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How can you know what news is real?

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Re: How can you know what news is real?

#71

Post by NeedMoreTea »

jajag wrote: post #25

I find the idea that there can be an unbiased news source deeply problematic. All reporting of an event has to be from a perspective, and has to make decisions about what to report, what to leave out; what to emphasise, what to play down. An honest news source should be one that is one that is honest about its own biases.

There is nothing wrong with bias. All media has biases, and those that a required to be unbiased, such as the BBC, end up causing other biases with equality of camera time making every issue a discussion. Which has been well exploited by certain minority views.

What has changed is the mainstream media used to care a lot more about being honest. Now they often couldn't give a toss.

I don't mind media being partisan, it's always been so, and often it's revealing to see the reporting from both sides of an issue, and add the FT's take for the financial slant. I do mind that we're rapidly running out of sources that care about being honest. Murdoch ruined the Times, the Barclay Brothers ruined the Telegraph. Both now far more opinion than news. That's a loss, whatever your politics.

Re: How can you know what news is real?

#72

Post by the_af »

joaodlf wrote: post #26

I have, sadly, given up. I can't stand watching/reading the news and feeling that I am quite possibly being manipulated, so I have completely given up. Anything I do read, I mistrust. I don't want to be ignorant towards what is happening around me, but I feel like I have no choice, I don't want to become bitter and "pick a side", I prefer to remain ignorant. Even when friends say "Oh, but try this source, they are so…

> Even when friends say "Oh, but try this source, they are soooo much better", it doesn't take long to realise there is ALWAYS an agenda behind it, a political leaning... It's exhausting.

Journalism is always biased; even supposedly "objective" news outlets, by just picking which stories to emphasize or even report at all, are engaging in bias -- even when you think that the stories they do choose are "fair". This is not a bad thing, it's just a reality of life (it could be argued that objective reporting is impossible, philosophically speaking). You just have to be aware of the bias and take it into consideration.

Re: How can you know what news is real?

#74

Post by jajag »

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #71
jajag wrote: post #25

I find the idea that there can be an unbiased news source deeply problematic. All reporting of an event has to be from a perspective, and has to make decisions about what to report, what to leave out; what to emphasise, what to play down. An honest news source should be one that is one that is honest about its own biases.

There is nothing wrong with bias. All media has biases, and those that a required to be unbiased, such as the BBC, end up causing other biases with equality of camera time making every issue a discussion. Which has been well exploited by certain minority views. What has changed is the mainstream media used to care a lot more about being honest. Now they often couldn't give a toss. I don't mind media being partisan, i…

I totally agree with you - there's nothing wrong with bias, and it's completely unavoidable in the modern media context. News media needs to be honest about its biases, whilst still upholding standards of reporting & journalism.

Re: How can you know what news is real?

#75

Post by marcus_holmes »

Having run a newspaper, I know the problem is the business model. Funding by advertising is a terrible business model for journalism.

"real" journalism doesn't make any money because it's expensive to make and doesn't generate any more ad revenue than bad journalism.

Most newspapers lose money, and that's getting worse not better. So billionaires own (and subsidise) newspapers, and get to influence content.

So either we start paying for our news, or we continue with the current situation. Though it's going to get worse because we're de-training an entire generation of journalists, and the advertising revenue is shrinking.

Re: How can you know what news is real?

#76

Post by zouhair »

jankotek wrote: post #70
zouhair wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well that's short sighted. It's because of this flawed logic that a lot of Americans think they have the best education/healthcare in the World. Just now that they started to look at what is happening elsewhere that they are starting to understand what they are lacking. Here is the thing, and it works for everything in life: Knowing a thing is almost always better than not knowing it, even if it is not clear what use…

Eating junk food is not healthy...

Dying because you cannot afford insulin when you are diabetic is also a thing.

Re: How can you know what news is real?

#77

Post by donmatito »

joaodlf wrote: post #26

I have, sadly, given up. I can't stand watching/reading the news and feeling that I am quite possibly being manipulated, so I have completely given up. Anything I do read, I mistrust. I don't want to be ignorant towards what is happening around me, but I feel like I have no choice, I don't want to become bitter and "pick a side", I prefer to remain ignorant. Even when friends say "Oh, but try this source, they are so…

what if you assume that objectivity shouldn't even be a goal? I feel like reading/watching multiple sources of informations, of which you understand their bias, is quite useufl.

I feel like twitter is actually the best place to that process, and to "defragment" the complexity of information flow. You can follow "mainstream" opinion makers and "rebels", "experts/specialists" for narrow but deep insights, and so on

Re: How can you know what news is real?

#78

Post by grumple »

First, don't trust anything that isn't a direct, verifiable quote (basically, on camera). Ignore headlines and anything that is an interpretation of what someone said. Same goes for any other facts - believe what you can verify, or where there's direct testimony from people who were there and know what happened.

Second, make an effort to understand the context of any actions or quotes. This may require some more research and understanding. You can rarely extract this from a news article and requires some careful language parsing to determine what the facts are vs some reporters opinion or agenda.

Re: How can you know what news is real?

#79

Post by edejong »

zouhair wrote: post #60
lm28469 wrote: post #41

The real question is why are people following the news anyway? It's pure entertainment at that point. "Hey Karen have you seen that a girl was raped and murdered 1000 miles away from you ? Have you heard what _unknown politician of a third world country you couldn't even place on a map_ said ! that's outrageous. A cop killed an innocent man today #thoughtsAndPrayers". The world would be a much better place if everybo…

Well that's short sighted. It's because of this flawed logic that a lot of Americans think they have the best education/healthcare in the World. Just now that they started to look at what is happening elsewhere that they are starting to understand what they are lacking. Here is the thing, and it works for everything in life: Knowing a thing is almost always better than not knowing it, even if it is not clear what use…

No, the statement 'knowing a thing is almost always better than not knowing it', is balderdash.

An individuals knowledge is like a garden. It needs to be kept in order and it takes time to maintain. There is simply too much information being produced and a limited bandwidth to ingest this information. To select the right information is of the essence. Form a strategy of knowledge gathering. For example, one can decide to pick a topic that is not well known, in order to be a valuable amateur expert on that topic. But, just ingesting information without any rhyme or reason is a recipe for disaster.

Re: How can you know what news is real?

#80

Post by vearwhershuh »

You can't.

Despite the social shame associated with it, I no longer even believe main stream history around things like the kennedy assassination. I don't know what happened, but I'm skeptical that what they say happened actually happened.

We live in an epistemological radical age, with mass psychological operations being carried out by multiple state and non-state actors.

The good news is that the only sane response is to step back and focus on the ones we love around us, which is what we should be doing anyway.

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