In the quest to end racism, we need to read more diverse news sources to broaden our horizons. In an age of social media, we fail to read different news sources as we fear reading “fake news” and “false information”. That being said, it is important to keep in mind that different news sources have different biases, as such, in order to get a well-rounded viewpoint it is important to not stick to merely one end of the spectrum. Many individuals read news sources that they feel most comfortable with and that is it. You can still read your favorite news sources, but we encourage you to also branch out and read other sources as well since just reading one perspective decreases your ability to encourage diversity. By reading other news sources, you broaden your perspective on what other authors from different backgrounds think and what their thought processes are. When you read one news source or read from one perspective, you perpetuate this idea that the opposite side or other conflicting information is wrong. It also does not help that social media dialogue has not improved this diversification, but rather it has increased the disparity that already happens. 

Reading different news sources allows you to think differently and to understand what others are thinking. If you want to help in the quest to end racism, we urge you to read other news sources to help you gain an understanding of what other people read and think in order to enable you to have that discussion to possibly change their mindset and help end racism. 

There are several ways to increase the diversity of your news sources that will, in turn, give you a different perspective to enable you to see what others are thinking:

• Find your news sources on MediaBiasChart: The MediaBiasChart is an interactive chart that you can see where your news source lies in certain categories. Ad Fontes Media is a public benefit corporation that focuses on trying to define where certain news sources fall within biases. Their goal is to inform consumers on which news sources are biased and which are not. They have a methodology that reduces their own biases to give qualitative information that allows you to make a sound, logical decision to see where your biases are. This tool can be found at https://www.adfontesmedia.com/.
• Read local news: Your local news is influenced by what is going on in the area you are in. Most local news sources do not serve a purpose other than to report what is happening in the local community. This can help you stay in the loop without as much political bias. They provide a higher quality product compared to some national news stations that are located in the region. 
• Redefine who is an expert: According to a paper from the Newman Foundation at Harvard, one way to diversify your news reading is to redefine who is deemed as an expert on the subject. The article explains that we should broaden the definition to include those who have lived through the events as they can give a more emotional and more personal explanation that would connect with the readers yet still be very accurate, coming from a first-person point of view. 

All in all, we need to diversify the sources that we choose to read from for news because if we do not do this, we will not be able to have the broad perspectives that enable us to end racism. We need to understand where news biases are, find ones that are not as biased (and read from both ends of the spectrum). and reclassify who is an expert as we can find stories and experiences. By finding sources that are trustworthy, and diversified our knowledge is expanded upon and we become closer to ending racism once and for all.