In a world with for-profit media, satirical news, pseudoscience, and all sorts of unsubstantiated claims, it's hard to know what we can trust
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It can be very difficult to tell what is real and true when we are not experts on the subject! I think this is a great method to weed out misinformation, particularly with checking to see if the author cited sources. That one is incredibly reliable. It is important not to believe a claim just because you like or admire the person who said it, because even the best person makes mistakes.
I feel like it is possible to come to an informed, rational and nearly objective understanding of current events by reading a variety of independent news sources. However at the same time I feel like there is still something problematic about appealing to this method as somehow very much certain, because after all, what does "independent" mean, really? After all, there are plenty of sources that claim to be independent when they are anything but. Or consider the way that a far-right media organization like Fox News likes to brand itself as Fair and Balanced. I think that trying to attain an objective frame of mind is good and wholly desirable, especially against the kind of magical thinking which wants to assert the existence of Sagan's Dragon. By the same token we should also probably recognize that the idea that there is something produced by humans which could be called purely objective is also a myth.
Yes, as a journalist (and I know all of the fact-driven journalist I’ve encountered would agree), objectivity is not the goal. But fact-based, independent reporting is
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I feel like I’m still trying to figure out what you mean by “independent.” Are you saying that it is only privately owned media sources which are biased; sources linked to outside governments are biased; but publicly owned media sources, those linked to the U.S. government (at the local, state or federal level) are “independent,” those are strictly fact based
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I think that trying to attain an objective frame of mind is good and wholly desirable, especially against the kind of magical thinking which wants to assert the existence of Sagan's Dragon. By the same token we should also probably recognize that the idea that there is something produced by humans which could be called purely objective is also a myth.
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