The pressure to have an opinion about everything

We are giving up our subscription to the daily newspaper, the paper version that gets delivered to our door each day, as of the start of the new year. I have mixed feelings about doing so; on the one hand, I want to support newspapers and a free press, on the other hand, I have grown weary of modern journalism and its insistence on having to dissect everything ad nauseam in order to 'present the facts', and on its insistence that everyone has to have an opinion about every issue reported on. Their contribution to the polarization (especially political) we see in society at present is considerable. They are no longer neutral purveyors of the news. The fact of the matter is that many newspapers and TV stations are partisan, supporting either liberal or conservative sides, and no matter how they try to disguise that they are not able to do so. Their partisan stance always shines through whatever is reported. And that is the major reason why I won't miss the daily newspaper, and why I have reduced the time I spend watching TV news. I find both very stressful; they 'invade' the peace of daily life that is so hard to come by, and they force readers and viewers to take sides, to have an opinion about everything (regardless of whether readers and viewers are well-informed about specific issues or not). The most stressful thing I know is people who spout their (often-uninformed) opinions about everything under the sun, but if you ask them how they know what they say is true, their answer is that they read it in one or another newspaper, or worse, on social media. Surprisingly, intelligent people fall into this trap as well; 'I read it/heard it in the news' (therefore it must be true) is a standard comment in so many conversations and discussions. What surprises me is that this comment often ends an interesting discussion, because the person who utters it expresses little to no interest in exploring a specific issue further, in other words, no interest in going deeper, under the surface, to learn about whether what they profess to be true or false, is really so. 

When I am asked my opinion about a specific issue these days, I often answer 'I don't know' or 'I don't have an opinion'. This is the truth. Often I don't have an opinion about a specific issue because I am not informed about it, and I don't want to be pressured into uttering an opinion I neither stand for nor have reflected upon. The latter is very important to me these days; I want the time to reflect on the issues that come my way. I also appreciate the freedom to reject issues that do not interest me. In other words, I am not interested in having an opinion about absolutely everything. Firstly, it is impossible to have an opinion about absolutely everything, and secondly, having an opinion about absolutely everything is characteristic of superficiality. If you ask me about a scientific issue, I can most likely answer your question or have an opinion about it, e.g. vaccination or cancer treatment, because I have studied and worked in science for many years and consider myself reasonably informed. If you ask me about a political issue, I can tell you what I may prefer in politics, but I cannot say that my answer is an informed opinion, because I know very little about politics, and it would be stupid of me to argue stubbornly for my way of thinking. I would have to concede to politicians or those who are well-informed about politics in a political discussion. The problem nowadays is that few people are willing to say 'I don't know'. Few people are willing to listen to the experts tell them about a specific issue. Few people are willing to really learn about an issue. Many people will argue and stubbornly continue to argue for their point of view in the face of truth and facts that prove their opinions to be false. If you want to be informed, there are many ways to get informed, but you have to be willing to invest the time needed to read and to reflect upon what you read. You have to be willing to talk to the experts and read what they have written. And if you want to remain neutral in a partisan world, you need to be informed about what both sides stand for. Actually, many issues have multiple sides, not just two sides. It is entirely possible to remain neutral, to want a non-partisan world without it necessarily being an overly politically-correct world. Neutrality and political correctness are not the same thing. Neutrality (at least for me) implies the desire to acknowledge that there are multiple sides to an issue and to reflect upon the associated pros and cons. One will always have opinions about some issues important to oneself; one cannot have opinions about absolutely every societal issue.