To the Editor:

Dear Newtown voters,

I have a challenge for you. Over the next two weeks, I implore you to read and watch daily national news from two national sources that you do not usually follow. Branch out beyond the familiar cable channels that confirm everything that you already think. By all means watch or read your regular shows and columns, but then take that next step. This includes who you follow on Twitter. Expand your horizons and be open to other voices, other perspectives, other facts that you may not be aware of. It is a healthy and healing thing to expose ourselves to reporting and thinking that may be different than ours and to be open to that. Put down your defenses and read and listen with intent. We need to move past living in our individual silos where we discount others and surround ourselves only with those who share our beliefs.

I have been following my own advice the past month. When I seek daily news updates, I now peruse several websites in quick succession. It is extremely enlightening, and deeply disturbing, to see that some national news organizations just do not carry stories that are inconsistent with their established worldview. This just encourages the tendency in some of us to dismiss the other side. Every day civil discourse falls further and further out of reach. There are news organizations that only report one side and rarely, if ever, present additional informed perspectives and sources on an issue. Isn't that insulting? If you are not seeing representation from both sides of an issue then why are you wasting your time getting only half of the story? Aren't you smarter than that?

If we limit ourselves to this then we are letting others tell us how to think. We are not giving ourselves the opportunity to decide what we think and how we feel about really significant happenings in the world. We are not challenging ourselves. We are being lazy and not taking the privileges of our democracy seriously or respectfully. This is true particularly in the reporting of decisions, votes, and executive orders that are taking place each and every day in our government. I can promise you that these are not all being reported on by all stations.

Don't you want to be informed about the changes that are happening right now? Decisions that will affect you and your grandchildren? Well, I dare you to accept my challenge. I dare you to be strong enough to see the full picture. I dare you to use your intelligence and be an active consumer of information. If you are like me, you will notice some real differences in the quality of news providers. Don't be threatened by a different perspective. Broaden your horizons for a few weeks. I hope it will become a new habit.

Sarah Beier

7 Yogananda Street, Sandy Hook         February 17, 2017