By BONNIE J. GORDON

One of the most powerful factors pushing polarization is, of course, the rise of social media. People follow pages or people that reflect their own politics and then get “news” from them in their feed. If most of your friends agree with your politics, they’re weighing in and sharing things with you that you’re inclined to accept as true.

This is fine as far as it goes, but sometimes friends and other sources you’re inclined to trust, re-tweet questionable information. You trust THEM, so you trust what they sent you.

Sharing information that you haven’t verified is bad, but sharing a story when you haven’t read past the headline is very bad. Do not do this. Even if the story is from a source you trust, such as a reporter or pundit, things are not always what they seem.

In a recent video that went viral on social media and was picked up in the press, a group of teenage boys in MAGA hats seemed to be menacing a tribal elder. The story turned out to be much more nuanced, but not before mainstream media weighed in, as well as plenty of other people. The various sides of this story continue to circulate, with everyone assigning blame to the side they don’t favor, but the whole situation was complicated and seemed to be confusing even to the people in the video. Even mainstream media can leap to conclusion based on its biases, though reporters are less likely to do it than tweeters or posters on Facebook.

If you are not on the same page as most of your political party or tendency on some issue, the media you generally consume may reveal bias you never expected. It’s not nearly as obvious on issues where you share the same point of view. This happens to me pretty often as my point of view on a number of issues doesn’t line up with my political affiliation, but if you’re in the mainstream in your party, it’s even more essential to be on the lookout for bias. I’ve tuned out news sources that persistently present the news in a biased fashion, even if I agree with most of their political stands. News is different from punditry which makes no pretense of objectivity. But pundits should not be presenting unverified facts.

Does your news source routinely refer to people and groups as “fascists” or “communists” when these terms don’t apply, or it’s certainly questionable if they do? Do they call groups “terrorists” without proof or claim to know the hearts and minds of individuals or groups when they have no evidence? “The heartless soldier gunned down the innocent demonstrator” is an example. What I want to know here is what the parties were doing, not what was in their minds at the moment, which the reporter can’t possibly know.

I try to read/watch/listen to material from many sides because of the inevitability of bias, as well as a desire to understand the points of view I don’t agree with. I highly recommend this, at least every so often.

Most important of all, keep your own biases in mind when consuming media.