Here’s a shocker – the Internet changes things. We’re all too familiar with the troubles the newspaper industry – and media more generally – have had in recent years. Major dailies across the country have folded and bureaus have been scaled back or consolidated all the while consumers – fueled by the immediacy and access of the Internet – have set entirely new standards for their news experience.

It’s now a 24-hour, breaking news cycle with information and tidbits flying at your face at an alarming rate via television, laptops, cell phones, e-book readers and other portable electronic media. And while it may be a net positive that more people are exposed to news events in a given day, what are we missing without the gatekeepers of old? Where is the editor, the producer, that can give me the context and feed me the information that I need to know? The answer is, increasingly and unfortunately, they’re disappearing.

You see, there used to be a whole army of professionals whose job it was to sort through all the events of the day and bring to you the most relevant and impacting stories. The sections of a newspaper, for instance, aren’t just a cluster-fuck of random stories. They’re carefully selected to provide you and me the greatest overall news experience.

What’s the problem putting folks in the driver’s seat of their news consumption? The problem is we have a tendency to seek out news and views that support our existing opinions and interests, and the Internet is quickly becoming the channel of choice for consumption, which exacerbates this tendency. The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism said earlier this year that 21% of Americans routinely rely on just one website for their news and information. Imagine, then, if the one website was Huffington Post. Now compare that person’s experience with someone who got all of their news from FoxNews.com. Now this isn’t a scientific experiment but I’d imagine those individuals would have a vastly different understanding of culture, politics and the world.

The truth is we’re just not responsible enough to seek out news that’s good for us. I can’t remember ever searching online for Middle East policy news. But I read the paper and watch the news and rely on professionals to tell me what I need to know on important issues. And this is exactly the reason I’m concerned about Google’s recent retooling of its Google News page.

Now, as you may have noticed, Google generates personalized news feeds that are based on the interests that you’ve indicated in an array of subject areas – sports, world news, politics, etc. – all extending the personalization of news. The result is a consumer who reinforces ideas with like-mindedness while ignoring the richness of opinions and views that would ideally form one’s worldview.

So it’s no wonder we’re a polarized nation politically. Increasingly we’re being pushed in one way or the other, forced to pick sides and endlessly fed news and information that promote a particular and limited ideology. Do yourself a favor, log off your favorite news site and go buy a paper, spread it out on the table and examine the what’s in front of you … it may not be here for long.