Discovering Politics

Thinking of when I first remember seeing politics in the media takes me as far back as second grade. Being an avid fan of reading anything at age 7, I would often scan newspapers for something of interest and come across political coverage. A year later I began to understand politics, their significance to society, and that they were a frequent subject of the media. Without media messages I still would have knowledge of politics through my parents, who educated me about it around this age and whom politics are of great importance for. But media did help shape my interest about some political topics that could get controversial.
The TV news is frequently on in our house, primarily CNN, since we like to catch up on the news while too busy to sit down and read the paper (say, getting ready for work or school). In third grade one day, I listened closer to some of the political opinions of a newscaster, interested in the topic. Two announcers were commenting on a politician for something he was doing, what he stood for. I believe it was Bill Clinton with the subject of his second presidential term coming to an end. Because the announcers started to get boisterous and opinionated on it, the excitement was slightly infectious and it caught on to me too. Exposure to this is hardly intrusion, politics should get voices to rise because that what it’s about! Coming to a middle ground of what’s best for society based on different people’s opinions.
Eleven years later, politics remain very important to me. Knowing that some media like to present politics in a biased manner I try to stay away from those, and fortunately I can usually tell between facts in politics vs. embellishment. Without a doubt the media helps create interest and hype surrounding politics because it calls attention to what’s going on in the government. People who are ignorant about politics can still get a taste of it if they occasionally come across some media regarding it. Sometimes political controversies are silly to get all twisted up about, but I don’t blame media for creating that kind of attention because people really should be interested in politics. Rarely do I find a topic impossible to take seriously as I have a strong opinion on most political issues.