Jon Stewart and the outstanding writers at The Daily Show recently did an outstanding job illustrating the hypnotic effect of "talking points". These are the collections of short, sound bite-worthy phrases used by representatives of one side or the other (everyone shares the guilt here) all over the "news" channels to drill home a particular opinion.
Eventually, they hope people will hear the lines repeated enough that they blindly accept the statements as fact. Even better, they hope some of these drones will actually begin using the phrases themselves in speaking with their friends. "Talking points: they’re true because they’re said a lot."
One more reason to avoid the talking heads channels and find some actual news to read.
We did this in psychoanalysis – where a repitition of a fact is used to cover up its own implications. Here in Australia, the phrase “no more than 10%” was used often to describe the stolen generation, and became a kind of screen for the fact that children were forcebly removed from families. I don’t know if avoiding all news helps, but certainly, paying attention and remaining impartial is good advice.