of the political debate you're on. Listen to both sides of the argument in their own words, or else you simply won't be informed on the subject.

TIME Magazine

Time Magazine is the elder statesman of the politics & current events magazines. TIME is well-written and highly readable, covering a wide variety of subjects, from news, politics, finance, education, entertainment and sports. Time Magazine has a liberal bias, no doubt, but that makes it a good way for conservatives to keep up with what's really on the minds of liberals out there, instead of being told what liberals think by the impeachable testimony of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.

My real complaint about TIME Magazine is its heavy-handed approach to subscriptions, which in my mind is unforgivable. As soon as your subscription time is up, you'll receive a notice of overdue payment. I guess the accountants at Time have figured out this approach makes them more money than it loses them, but it's a good way to lose subscribers like me.

On the other hand, the actual publication is first rate. The photography is excellent, the articles are in-depth and well-researched. Also, the balance of conservative to liberal columnists isn't nearly as bad as conservative talkers would have you think. In fact, you'll get widely different perspectives in even one magazine.

U.S. News & World Report Magazine

US News & World Report is a conservative leaning current events magazine with slightly different stories written in an interesting style. Conservatives and Republicans would tell you this news magazine has a "slight conservative bias". Like Time and Newsweek, this magazine offers international and domestic news, editorials giving their spin on those stories, letters to the editor and a quotes of the week section. You'll also find more advice sections than you would in Time or Newsweek Magazine, such as "Best of" lists and the like.

U.S. News & World Report is a good magazine subscription to have if you're trying to balance out the coverage of the other two major news magazines, so all you Democrats should be reading from this publication. At the same time, you G.O.P. backers out there should be reading more than this magazine.

The variety you get in the U.S. News and World Report involves the subject matter, which might involve travel, adventure, business and technology. You might say the periodical is written for a more upper class demographic in mind, which is natural, given that the magazine is targeted at conservatives (fiscal conservatives, in this case). I know there are plenty of poor conservatives out there, too - I live in Texas - but you know what I'm talking about.

Newsweek Magazine

Newsweek Magazine reports the news in a straightforward fashion and probably lets less bias slip into their pages than any of the big three politics & current events magazines. I applaud the integrity of the staff of Newsweek Magazine, though that also means the current events articles don't have the punch a more emotionally charged article would have. The photography is first rate in Newsweek, probably better than U.S. News & World Report, but not consistently as good as Time Magazine.

When reading Newsweek, you'll get both solid feature articles and editorials, though the news reporting and journalism is their forte. The subjects range from news and current events to business, society, technology, arts and entertainment. Occasionally, you'll read a special report. The political cartoons are excellent. The pop culture critics are informative, if you're interested in staying somewhat relevant pop culturally.

You could say that Newsweek Magazine is a news and current events publication for intellectuals, and that's been said countless times before. I suppose if what you mean by intellectual is a sober analysis willing to see both sides of the story and listen to different viewpoints rationally, then I guess Newsweek does cater to the more intellectual minds in our culture. That being said, there's nothing more complicated or heavy than you'll find in Time or the News & World Report. I would say Newsweek Magazine is a magazine for moderates. That probably means conservatives will think it's for liberals and progressives will think it's for neo-cons.

How Do I Know Who To Trust?

I would say you don't anyone. Verify everything. Every single person you talk to has a personal, even psychological connection to their political opinions. Nobody rises above the political fray to give a purely intellectual opinion on politics. Whatever life experiences this person has, they help form the opinions of that person. When these people study politics and current events, they naturally seize on the words, quotes and sayings that reinforce their own personal opinions and experiences, so they don't arrive at an answer in a purely rational fashion. In other words, everyone has an axe to grind.

People naturally gravitate towards the opinions they agree with. Online political talk has only reinforced that notion, because you're likely to seek out the websites that reinforce your worldview. It's irritating to hear someone hammer home opinions the opposite of yours, because it's a human reflex to want to answer every claim and accusation with a reply. As they say, it makes you want to throw a shoe at the tv.

But a smart person tries to challenge their mind and their opinions as much as humanly possible.

Make An Educated Decision

Aristotle said, "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." I guess that's why they call him a philosopher, because that's incredibly wise and true. Just because you are listening to this liberal claptrap or that conservative blowhard, it's doesn't mean you have to accept their word. But too many times in our society these days, we take the shortcut of letting our political commentators paraphrase what our political opponents are saying and thinking.

When you let Rush Limbaugh tell you what liberals "really think", you are taking a leap of faith that Rush Limbaugh isn't misquoting and mischaracterizing his political opponents. And if he's not right or he's got their political motives all wrong, then you aren't talking about politics and current events, but you're talking about a fantasy world that doesn't exist.

When you let Keith Olbermann tell you what's in the minds of his conservative opponents, you are trusting that Keith Olbermann has the perspective and patience enough to paraphrase the G.O.P.'s point of view correctly. And if Olbermann doesn't get the story straight when giving his opinions about that story, you're once again entering a world of make-believe politics that has no bearing on the current state of the world.

So when you ask who you should trust, don't trust only one person. Don't trust any one group of people. In the end, trust yourself and your own rational processes. Sift through all the data and factoids and spin and decide who has it right.

Read History to Give Perspective

The best way to get perspective about politics and current events is to read history accounts and draw lessons and parallels from those accounts. History is largely the politics & current events of yesteryear. While the people reporting historical events have their own biases, they are a lot less likely to have biases about something that happened 200 years ago than something that is happening right now. History allows hindsight and perspective, and history tends to create consensus (at least if you go back far enough).

Reading history to gain perspective about today's politics and current events allows you to then tackle opinions in the current day and use your own studied mind to make decisions and form opinions. That's what the Founding Fathers did. They studied history a lot. That's one of the main reasons why they had the genius to build a Constitution which has worked for some 220 years. The Founders of this country formed a government built on checks and balances, which is essentially a system based on mutual distrust.

Democracy is built on distrust of any one person having complete and total authority to govern. So when you want to form opinions on the politics and current events important to our democracy, it's a democratic virtue that you should distrust any one authority on the news.