It's usually a good idea not to trust politicians or journalists when it comes to science. The first usually has an agenda and the second usually doesn't understand what they are writing about.
You can certainly look for yourself *after* you have done the necessary preliminaries of understanding the overall topic and how the current situation fits into the general scheme.
For example, you don't get to criticize the Big Bang model unless you first understand general relativity since the BB model is *based* on general relativity. And, of course, to understand general relativity, you should first understand differential geometry.
You don't get to criticize evolution unless you first understand the basics of genetics, paleontology, and comparative anatomy. Which means you need to first understand taxonomy, some geology, and some biochemistry.
Your numbers don't add up because you use addition when you should use multiplication. You do that because you are ignorant of *why* multiplication instead of addition is used. If you correct your ignorance first, you wouldn't have that problem.
The good thing is that the necessary materials to learn from are out there and freely available. There are even people who will answer questions you have. But you do still need to do the preliminary work or you simply won't have the background to understand either the claims being made or the answers that are given.