We live in a world of ever-growing convenience. There are so many options as to where we can get our news, especially online. With the simple click of a mouse, we can read newspapers and blogs about current events and issues in almost every part of the world.

But the sad truth is that we don’t. We want a “one-stop shop” for our news. We have been reduced to a level of passivity when it comes   to news gathering.

Let’s consider popular news blogging site Huffington Post. Most of the content on the Huffington Post is from reporters of news outlets like the Associated Press or CNN. Oftentimes the site’s original content is analyses of what mainstream media reports.

It packages, filters and chooses the news, which is very helpful, especially with the mass amount of media content available on the Internet. But we must remember that the Huffington Post is a blog and not a journalistic institution because it does not focus on research and firsthand reporting like the New York Times or the Washington Post.

The Huffington Post gives us that “one-stop shop,” and ultimately it makes life easier for a lot of us. But, when we let one or two news sources be our end-all be-all, we do ourselves a great disservice. We weaken our ability to be media literate and fail to ask questions about what’s there and why and to notice what’s not there and ask why yet again.

Another prominent name in the blogosphere is Talking Points Memo. TPM increased in relevance after it revealed former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ firing of nine United States attorneys, which led to Gonzales’ resignation. The impact TPM made was felt throughout mainstream media because it did the job of mainstream media — reporting, researching and news gathering. TPM goes beyond what the Huffington Post does in terms of commentary and analysis in that it focuses on actual reporting and researching.

I am not saying that the Huffington Post or TPM are inept sources for good journalism. These two blogs are pioneering online journalism. TPM and the Huffington Post have found a way to use this media and adapt it to the Internet by reporting stories in real time, updating frequently, linking to other sources and keeping the lines of communication open with comments and opinion pieces.

My issue is with those who choose not to embrace and take advantage of the endless possibilities to search and gather news from a plethora of media sources online or otherwise, and instead, focus on only one news source, whether that be the Huffington Post or TPM.  No one source is infallible — not the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, MSNBC or FOX.    

Actual learning takes place when we actively seek information through research and not just assume everything in the news to truly depict the world’s actions. Media literacy is about sharpening one’s ability to use their critical thinking skills to decipher messages within all media. We must cultivate our brains with multiple news outlets with diverse points of view. We need to question what lies behind the media — the motives, the money, the values and the ownership.

In doing that, we train ourselves to critically think about all of the information and messages we are seeing, watching or hearing and to be aware of how these factors influence content. When we let one news outlet give us all our information we lose our ability to be media literate because every news source has an agenda.

Tracey Casseus is a senior journalism major. Email her at tcasseu1@ithaca.edu.