It is clear to say, all forms of mass-media are biased to a certain extent. It is hard to find sources of knowledge today without any bias due to the extent that the ways of knowing affect our interpretation of knowledge. In real life situation it is easy to say that, emotion, language, reasoning and sense perception has an effect on the interpretation and the view of the media, but to what extent and why? Julius Malema, who is black, is a role model of many black citizens in South Africa, when he therefore discriminates the white race, with harsh and degrading language; some of his followers will follow his belief, without any certain reasoning. Yet of course there are the black, which then use the reasoning of being discriminated against in history, as a reason for discrimination today. Looking at the media, they publish what gets them the views and attention seeing that that is the aim of such a business. If this is therefore a company which is biased towards a certain race, the event could be put to the extreme to the extent that not all the information which we see is entirely true. An example of this could be the media from a white raced culture such as Germany, who interpret the event of Malema as pure discrimination against the white race. In contrast, a reporting mass-media company biased towards the black race, will use their reasoning and ways of knowing to maybe not support Julius Malema, but to make this event not look like an act enchanting discrimination. The people who then read this article would therefore change their interpretation of the event, depending on whether or not they find the source trustworthy. The media can therefore not always be trusted since they aim to gain attention and make money, due to the exaggeration of knowledge. Therefore one can say that secondary sources of information or knowledge, could have been influenced by different ways of knowing of a secondary party, altering the actual truth.
Looking at the trustworthiness of authorities as a source of knowledge, this can be a lot more truthful, compared to the media or websites. These authorities usually do not or avoid putting a certain way of knowing into their interpretation and therefore into source of knowledge. They would for example only state what really happened at the University of Johannesburg, which would be: Julius Malema, led students of the University of Johannesburg to sing: "Shoot the boere [farmers], they are rapists” on the 11 March 2010. Since the purpose of authorities is to give an exact statement as to what happened at a certain time and place, this source can be seen as one of the most trustworthy, due to its reliability and accuracy.
Personal experience is most often the ultimate source of knowledge to the extent that it is a primary source of information. There is no secondary stage, in which the knowledge can be altered, and where a certain degree of opinion is stated. You are therefore your own source of knowledge. If you were at the speech, at that very time you would know exactly what happened and when it happened. However, personal experience cannot give you that certain bit of background information, which one often needs. You would for example not exactly know why Julius Malema was giving this speech. Also if you were under those hundreds of black people singing this song as a white man, then most certainly you would add your personal interpretation to the actual truth of the situation. Not only sense perception would alter the truth but also your personal emotions. As the only white person, one would feel crushed and discriminated against in a lot stronger way, than if one was in your own room, looking out of the window, seeing this outside. To a certain extent you only see what you want to see, however this is not always the truth. However it is safe to say that personal experience does often diverge from the reality, due to your personal interpretation.
Books can mostly be interpreted as good sources of information and knowledge due to the fact that only books with a certain standard have the chance to be published. Since the aim of publishing a book is to get a lot of sales and therefore money, the book will need to fulfill a certain standard of quality. If we take a look at somebody who would write a book on Julius Malema, then it would not just be a random author who would do so. Authors therefore usually have a high knowledge of what they are actually writing about. The information which they give is therefore often very accurate and reliable, which shows that the overall standard of the information given in books is often very high. However, looking at this from a different point of view, the author can always affect the information, by his personal interpretation due to his personal way of knowing. A good example of this would be a German author, writing about the World War. He would most write the book displaying Nazi Germany with a better image, than what they really had. This could be due to the emotion changing his interpretation of the World War, and therefore his personal opinion of the truth.
To conclude, the trustworthiness of a source of knowledge depends on its degree of reliability and to what extent it has been affected with someone’s personal opinion. Primary sources are usually considered to be the most trustworthy since they come from personal experience; many secondary sources of knowledge can also be considered reliable, such as authorities and books. In contrast mass-media puts knowledge and information to the extreme in order to gain attention of the people, and is therefore a rather iniquitous source of information. However, it is up to oneself to decide which source one can trust in and if we believe in it or not.
