How do you get your news?

[LIFO]

Among an educated group of people who have some familiarity with evidence based practices and the scientific method used to draw conclusions, I am very curious as to who here actually trusts any one single news source.  The more I read, the more I feel like I am just being indoctrinated by some billionaire.

Bezos owns WaPo
Slim owns NY Times, Boston Globe
Murdoch owns WSJ and Fox
The Hearst family retains control in multiple news outlets
The LA Times was just purchased by Dr. Soon-Shiong
Bloomberg at least puts his name on it

I used to read The Economist but felt like it went downhill 3-4 years ago.  When investigating, it seemed to occur exactly at the same time ownership changed hands.

The only news source I trust more than others is The Intercept which is run by a guy named Glen Greenwald.  Very biased but at least factually robust.

Nassim Taleb just posted this excerpt from one of his books (https://medium.com/incerto/the-facts-are-true-the-news-is-fake-5bf98104cea2) and it really got me thinking about the state of news, facts, and public discourse.  It seems the age of sophistry lives again.

Just to clarify, I am not interested in hearing about vast conspiracies.  I want to know how, as an individual, you approach the news and how you discuss news with non-scientific folk.

[Peds]

LIFO wrote:

Among an educated group of people who have some familiarity with evidence based practices and the scientific method used to draw conclusions, I am very curious as to who here actually trusts any one single news source.  The more I read, the more I feel like I am just being indoctrinated by some billionaire.

Bezos owns WaPo
Slim owns NY Times, Boston Globe
Murdoch owns WSJ and Fox
The Hearst family retains control in multiple news outlets
The LA Times was just purchased by Dr. Soon-Shiong
Bloomberg at least puts his name on it

I used to read The Economist but felt like it went downhill 3-4 years ago.  When investigating, it seemed to occur exactly at the same time ownership changed hands.

The only news source I trust more than others is The Intercept which is run by a guy named Glen Greenwald.  Very biased but at least factually robust.

Nassim Taleb just posted this excerpt from one of his books (https://medium.com/incerto/the-facts-are-true-the-news-is-fake-5bf98104cea2) and it really got me thinking about the state of news, facts, and public discourse.  It seems the age of sophistry lives again.

Just to clarify, I am not interested in hearing about vast conspiracies.  I want to know how, as an individual, you approach the news and how you discuss news with non-scientific folk.

Click to expand...

guess he didnt read your last line.

honestly....twitter.

[Hawkeye225]

Twitter mostly.  Scan man but assume that everyone has agenda.  I try to live somewhere between 3 and 7, not the 1 and 10 extremes.

But honestly, I agree with Crixus.

[RogueDadMD]

I read NYT, WaPo, and WSJ, and take all with the appropriate grains of salt.  I also use an RSS feed/news aggregator app (Newsify) to download lots of stuff into one app (including from those papers) to make it easy.  I also used to be an avid reader of the Economist but also felt it went downhill.

There's no single source of reliable news unless you're willing to buy into their perspective.  The NYT and WSJ both consider themselves unbiased and authoritative, and both have excellent sources and reporters, but their approach to writing is clearly not apolitical.  That may be in part due to ownership, but it is what it is.  I lean more NYT than WSJ, but I specifically seek out the WSJ to read contrary opinions.

The fact that the WSJ doesn't think the world is about to burn is a bit reassuring in some ways, even though I can't say I agree. 

[CordMcNally]

Mostly from Crixus and The Onion.

[Complete_newbie]

Dr. Soon-Shiong - my hero. Some serious scientific entrepreneurship and current NW. Sick.

That is all.

 

[ENT Doc]

In the search for accurate information I have found my rules of residency still apply:

1. Trust no one
2. It's never easy

[Dusn]

All news stories are the same because they all copy each other.  What reporter has time to actually find the news, when they can just copy it from another news site (or get contacted by someone with an agenda and get the news story fed to them) and generate just as much revenue from hits.

I'll try to go to the primary source, if possible.   So for example, recently the news stories were about what crazy things Donald Trump said in some rally in Montana.  So I'll pull up a youtube video of his rally in Montana and, sure enough, he said some looney stuff.   If it's a health article, clearly I'll just go to the scientific journal.  For legal-political matters I'll listen to a podcast by Preet Bharara (former US attorney for NY) and his guests.

[Hank]

First, an undergraduate degree in journalism is roughly as tough to obtain as an undergraduate degree in education, which is to say not tough at all. Second, numerous newspapers and other news outlets have been failing over the last two decades , so there’s no shortage of hacks looking to get paid for copy.

That said, I start with NPR on my short drive to work then check Google news. I tend to check the Financial Times and the Economist for a decent view of what’s going on. The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post all have their biases, but knowing what they are makes it reasonably possible to read an article from one of these papers and still read between the lines.

I try to read some thought pieces from the Guardian, National Review, Mother Jones , etc. a few times a month just to see what the major trends are on the outer edges of the reasonable political spectrum. It’s useful to see where ideas like a universal basic income are beginning to gain traction, without regard to the political or economic merits of such a proposal or the degree to which it does or does not reflect an understanding of moral hazard and human nature. Likewise, if the right leaning press says that a blowhard entertainer is gaining momentum in the primaries, it might not hurt to know that.

Read a wide variety of better quality news sources, read them with a sufficiently jaundiced eye, and don’t forget that the sky almost certainly isn’t falling, despite how loudly some might proclaim that it is.

[Anne]

I was happier when I followed the MMM low-information diet.  But I fell off that wagon in 2016.  I primarily listen to/read NPR and NYT, sometimes BBC.  I still like The Economist.  I'm well aware of the bias in my sources, and am ok with that.  In early 2017 I tried to make a habit of reading sources with the opposite bias, but that habit did not stick.

The new habit I'm trying to build is to scan the headlines and read at least 1 article from a Spanish language newspaper daily--I use either El Tiempo (Colombia) or El Mundo (Spain).  Primary goal is to work on my Spanish but has the pleasant side effect of making me more aware of how small my world view is, which is somehow reassuring.  Also interesting to see which American stories make their news, and which do not.

[legobikes]

A little BBC, NYT, Al Jazeera, and RT/PressTV. But I think of checking about once every month or so, and the rest of the time I don't bother. The general gestalt is good to know, the specifics don't particularly matter. I'm not in it to pick a side.

[PhotonsRGR8]

Did anyone else experience PTSD in 2008 when Rupert Murdoch bought the WSJ and turned formerly brilliantly worded reporting by world class reporters into birdcage liner?

They used to do multi-day investigative exclusive series which were researched over many months/years. A.M.(After Murdoch) The WSJ became USA Today without the colorful

pictures. Yeah, I'm bitter.

[LIFO]

I will say that I think a good way to keep an eye on the "true" state of affairs is to consume a lot of business news and keeping a close eye on fixed income.  History has proven time and again that the bond market writes the rules that everyone else has to follow.

[StarTrekDoc]

NPR.

[pierre]

John Oliver

I try to not take my news to seriously.