What's news, Pussycat?

First - totally off-topic, but in homage to my punny title for this post, here is the incredible Tom Jones:

They just don't make music like this anymore.

So, the news. It was only a few hundred years ago when the idea of knowing what was going on in the world was simply not possible. Even the learned and important people most likely had no idea what was happening to others more than a mile away from them. Today, it's very difficult to keep this in mind as we live in a world where the internet give us instant access to the happenings around the world, where we can hear the ideas of strangers in other countries almost as effortlessly as we can get at the thoughts of the people who may even live under the same roof as us. It's a small world, after all.

Yes, I went there.

But with this glut of information, we can hear all kinds of messages that conflict with things we know or believe, or even simultaneous messages from other sources. When I read two of my friends saying exactly opposite things on Facebook about the same event that neither of them was present for, I am challenged to find out what is true and what is not so much (as Stephen Colbert would say, something that has the property of "truthiness").

Cousin Stephen loves the truth.

I recently explained my take on storytellers writing their own version of the truth when I discussed The Life of Pi. However, often people aren't even making up the stories that they tell, but are simply repeating what they have heard elsewhere. On social media, this often takes the form of sharing a post or image on Facebook, a retweet on Twitter, or something similar. I frequently see images of articles written by some third party that are innocently promoted by my friends.

When I say use the word "innocently", I am tying to be as charitable as possible. The truth is, people who I truly love drive me absolutely mad with their willful ignorance. As long as a story agrees with their point of view, they love to share it, regardless of whether they have looked into the merit of the story. This brings me to what I believe is the crucial point of delivering news.

Check your sources.

If you don't check your sources, she could be one, and you'll never know the difference.

So you believe in the health benefits of organic food? I can respect that, whether I agree or not. But I will not be persuaded by an article posted on rawforbeauty.com. Or organic.org. Or any number of similar sites. Why not? Because they are a biased source. When a study is released, or an event happens, it is not in the best interests of these kinds of sites to find out what it really means or if it really happened the way they would like - they have an agenda to promote, and that is more important than getting the facts straight.

But I can hear the objections now. It is like a sweet chorus of "Now, wait just a moment" harmonized with "You can't say that!" Why am I hearing these objections? Well, because every source is biased. It's true, I'll admit that. But they are biased in different ways.

When we are talking about real news organizations, whose objective is solely to report the news, the motivation of these groups is to get as many readers/viewers as possible. That is how they make their money. Now, if you are Alex Jones, you will make the argument that somehow these organizations are paid off or unduly influenced by the government, or McDonalds, or the Illuminati, or something. It is true the advertisers and governments get uncomfortable at times with what is reported about them. But when a news organization pisses off one group, they will generally gain support with that group's opponents. These things tend to even out over time in such a way that it does not discourage the organization from publishing what it sees as being the most accurate report. Given the volume of bad news and critical reports we see, this would appear to give us evidence to support this.

Do you want the bad news first, or the worse news?

So if "the news" is most biased towards getting viewers and readers, how would they logically go about this? It would seem to me that the best way would be to find the most interesting and unlikely stories, and to make sure that they are backed up by evidence. Mistakes will be made, for certain, but no credible news source wants to be seen as anything other than that: credible. So consider the Warren Commission report on the assassination of JFK: pretty likely, since all the major news outlets have reviewed the case and agree with it. The 9/11 Commission Report? Sorry Antti, but I don't wish to waste any more time on it since CNN backs me up on this. You've got to understand that if any one of the major news organizations could blow holes in these stories, they would love to do it; it would be exciting, it would sell copy. Yet no matter how much time they have spent investigating them, they cannot find enough plausible evidence to warrant a conflicting report.

Goes to Ukraine so you don't have to.

So as boring as it sounds, I get all my news from the mainstream media. For all my intellectual pretense, I'm sheeple. And as gullible as you may want to make me out to be for it, they are the only ones I have a reason to trust. I don't choose these sources for no reason - it's because I have looked at the evidence, and they seem to me to be logically the best source. The media is a very established machine, and I believe that as a critical thinker my conclusion has to be that it is the inertia of this machine makes it the most effective at providing the correct information.

Often, the mainstream media may have conflicting reports or overlook the story altogether. When this happens, it is more work for me, because I need to check sources myself. This leads to reading a lot of boring stuff, data-sets and accounts. Sometimes there are tools to help get to the bottom of this stuff, as any user of Snopes will know. But sometimes there is not. Frankly, since I don't always enjoy this stuff I will usually just ignore the story if it doesn't mean enough to me. Usually, if I wait long enough the real story will find its way through the CBC or BBC or some intelligent news source.

Sometime you just have to do some research.

So if you are looking to impress someone with some story you are relaying, whether it is on Facebook or in person, know your facts. If you don't, and if you choose sources that are not convincingly unbiased, I will probably ignore it. If you do it enough, I may unfollow you. Nothing personal - I'm still your friend. I just don't want to hear what you have to say.