We’re in a media war where objective reality no longer matters and where posturing, yelling the loudest, and gaslighting dominate. If you take a position and cite your sources, your sources will often be denigrated. However, it is in fact true, that bad sources are broadly distributed on social media, just as prevalent as skewed reporting and intentional misinformation are generated by major media sources. The last thing you want to do is go around citing sources and stories that are simply false. You’re made a fool before adding any of your own two cents. There is a way to progressively test and qualify the information that you receive for your own benefit as well as stand credible among your peers with whom you express opinions.
The following methods are a like a filter that runs in the background as I peruse news and information. It’s important to understand that most important news that you intake, beyond the scope of your own eye-witness, is rarely black and white, true or untrue. The truest news story may lack full context or miss small details. The most heinous intentional false news instance is going to hook you with some shred of truth. The best we can hope for is that a story is substantially correct as to intent and perception by all persons who still hold to factual objectivity. Even that baseline is not be shared by some of your peers, in which case, there is no common ground to discuss any matter, public, private, personal.
My primary news source is digital print media/periodicals, information transmitted via the web. I rarely take in video, podcasts, television, physical print, or even radio. Nevertheless, the filters can be applied to any news transmission source simply by adjusting the terminology.
Here it goes:
- Memes. Are. Not. News. They are strictly for entertainment and eliciting a reaction.
- Judge a periodical over time, if a news source lied and was proven wrong last year over something, they’re more likely to be wrong now.
- Earnest professional journalistic mistakes are far more rare than intentional obfuscation and manipulation, therefore a periodical should be held wholly accountable for their track record.
- The biggest lies propagated by news outlets are omissions, not what they say but by what they neglect to say. When you find significant additional source material on a different outlet, the news source that omitted key information should be disregarded.
- A new story, a new periodical, a new author, all start from a neutral score of -0- whether they represent the right or the left. Until facts and credibility are ascertained on multiple dimensions to include other corroborating media sources and reporting, a track record of being right by knowing of past work and history, a credibility score is earned over time. If the source was right on the last story, the next release starts with a higher score +.
- Stories are weighted by their impact on the struggle between competing parties. For example, the New York Times is grossly partisan to the point of fake news in matters related to domestic politics, but still provides some good coverage of matters on the other side of the globe. Their cooking section is also interesting.
- Many stories are not stories at all because they do not contain the who, what, when, where, why. They’re structured like a news story but ultimately, only tell you what to think; bald manipulation pieces. Likewise, any story whose focus is to only bolster the publication or author is not a story. Self-referencing journalism is not journalism, its opinion.
- Opinion is valid news content as long as it’s packaged, positioned, or labeled as such. For example. I make it explicit on my website, Northeast Reader, that I’m providing commentary. Any news I convey is couched in commentary. The facts are accurate to the best of my knowledge, but often, I’ll have to explain possible limitations to available facts at the moment of writing.
- An Algorithm; these are the filters and processes I use to eventually conclude the veracity of a news story
Classify
- News
- Opinion, still valid, just regarded differently on the back end
- Hybrid, ditto
Reliability of periodical or author, a relative ‘score’
- ‘Solid Gold’
- Reliable
- Marginally or not reliable
- Manipulative ideologue
Is it the 1st mention of information?
- Hold judgement, further tests must be applied
Is it the 2nd 3rd or 4th mention of information?
- Add or deduct from credibility depending on the quality of the additional sources
Direct validation, unambiguously confirmed by uncontested video, first person source, eyewitnesses, official authorities, e.g. a court
- Semi-conclusion
Confirmation by 2nd or 3rd authorities, public records
- Concluded
Post-conclusion
- Acknowledged by competing adversarial entities but usually accompanied by counter accusations, bogus context, innuendo and threat, all of which should be disregarded
From the point that I see a first mention of a story, I’ll form an initial impression. It may be days, weeks or years before I conclude that it’s fully accurate or not; perhaps never. If I share a story before I reach my own conclusion, I’ll present it with my current impression of its veracity. Do I keep a spreadsheet or a literal scoresheet? No, the process is like a program that runs in the background.
This might be the end of the matter, except that conservatives are being bombarded by rhetorical sleight-of-hand. One example that I take exception to is to be accused of being duped by ‘conspiracy theories’. If news were like science, ‘conspiracy theory’ would be known as ‘hypothesis’ the first step in scientific inquiry, and yet the left has effectively marginalized legitimate news by branding a lot of conservative thought as ‘conspiracy theory’. The use of the term is meant to immediately segregate the accused conspirator theorist from all potential audiences.
Are all conspiracy theories true? Absolutely not. Does that mean they should not receive further investigation? Absolutely not. In left-leaning media such as FB and Twitter, it only takes one self-appointed expert to brand legitimate news as a ‘conspiracy’ in an attempt to instantly marginalize what may indeed have few or many factual elements. It then begins a perpetual cycle of denial where further investigation is also demonized because it implies someone ‘believed’ the ‘conspiracy’ seriously enough to go the next step.
The last instance of caution is to fully understand what true authorities are to conclude the facts of a matter. The 2020 Presidential race conclusion provides a case example. During the past week, multiple mainstream press entities ganged up to bum-rush a pronouncement on the winner of the election. Almost all of major media joined in, most politicians, Democrats, a notable number of establishment Republicans, and some foreign leaders. And yet, the election was not and is not certified pending the outcome of legal challenges of fraud and constitutional process, still outstanding as of this writing, yet the same press that rushed a premature conclusion immediately compounded their error by branding anyone awaiting legal finality, as fake news. In this instance, Vegas shown far superior restraint. As of this writing, if the head of any major media outlet made a wager on the election outcome, they are still waiting to hear if they made or lost money.
‘Truth’ is not necessarily contingent on the legal outcome, as legal outcomes are comprised of what may be mutually compromised by warring stake holding parties. The Constitution of the United States is not news subject to whims of the media.