by Jose A. Colon Rivera

Created on: May 24, 2008

Nothing stays the same, everything evolves, and so has news media. From the basic newspapers of old, to the advent of radio and television, it is easier than ever to know what is going on in the planet; better yet, in the universe.

I remember a long time ago, while I lived in the mountains in Puerto Rico, if we wanted to have the newspaper, we needed to travel to the local town in order to obtain it. So radio was our preferred mean of information. We listened to a lot of radio then.

Television became popular in the sixties; and with television, news became more interesting. We finally could see the person that was talking to us. There were only three channels on those days in Puerto Rico, WKAQ, WABA and the local government sponsored TV station. Cable really did not become popular until decades later. I guess it has always being tradition to get the news at 6:00 p.m. or 10:00 p.m.

Radio became almost irrelevant regarding news; since now television occupied most of our free time. The only opportunity to listen to radio was while driving to and from work; and most people preferred to listen to music, versus the news.

Something spectacular happened at the end of the seventies, computers came to the attention of the general public. But really, in the eighties and early nineties, the old Commodore 64, 128, TRS 80, and Wang were used mostly for word processing and few games when we had the opportunity and the boss was not around.

A new/old phenomenon became popular in the nineties, and that was talk radio. Talk radio has being around forever, but since radio's popularity drop, old radio personalities had being almost forgotten. It took Rush Limbaugh to revive old AM radio and serve as the "voice of the opposition" in the early nineties. From that point on, radio talk show personalities Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck, occupy number one through three of the most listened syndicated shows on radio in the United States.

The late nineties saw the increased popularity of the Internet, and the advent of email. The early 2000s saw the development of another phenomenon: the blogosphere. These two made news accessible to all with only a few keystrokes. But talk radio is a good counterbalance to what has become the increased bias of news channels.

A few comedians have started mocking news shows, with a very skewed view of the issues. This is troublesome since especially young people listen to these shows and tend to believe everything that the "newscasters" say, independently of what the real facts are.

Today, we have more opportunities to than ever to know what is going on in the world and what the issues that affect our daily lives are. But as always, in order to really know what is going on, you need to do your own research. Usually, the truth is between the two extremes. I tend to believe those who provide their sources, so I can independently verify their stories. In the words of Ronald Reagan, "trust, but verify".

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