As media consumers today we want soundbites.

The Islamic Center Debate is the epitome of soundbite journalism. This is the journalism of brief opinions and summarizing headlines. News in brevity. Because of this we end up hearing only the loudest voices. Whereas before we might have been able to say that the loudest voice was the story itself, now more important is its pre-established bias. So the way we come to understand the news is through someone elses subjectivity.

It's easy for me to blame this on journalism. But I think that's wrong because it's we, the consumers, that want the soundbites. It's an entirely new (mis)understanding of efficiency. It seems to us the faster we get information the better. And so twitter qualifies as news. Facebook updates and headlines. We say we know who Glenn Beck is and the Tea Party, but most people have done no research or study for themselves. They listen to soundbites and attach themselves to one pole or the other. For the people I know, mostly to the anti-Tea party. And yet most of them have hardly followed the news on Tea Party happenings at all. They merely attach themselves to the soundbite that seems immediately more appropriate. They hate the tea party but they don't really know why.

Responsible journalism can't exist if there is no responsible public.   

So what do I mean by responsible? I guess I mean perspective, depth, and content. When we eat soundbites we sacrifice those qualities for the ease of consumption. It's easier for us to latch on to pre-conceived biases than responsibly create our own. The danger to this is that we become dependent on ease. In other words, apathetic.

How do you teach the public to read the news responsibly? In other words, how do we instill the foundations of a responsible citizenry? If we want only soundbites can there ever be depth to our relationship with the times?