One of the most universal values that make a society is very basic: integrity. There are of course other, very common, very important values, but I choose to focus on this. Without integrity, there is no trust. With no trust there are no relationships. With no relationships there is no commerce, no community, no government- no reason to care what happens to the others around you.

Integrity as we know it has been compromised. When you must fact check every piece of news that you come across, there is no trust in the reporters and thus the media. The only way to truly know what happened is to witness it all yourself. And I have no desire to witness many of the things that are going in the world. I don't want to witness slavery, rape, murder, abuse or racism. I want to read about how the political situation that surround them. I want to hear about successes and failures in combatting them. I want to be told the facts as they are, as unbiased as possible, and be able to form my own opinion.

The media is supposed to be able to keep us in the loop with world events, and keep us on the pulse of our government. But sloppiness is becoming frighteningly common, as these companies strive to report first rather than accurately. To be human is to err, is how the saying goes. But that is where your fellow humans are supposed to come in and you cover each other's errs. For a reporter, an editor, a fact checker or a fellow reporter can easily come to your aid. It is what they are paid to do. All parties involved are failing if it passes through the chain of review that we as consumers have been lead to believe exists for all this time. Perhaps they did exist once, and have gone by the wayside since. Even ignoring the inaccurate news passed on day by day, there are "internet trolls" and also just genuinely manipulative people that want to spread lies and misinformation.

Naturally, I want to believe the best in humans. I'm sure most people do, deep down. But when we know that people are misinforming us, not even out of malice, how can we expect the truth? How can we trust?