real sources of information

[seditiousdeviant]

continuing that thread on journalism, i'd like to know what others' regard as a good source of current news. ya, it's a subjective question. but so too is news reporting - can't get away from it. just choosing to report one story over another, or one angle over another etc.. is subjectivism. I can happily read a copy of the economist knowing that the target audience, and the angle, is a greedy corporate one. but they certainly cover alot of ground. so anyway, here goes: my bro writes for a rag called "toward freedom" (www.towardfreedom.com) which is based in vermont. they can be a bit out there on the left, but it is very informative, and covers stuff you never see in mainstream infotitillainment shows like CNN.

[Bruno]

Depends on what you consider imformative. I took a look at the web site, the Enron story in particular. Heavy use of adjectives to obscure the lack of a good argument and reliable sources.

And if Bush and his cronies were so heavily in Enron's pockets, why did the company go bust with no help from its high-placed friends?

The problem with these opinions is that they're so driven by knee-jerk ideology that they throw all critical thinking out the window. The Economist has a capitalist tone -- is there a successful economy which isn't -- but the magazine always employs rigorous thought. That's why it's widely read, while your web site will forever appeal to an ever declining number of idealogues.

[seditiousdeviant]

ya, they certainly can get subjective. you should base your judgement it on more than a few articles, though. Another point i'd like to make is that you can never hope to get a good idea of what is happening anywhere by using only one or two sources of information - which is precisely what most people do. watch one news program and read one newspaper. The more varying sources you have, the better, and the more widely these sources vary, the better. towardfreedom have alot of good contributors, they write well and cover stories and use angles you don't get in mainstream media. of course I am biased, but I think my brother writes quite well (although he can once in a while get be a tad liberal with his adjectives). so f. ex. if you want to know about what is happening with the political situation in central europe, his articles can be quite informative. also biased, certainly. but informative.

[SkidMark]

My thought on Bruno's quote:

'And if Bush and his cronies were so heavily in Enron's pockets, why did the company go bust with no help from its high-placed friends?'

--Maybe they're trying to distance themselves??

[Burbage]

PhilM,

As you've probably noticed, most people can't form an educated opinion. Most people do need to be told what their opinion should be. That's why the media are so tightly controlled in many countries.

[Bruno]

I agree, Deviant. Sometimes I find myself reading certain publicatons not because they tell me what I think is the objective truth, but because they slant the news the way I like it.

[want_to_believe]

we believe what we want to believe    ... and this is the truth

[expat1]

I think you need to look at various sources of information and understand that they are all slanted by the source in some way, even if it is just in the "facts" they choose to present or not present, let alone the manner in which such facts are presented.  I like the BBC.  However, like PhilM, a search on the internet can provide more info.

Burbage, do you really think people need to be told what to believe/think.  I agree/disagree.  Perhaps in the lesser developed countries that are controlled by religious authorities this is true, but not in the countries where people have free access to information.

[nosy]

 http://www.conspiracyplanet.com/  and http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/  
of course!

But seriously, I tend to check out the same story from two extreme angles. Usually you will find that either side is right and you may find a middle ground there.

Some of the so called independant sources like http://news.independent.co.uk/world/   can be very slow on their coverage of events.

I tend to agree with the others. You need to look at quite a number of stories to be able to form an opinion and even then you still don't really know what happened.

[Burbage]

Most people in any country don't give a stuff about politics, what's going on in the world etc etc. Their main interest is in holding their jobs and raising their families. They are not bothered about searching for all the information and making an educated opinion. They are quite happy to allow the newspaper of their choice to form their opinion for them.

This doesn't mean that many of these people can't form their own opinion, they just find it easier to follow the popular opinion, whatever it is. Also, given the same information, different people will form different opinions. Each person is swayed by the cultural and political background in which they've been brought up. On this board we have seen many times that Americans are appalled that Europeans don't have the same opinion about world events.

All this means, of course, that politicians (in democracies) do not have to appeal to the intellects (maybe about 10% of the population)of their country in order to get elected, they just have to get enough of the rest of the population swayed to their way of thinking.

On the subject of forming an opinion, you also have to recognise the agenda of each source of the information. You also have to read the information coming from sources that you don't agree with because sometimes those sources have the more correct version of events that hasn't been made palatable to, say , the British public by their news agencies.

[expat1]

Well Burbage, I agree that I am most interested in raising my family and holding down my job.  I care about politics to an extent and about whats going on in the world only to an extent.  When I read news stories, I usually don't go do further research from other angles.  However, it does not mean that I let the newspaper form my opinion for me because I understand that the newspaper is more than not biased in many respects.  My gripe with the newspapers is the lack of factual information and logical analysis.  Reporters seem to make a story out of information they are provided from only a single source, typically a govt agency, and do not do any independent digging for us.  I am not a reporter, but a reader, so I would appreciate if the newspapers/magazines did some of this investigation for me.  Sadly, that doesn't seem to be the case these days.

[Joseph27]

Generally I read several sources and attempt to guage some idea of reality from there. Maybe I am always way off.  Personally I like to read the Australia newspaper, far east economic review, foregin affairs, the atlantic, and then go through the web for sources.

[seditiousdeviant]

I do not find it surprising the way mainstream print and TV media have evolved, stories becoming more simplistic and one-sided, less nuanced and balanced. Each story has more than two valid angles to it, and to present them in any concise, coherent fashion is a huge amount work - this does not fit into the fast production-line format of daily mainstream news, where reports must be produced rapidly, and must be short. notice how weekend papers and weekly news programs always will have the more in-depth, longer stories than dailies.
As for the consumers of news, it is alot easier on your time and mind if you just get one side of a story - less to read, less to think about. Reading a good report on an issue is hard work, as you have to balance the various different threads to come up with an idea of what is going on. And then of course you will want to get different opinions or slants on the same story. and there are so many things happening out there - it's overwhelming, and in the end what really is the effort worth?
aaahh blissful ignorance...

[nualum]

This is a really useful topic for discussion. It is clear that in many arguments on this forum, people's opinions are formed by the information sources they read. It is very clear that the sources differ not only in their interpretations of reality, but also in their objectivity and general credibility.

Let me start the discussion by saying that the first criterion for a credible report is that the reporter was in a position to know the facts. The closer he/she was to the action, the more likely he/she knows what happened. That does not mean that a second hand report is invalid. However, it is still second hand.

The second criterion is that the reporter is unbiased, or admits his/her bias so that the reader has a context for the interpretation. In fact, in my opinion, this criterion is more important than any other since bias colors everything in a report, especially the interpretation of data.

There are other criteria as well, but it is late and I have to hit the sack. Let the foregoing stimulate the discussion.

[seditiousdeviant]

couple of quick comments:

alot of stories take place physically in more than one place - I think weight should be placed on the credibility of the local / firsthand sources the reporter uses, as these sources are the only hope a reporter has of covering a story that involves more than one physical place.

often bias can be inferred from the actual medium - say I know the bias to expect when I read the economist etc...