Vilageidiotx

Donald Trump~ This is a safe place, so please complain all you want! ^~^

Empire for Sale

Going once, going twice, sold to the Parthians for a couple of arrows shot from horseback.

bReAKInG nEwS

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easier now than ever -- we live in the youtube era after all. But yes -- that is always true, and not just in news. Everything you've ever learned about history is wrong for all the same reasons (and some others).

But what you do in that case is, instead of reading the news analysis of the press release, you go find the actual press release (and pay attention to who it's coming from, so you're aware of the bias). The press release will usually be shorter, but nothing else the journalist adds is worth reading anyway.

@mdk

Well, that might be treading a tad close to solipsism. In the same vein that all knowledge is fallible, so are each of us as individuals, so I don't think it is a bad idea to keep track of what others are saying; not just so you know what is being said like @Shorticus mentioned, but because that information allows us to put our own interpretations within some sort of context. It's way too easy for one person to run-away with personal biases if they don't get other opinions to second-guess themselves against. It's one thing to entirely discount those media sources that are barefacedly selling a sort of confirmation bias based entertainment, like Rush Limbaugh, or Glenn Beck (is he still around?), or Fox, or HuffPo, or Bill Maher, or Jon Stewart. But it's another thing to say that the less extreme sources, even second-party journalists, have no value.

I suppose that's a lot of rambling because I don't want to go to bed right now and that's what happens after I stop typing. I guess, in summary, we gotta take everything with a grain of salt, including our own judgement.

Another thing to pay attention to (if you drive a car a lot) is talk show hosts.

@Shorticus

I cannot really get into that format. NPR is the exception, mostly because they're so passionless about everything. But the haughty dick-swinging that most talk-shows seem to be about just puts me off big time. It's not even a political thing. Just seems like most talk shows involved a person or a group of people who I would never want to talk to in real life bitching about whatever. I'll pick up the pulse of the people from the people themselves. Seems easy to do here because, being a poor white folk in a midwestern city, I'm around both political extremes in rather equal amounts.

bReAKInG nEwS

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My rule of thumb is to avoid all media options. Read the news that interests you, sure, but only read as far as the first citation -- then stop reading the shitty news and go read the source instead. Takes longer, but if you do anything else you're getting a watered-down lowest-common-denominator simplification, and you're not actually getting informed.

So like, when Reuters reports that Texas passed a law about abortion restrictions, you go through the Reuters article -- skipping as many words as humanly possible -- until you find the link to the law itself. Read the law. Then if you feel like it, come back to Reuters and see what some journalist with no law degree thinks it means, but remember that they probably did less research than you did already, so it's okay to ignore most of what they say.

@mdk

That works for laws, and if there is a law you feel it is important to read then it is a good idea to go ahead and read it (though reading a law without a law degree would affect me as much as the journalist).

But it's difficult to do the same thing with, say, something related to the civil war in Syria. I could go looking for eye witness accounts, but those will be just as biased as the accounts of journalists, so you end up having to trust imperfect sources.

Donald Trump~ This is a safe place, so please complain all you want! ^~^

That doesn't have "Jeb 2016" carved tastefully into the side though.

Donald Trump~ This is a safe place, so please complain all you want! ^~^

Those guac bowls are collectibles now.

bReAKInG nEwS

BBC and Al Jazeera are both questionable sources, and for precisely the same reason as one another. Reuters is one of the better media outlets, as far as objectivity goes. Huffington Post and Fox News don't even pretend to be politically neutral.

@The Nexerus

It's not ideal, but when it comes to getting an outside view on US affairs I can't think of a better choice. Al Jazeera has had a few blatant articles that make me a little leery of them as a source.

But that Huffpo article about Trump winning NH? That was embarrassing. They were always blatantly biased before, but I can't imagine how even the most granola liberal stereotype could ever take them seriously after that. I'm all for being well-rounded and trying to get info from as many sources as possible, but I think a person could completely ignore HuffPo and Fox and they'd be better for it.

bReAKInG nEwS

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Setting aside the joke, can you imagine how terrible a low-fat MRE would be? There's a reason athletes eat a lot, and that reasoning extends to soldiers. If you're that active, the last thing you need is LESS nutrition.

Also, HuffPo is bad. And that's coming from Mr. I Wrote 50,000 Words About Why We Should Accept Refugees And Why Immigration Is Generally Beneficial. When even I think it has a liberal bias, it has a liberal bias.

@Keyguyperson

I think it's a good rule of thumb to avoid the heavily-editorialized media options in general. You can usually check the relevancy of a news article by trying to cross-reference it with something like Associated Press, Reuters, BBC, whichever. If you only find it on editorial sites, consider it a fluff piece. Don't matter if it is Fox or HuffPo, left or right.

The Octopus: A 19th Century Political/Crime RP

Donald Trump~ This is a safe place, so please complain all you want! ^~^

<Snipped quote by BrobyDDark>

This hypocrisy. Focusing on that sole part of my argument. Liberals, Never even once.

@dirty slime

The thing worse than losing is being a sore loser. Being gracious in defeat, bro.