I’ve noticed that a certain trend is on the rise. It’s troubling that I see it happening all over social media and yet no one seems to be talking about it. What’s worse is the media isn’t covering it either!

Okay, I’m just going to come out and say it: I’m tired of people saying “the media isn’t covering (insert issue here)!”

It happened after the recent terrorist attacks that happened in Paris and Lebanon. We saw an abundance of posts and articles about Paris flood Facebook and Twitter but very few about Lebanon. As a result, posts started popping up shaming news organizations for not talking about Lebanon as much as Paris.

While there was certainly an element of bias (especially in the case of corporate news organizations like Fox News and CNN), there was also the fact that most of us found out about these attacks through social media, instead of by accessing news sites.

The problem is that we’ve gotten so used to having the news come to us – via status updates and shared posts on social media – that we don’t look for it ourselves.When big events happen, we wait for updates to show up on Twitter and Facebook. We take in what our friends like and share as the only news that’s happening in the world.

What it comes down to is the fact that we are illiterate when it comes to the reading for news sources, and so we blame the news for not giving us the news, instead of ourselves for not seeking the real news out in the first place.

It’s a statement that holds back actual conversations on current events that are happening around the world. Instead of focusing on the topic at hand, we end up discussing why the media is biased and untrustworthy – which, for the most part, are untrue statements. So we change the story and talk about the wrong thing when we say, “The media isn’t talking about Lebanon!” It’s disgraceful and disrespectful to the victims and the journalists.

I won’t be the first or the last person to tell you that the media is, in fact, covering the issue you’re worried about. There are thousands of  journalists working hard out in the middle of things to make sure the people know about the issue they’re in charge of reporting on. Otherwise you wouldn’t know about it in the first place.

I understand we live in a confusing time. There is so much information being pushed on us through so many different channels that it is hard to sit down and “read the news.” What news organizations should you trust? What issues should you focus on? How much is enough news for one day? It’s a lot to think about. But it’s important we break out of this undereducated cycle and become active consumers of the news again.

We need to get out of our news dfeeds and read the news.