Today we're going to talk about something that comes in very handy when trying to understand current events. You've heard the phrase "don't put all your eggs in one basket," which means don't devote all your resources to one thing that can fail, use multiple baskets so that if one fails, you still have some eggs. This is a news related corollary of that:
Don't get all your eggs from the same basket.
Internationally, the concept of news programming is somewhat broken. Sometimes, like in the USA, they're all based on what pays the most, because we failed to protect against that. Since ratings and views pay, we get content that's selected, written, and presented to entice us, rather than inform us. In some nations they have just state-run media, which inevitably becomes little more than an arm of government control. In some nations, they have a combination of the two, with both benefits and detriments of both. Still, news is something we consume, because we want to understand what's going on.
One of the easiest traps to fall into when it comes to news is the false idea of neutrality of a single source. FOX News has been labeled the "most trusted" news source, and many of their regular viewers only get their news from FOX. Every major network in the USA is the same in that aspect, they convince their viewers that they are truly neutral, and therefore accurate, and try to entice their viewers to watch only them. That's where things like exclusive interviews and those horrible opinion shows on news networks come from. It's all about getting more views, and it's not great.
Still, there is a certain level of accuracy news organizations generally have to maintain. Outright lies from a news organization will be met with lawsuits, for instance, so they tend to avoid that. Like we talked about in my posts about word choice, they'll often do that through carefully wording things so they're not legally a lie. The important thing to remember is that all of these news sources have bias, some much more than others, but none are truly neutral.
As a result, it's important not to get caught in a news echo-chamber, and only getting your news from one source, or from sources that almost always agree with each other on the interpretation of the facts. You'll need to get your news from multiple sources with different biases to get a better picture of what's really going on. That on it's own won't create an extremely accurate picture, but it will at least give you an idea of what pieces of interpretation are in dispute.
These days, getting your news from multiple sources is pretty easy, since there are apps and commentators that will do it for you. News highlight shows on YouTube, like the Philip DeFranco Show, often mix in and note the differences from multiple sources. Apps like Google News on Android devices will choose what sources to give you based on which ones you've actually interacted with, so you can keep it coming from many sources by going to many sources. None of these are perfect, but they do help.
In addition, it helps to understand the difference between news and news commentary. In some cases, there's a nice, clean line, like when the anchor says a key phrase like "I think," or "to me," but most times there isn't. There are cases where entire shows should be treated as news commentary, like any opinion show regardless of what network its on. Generally, the more famous the anchor, the more likely that they're leaning on commentary more than just the news. As you experience news from multiple sources, you'll get better at knowing when they've started to add their own spin to it. Obvious bias is nice in that it makes it clear when they've stopped being objective. Stating a motive for action that wasn't stated by the person making the action is a common example, they can't know, but they'll go ahead and imply that an alleged criminal committed a crime because of one of the anchor's pet causes.
All of this makes it sound like to understand anything you need to spend hours and hours comparing sources, that's really not the case. A few good sources will be all you need to get the gist of a situation. For me, I prefer to try to find the news sources that are generally rated as high in accuracy, with moderate bias as opposed to significantly left or right. Once I get the gist of a situation, I'll often decide I don't need the details, and be able to move on. If I decide I need details, that's when I start going in deep, looking for other sources, looking for raw footage on social media, etc. Don't spend a lot of your personal resources on researching something that you really don't need to exhaust yourself over, most news stories are over within 24 hours, replaced by the next sensational story.
To sum up: if you're taking in the news, don't take it from just one source, or from very similar sources, branch out to avoid getting sucked into the bias of the sources you naturally gravitate towards.
That's all for today. As I've said before, if you're following alone I'll "see" you in the next post, and have a great day. Goodbye!
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