By reading these words now, you are experiencing the thoughts of someone who can potentially change your opinion on any matter they wish to. I can sway your mind to eat more sugar or fruit just as easily as I can convince you to vote for the left or right in the upcoming election. Well, maybe that’s wishful thinking on my part, but there are definitely those in the media who can.

The content that is aired on our radio stations, printed in our newspapers and displayed on our websites all have the ability to twist our logic to conform to others’ opinions and standards. They influence our choices on what to buy for lunch. They tell us who to choose for an election, and they call it reporting.

With headlines streaming into our newsfeeds, remarks about how Romney has already lost and cannot come back seem almost prophetic. This influences the undecided voter to move away from pushing the button in favor of Romney all because of bold-faced type on a computer screen. They want you to believe that Romney cannot recover from the staggering information released through speeches videotaped via cell phones, the same way others want you to see how Obama sidesteps questions in order to present you with a positive image of his campaign.

With a staggering number of undecided voters in our country and an election coming up in mere weeks, a number of opinion-enforcing authors and companies are pushing themselves into the open at a furious rate. Their words force you to analyze only what they want you to know, throwing away the information that could be interpreted as opposition elsewhere. Our opinions become tainted by their logic, and those who never read the paper or only get their news from “The Daily Show” are at the highest risk of being controlled.

It may be a horribly time-constraining way of moving forward, but we must research our information and not be fooled into believing the words “above the fold.” We cannot let writers and newscasters be our only source for information, tempting us with their easily chosen thoughts. Our opinions need to be our opinions, and our thoughts have to be our own thoughts; anything less would be playing into their hands for their desires of our country