How/Why could/should we trust Mainstream Media sources?

[an anarchist]

Can you spot the difference between these two photos?

1st photo:

Second photo:

Did you catch the difference? I am having trouble telling the images apart.

If you did spot differences, can you elaborate on what separates these two photos?

All jokes aside, how/why can we trust the mainstream media? Should we trust the mainstream media? How do we know that American mainstream media isn’t just propaganda.

I am not here to claim it is all propaganda, even if I believe it to be so. I want to know how and why you guys trust it. Is it faith?

 

[Quintessence]

In short: media literacy.

Media literacy is taught by media specialists (aka, librarians) throughout a student's time in public education. Or at least it is supposed to be. As schools have become chronically underfunded, necessary specialist positions like this have been contracted over the past couple decades which has contributed to the rise of unchecked misinformation and disinformation. Anyone deficient in media literacy can catch themselves up by consulting some of the resources the ALA has put together here:

Media Literacy Education in Libraries for Adult Audiences

Media Literacy Education in Libraries for Adult Audiences helps libraries respond to the need for adult media literacy training in their communities through the creation and distribution of a suite of free resources.

www.ala.org

This guide is intended for practitioners of library science, but it is relevant to and has resources for learners. In fact, one of their guides point blank addresses the question you ask here:

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“I just don’t trust mainstream media anymore. That’s the real fake news!”
“If you don’t feel comfortable with the world’s largest media outlets, where do you get your news? Why do you feel this source is reliable over others? Let me show you a few tools you can use to determine whether the media outlet you’re looking at has the intent of informing you, rather than persuading or entertaining.”
Be ready to address whether the patron thinks their information source is reliable and how they determined reliability. To do so, you will want to have resources at the ready that explain key concepts of media literacy and why they are important. Here are a few that we recommend

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From - https://www.ala.org/sites/default/files/tools/content/! FINAL Media-Lit_Prac-Guide_WEB_040521.pdf ​

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Oh, and one of the things they recommend reading is this:

Infographic: Today's News: Real or Fake? - Action 4 Media Education

This is a great resource to help students differentiate between real and fake news. Students who meet the ISTE Standards for Students are able to critically select, evaluate and synthesize digital resources. That means understanding the difference between real and fake news.

action4mediaeducation.org

 

[Heyo]

I am not here to claim it is all propaganda, even if I believe it to be so. I want to know how and why you guys trust it. Is it faith?

It isn't faith, it is experience. You trust people who reliably have told the truth in the past.

 

[anotherneil]

No.

At the beginning of my 10th grade PE class one day, while we were settling in to start the class session, my teacher said this to the class: "trust no one."

My 1st semester college composition professor, the author of the original book on which the movie Bruce Almighty was based, said "always be a skeptical reader."

 

[Estro Felino]

How can we trust them?
Since they are funded by billionaires who want a certain narrative to be inculcated in Americans' mind?

 

[Estro Felino]

It isn't faith, it is experience. You trust people who reliably have told the truth in the past.

Kant said: Sapere Aude.

 

[McBell]

Verify everything.
Especially if you agree/like it.

 

[ChristineM]

For media you don't know use a media verification site to check out their trustworthyness. That will tell you how reliable they are. You will soon get to know who is reliable and who dishes out fake news

 

[an anarchist]

For media you don't know use a media verification site to check out their trustworthyness. That will tell you how reliable they are. You will soon get to know who is reliable and who dishes out fake news

Well, I’ve gone done the rabbit hole researching these “fact checkers”. It’s been a while, but I recall they are all funded by big corporations and are essentially not fact checkers but story tellers.

Do you trust them because they say “trust us we are fact checkers”?

 

[ChristineM]

Well, I’ve gone done the rabbit hole researching these “fact checkers”. It’s been a while, but I recall they are all funded by big corporations and are essentially not fact checkers but story tellers.

Do you trust them because they say “trust us we are fact checkers”?

I trust mediabiasfactcheck to be reasonably honest and accurate pointing me in the right direction to make up my own mind

 

[Quintessence]

Seriously though - school yourself in basic media literacy. It's not that difficult - it's rooted in practicing critical thinking.

To become a successful student, responsible citizen, productive worker, or competent and conscientious consumer, individuals need to develop expertise with the increasingly sophisticated information and entertainment media that address us on a multi-sensory level, affecting the way we think, feel, and behave.

Today’s information and entertainment technologies communicate to us through a powerful combination of words, images, and sounds. As such, we need to develop a wider set of literacy skills helping us to both comprehend the messages we receive and effectively utilize these tools to design and distribute our messages. Being literate in a media age requires critical thinking skills that empower us as we make decisions, whether in the classroom, the living room, the workplace, the boardroom, or the voting booth.

From - Media Literacy Defined

This is a really cute run-through of some basic concepts from the same organization:

Meet The Media Monsters

We can all act like Media Monsters. Every day we interact with endless media all around us, which means we need to practice our media literacy skills.

namle.org

 

[icehorse]

We're facing some existential, first order problems:

- ecological overshoot
- the world wide oligarchy / kleptocracy
- the world wide myth of endless economic growth
- increasing attacks on western, secular values, from extremists on the left and right.

It strikes me that any given MSM outlet is in the pocket of one oligarch or another. It's important to understand that oligarchs don't really need to conspire with each other. They all buy the best lawyers who all figure out ways to game the system.

Since none of these "news" outlets focus on our existential problems, I think they're all quite suspect.

So I think you have to get your news from the left and the right and the independent journalists and sort of triangulate. AND, you have to maintain your own common sense and critical thinking skills.

 

[F1fan]

All jokes aside, how/why can we trust the mainstream media? Should we trust the mainstream media? How do we know that American mainstream media isn’t just propaganda.

I am not here to claim it is all propaganda, even if I believe it to be so. I want to know how and why you guys trust it. Is it faith?

There is a tradition of ethical reporting in the USA and the professional have media ethics. We don't hear much about this due to the internet being platforms for disinformation. It depends on the individual as to what they decide to use for information. Some may not have the skill to discern poor quality like Newsmax to high quality like the major news networks of ABC, CBS, NBC, and pBS, NpR, and the NY Times. Those who rely on poor quality media are not skilled thinkers, and find the disinformatio appealing to their emotions.

Media ethics - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Tomef]

Can you spot the difference between these two photos?

1st photo:
View attachment 96993

Second photo:
View attachment 96994

Did you catch the difference? I am having trouble telling the images apart.

If you did spot differences, can you elaborate on what separates these two photos?

All jokes aside, how/why can we trust the mainstream media? Should we trust the mainstream media? How do we know that American mainstream media isn’t just propaganda.

I am not here to claim it is all propaganda, even if I believe it to be so. I want to know how and why you guys trust it. Is it faith?

It's essential to read around, and to dig deeper into any issue that interests you with further reading, books, interviews etc. The UK has quality media across the political spectrum, The Spectator for example is a good conservative source, The New Statesman a good counterpart on the left. As a general rule of thumb, you get more info from written sources than the TV. With TV reporting the opinion and the report are blended.

Good reporting contains enough information for you to evaluate the argument of the writer. That's the problem with news media in the US, the only good news sources have a generally liberal bias, while the conservative news, while not always being wrong perhaps, is generally low quality, with writers who struggle to put together meaningful arguments or do anything much other than state their own emotionally laden beliefs.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Did you catch the difference? I am having trouble telling the images apart.

It shows.

 

[an anarchist]

Those who rely on poor quality media are not skilled thinkers, and find the disinformatio appealing to their emotions

lol. Right back at you Mr. Person who accepts the disinformation from Mainstream media sources. You must lack thinking skills…

See how derisive that was?

 

[an anarchist]

Seriously though - school yourself in basic media literacy. It's not that difficult - it's rooted in practicing critical thinking.

Nice of you to assume I haven’t done that… are you assuming I haven’t done that because I don’t blindly gobble down mainstream “reliable” sources?

 

[an anarchist]

Nice of you to assume I haven’t done that… are you assuming I haven’t done that because I don’t blindly gobble down mainstream “reliable” sources?

I wonder if anyone has ever looked into who funds the “fact checking” agencies. Have you guys researched that? I have. Who facts check the fact checking agencies? You guys don’t seem concerned with that, you guys just accept that the fact checkers are honest.

 

[Jedster]

@an anarchist

Private Eye is worth a read.
Some of their jokes are so bad that they are good.

 

[sayak83]

Can you spot the difference between these two photos?

1st photo:
View attachment 96993

Second photo:
View attachment 96994

Did you catch the difference? I am having trouble telling the images apart.

If you did spot differences, can you elaborate on what separates these two photos?

All jokes aside, how/why can we trust the mainstream media? Should we trust the mainstream media? How do we know that American mainstream media isn’t just propaganda.

I am not here to claim it is all propaganda, even if I believe it to be so. I want to know how and why you guys trust it. Is it faith?

Trust regarding what?
I believe vaccines for COVID were effective at reducing deaths dramatically as shown by actual experience and studies after studies. I believe 9/11 was an actual Al Quaida terrorist attack. I did not believe the Iraq WMD nonsense then, before it got exposed. I believe governments world over severely under reported COVID deaths...again demonstrated by many studies.
I rarely watch news. I read newspapers, which are far more informative in my opinion.