Where do you think people should get news? Most of the non-mainstream news is somehow worse and finding knowledgeable direct sources isn't really practical for people.
The top comment in this hn post from a few years ago really stuck with me. I'll paste here.
"Seems an appropriate time to post my favourite piece on news addiction by Charles Simic in the NYRB.
"I’m having trouble deciding whether I understand the world better now that I’m in my seventies than I did when I was younger, or whether I’m becoming more and more clueless every day. The truth is somewhere in between, I suspect, but that doesn’t make me rest any easier at night. Like others growing old, I had expected that after everything I had lived through and learned in my life, I would attain a state of Olympian calm and would regard the news of the day with amusement, like a clip from a bad old movie I had seen far too many times. It hasn’t happened to me yet. My late father, in the final year of his life, claimed that he finally found that long-sought serenity by no longer reading the papers and watching television. Even then, and I was thirty years younger than he, I knew what he meant. What devotees of sadomasochism do to their bodies is nothing compared to the torments that those addicted to the news and political commentary inflict on their minds almost every hour of the day."
Edit: Charles Simic is a Serbian-American poet who lived through WWII and saw some really grisly things, some described briefly in the article, hence "after everything I had lived through and learned in my life...""
I agree that choices are limited. Nonetheless, the days of trusting "the news" media are long gone, at least for now. You can get *information* from CNN, etc. but that doesn't make it news, nor does it mean you're getting the full story and proper insights.
Listen. Think about what is said. Think harder about what is not said. Check another source. Repeat.
Yes, sadly it's a cliche but you have to "do your own research" and most people don't have the time or don't want to spend their time that way.
Maybe there are still some monthly periodicals that do in-depth news, since they aren't trying to get an exclusive or be the first to break the story they would not be so motivated to just vomit clickbait continuously. But I don't know who they are.
I've largely just stopped paying attention. It's sad in a way, as I grew up with the lesson that paying attention to the news and current events was important. But it's all garbage now.
I'm no different than anyone else in that I don't have a lot of time. Where I have noticed I'm different is how closely I listen, how critical I am of what I hear, and how often I question what I did not hear. The other difference is, my BS detector for editorial - positioned as "news" / "journalism" - is very well oiled. I accept opinion - I have no choice - but I don't in my mind treat it as fact.
Most people seen to get caught up in looking for confirmation bias that they abandoned critical thinking. Most people hear what they want to hear, and the media is more than happy to feed them that comfort.
Let me give you an example, a couple of weeks ago I saw a story that the Sahara Desert (Africa) is greening. I noticed that from a number of different sources and each source used the same phrase for this[1]: "unusual weather patterns". Huh? Why is greening from "unusual weather patterns" but when there's damage it's *always* from "climate change"? No one I know caught the Orwellian sleight of hand.
Along the same lines, The Washington Post ran a story last week about the science of climate. It was even shared on HN. No one seemed to notice. Odd because it effectively said, up to now there was no definitive study on the history of the earth's climate. So up to now what were all "the experts" basing their "science" on then? Hearsay? Mindless parroting? Worst was this study effectively made a case for climate change might not be human-made, simply because over time climate has been very dynamic and at time extreme. Per this study and the graph it publish there is no "normal".
These were both in plain sight. And yet crickets. Maybe I should stop thinking and put more time into keeping up with the Kardashians?
[1] The fact that they used the same phrase also told me, they invested zero resources in this story and were merely parroting the narrative provided by the news service they were using. Note: This approach by definition is not journalism.
“Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them.
In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know."
– Michael Crichton (1942-2008)
I do not believe centralized content distribution channels will ever act as a reliable source of information.
Find distribution channels that keep you plugged into the zeitgeist; some form of streaming our collective consciousness.
And then do your own research on the topics that matter to you.
YouTube - tons of YouTubers who are independent, X - raw, fast, first hand news, Not saying don't go to mainstream news, just know the bias they may have.
Also make sure you take those same youtubers as what they are; raw, independent, and with less accountability than larger platforms insofaras accuracy of content. That isn't to say a smaller creators/channels are bad or not worth while, but being aware of context as you consume is important. We've unfortunately stopped caring about accuracy or accountability in many instances.
So for YouTube I haven't been able to find quality reporting for the most part (outside of an occasional niche issue).
For X my experience is that it's essentially impossible for me to vet personal accounts that people have. Also it runs into the issue where everything is just anecdotal so it's easy to get an inaccurate picture from that sort of information. This is without even getting into the huge problem with bots and even state level disinfo on X (and social media in general). Not that I don't use it at all, it's just not trustworthy or accurate for most things.
Edit: not that "mainstream media" doesn't have some of these issues. It's just not as bad as some of these other sources and it's much easier to get a sense for specific organizations than trying to understand the bias and veracity of a myriad of YouTubers and random people on X. Like it's much easier to understand the biases and issues of Reuters than a bunch of YouTubers and random people on X so for basic information I will go to places like Reuters first.
Edit2: for issues with YouTubers you have to remember they make money through engagement (and real news is less engaging). I think this is a lot of what's killed traditional media so I doubt YouTube, which is if anything more tied to this, is unlikely to be better. Then also look at the recent Tenet Media scandal. Like yeah I get some news from YouTubers but it's a real minefield when it comes to good information.
"Seems an appropriate time to post my favourite piece on news addiction by Charles Simic in the NYRB. "I’m having trouble deciding whether I understand the world better now that I’m in my seventies than I did when I was younger, or whether I’m becoming more and more clueless every day. The truth is somewhere in between, I suspect, but that doesn’t make me rest any easier at night. Like others growing old, I had expected that after everything I had lived through and learned in my life, I would attain a state of Olympian calm and would regard the news of the day with amusement, like a clip from a bad old movie I had seen far too many times. It hasn’t happened to me yet. My late father, in the final year of his life, claimed that he finally found that long-sought serenity by no longer reading the papers and watching television. Even then, and I was thirty years younger than he, I knew what he meant. What devotees of sadomasochism do to their bodies is nothing compared to the torments that those addicted to the news and political commentary inflict on their minds almost every hour of the day."
https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2011/12/05/goodbye-serenity/
Edit: Charles Simic is a Serbian-American poet who lived through WWII and saw some really grisly things, some described briefly in the article, hence "after everything I had lived through and learned in my life...""
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23938007