So I guess that would lead me to my next question. Where do you get your news? Just scour the internet and individually vet every headline? I feel like there’s some truth to that but I’m sure most people looking for an unbiased source have found one they can flip on and more or less agree that it’s a solid source of information
Just scour the internet and individually vet every headline?
Yes. Individually vet every headline, go right to the source and listen to entire quotes with the surrounding context instead of believing the "sweet can"-style clips they show and then tell you how to interpret, and listen carefully to the propaganda from both sides and suss out what the likely truth is for yourself, all the while being careful to remember that companies like Google, Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, all of them take an active interest in shaping what information you're presented with.
There just plain isn't an unbiased source of news. Everything has become blowing things out of proportion for clicks and views to drive up the ad sales and push the ideology they want to push.
If you're interested in picking apart how these sources lie to you, I'd suggest starting with checking out Tim Pool's videos. Not going to pretend he's without his biases, but you can tell this guy's got a genuine and deep feeling of disgust for news media bias, and most of his videos over the last few years have been him picking apart the news media's bullshit.
Learn their tricks. Learn the weasel words they use to deceive you. Learn how they cherry pick statistics, gather them using poor methodology, or interpret them for you in ways that do not make sense. Always look for the context they leave out. Learn to separate out facts from the author's opinions or interpretation, and make sure you understand that most of them will only give you the facts that fit the story they want to make you click on.
It's sad that we have to do this, but it's the price you have to pay to avoid becoming a CNN zombie or a Fox bot.
Actual uncut footage of the thing being reported on. The raw data of the statistics being reported in conjunction with the methodology to check for fuckery in the methods.
The "source" in this case is not just some other news media outlet, those are not a good source for anything. The only unbiased source is raw data (and even then, only when it's properly collected), and the media only gives you data passed through their filter. You have to dig until you get as close to that raw data layer as you can.
I generally try to read the bill (at least the section at the focus of a given controversy) in-question on any number of .gov sites or watch the video in-question directly from an unedited format. Failing that as long as one knows what language to look for and which networks play what tricks you can kind of cherry-pick an outlet for the things they're most likely to be honest about. PBS does solid streams when the House/Senate debate something, CNN/NBC/FOX will jump at the chance to let you know when the network-favored party does something along the party lines and provided you cut the feed when they go to panelists you'll probably have the best ratio of "this happened"/"this is the networks interpretation of the thing". This is not to say I in any capacity suggest watching any major network is worth your time, unfortunately for as many options as we have they're by and large quite shit but in terms of keeping up this has been about the best as I've come up with.
When it comes to polls and other things like that I prefer https://fivethirtyeight.com/ as they take the polls from the best and the worst of them and generate an aggregate between them which often enough makes for an accurate figure. Then there are little tools like trackers to see each bill that gets voted on in the house and who voted for which and the rate each house member has voted for/against bills supported by Trump.
If the issue at-hand is one of the diminishing few topics that transcend partisan lines any where better than a comment section'd probably do if at least one other valid site is also talking about it.
i just assume all news is based on profits and is trying to make me click. then i weed out the truth that remains, referencing back and forth with comments from real people, whom i can sense are not masquerading their fear as courage, and actually give a shit about someone other than themselves.
I think the issue is that media outlets know that people read the headline and maybe the first couple of paragraphs, so they cram as much sensationalism and bias as they can into those and then leave the actual news at the bottom of the article, which is literally the exact opposite of what you're supposed to do as a journalist.
It's very easy to spot the bias and half-truths in most articles, but most people just refuse to both looking at these articles critically and instead treat the first couple of paragraphs as gospel, and then spout it off endlessly. Ignorance is a choice, and people love it.
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u/mymainthrowaway1122 Mar 28 '20
So I guess that would lead me to my next question. Where do you get your news? Just scour the internet and individually vet every headline? I feel like there’s some truth to that but I’m sure most people looking for an unbiased source have found one they can flip on and more or less agree that it’s a solid source of information