Bad News

Information today is perhaps more complicated than it has ever been. There are more sources than ever before and word travels at the speed of light. We have the opportunity to learn more about our world than any other people ever have. The bulk of human knowledge lies at our fingertips, and yet misconception and superstition still abound, and to a greater degree than they did a few decades ago. The internet is full of misrepresentative and even fabricated accounts of just about anything, and these things have an impact on people. Look to the birthers or the anti-vaccination people, most of the rest of us can see that they don't know what they're talking about, but they're convinced that they're right. They read an article or saw something on TV and never really investigated any further than that, or did so through biased sources. Of course there are some people who do actually fabricate nonsense for their own benefit, from modern snake-oil salesmen to corrupt polticians, there's not really much we can do to change their minds. Lying is rather profitable. With people like that, you have to take Harry Houdini's approach and pull the rug out from under them.

So how do you immunize a society against nonsense? First look at why we're so susceptible in the first place. I can't speak for everyone, but I know I certainly wasn't taught how to check up on the validity of sources or fact-check their claims in school, and it seems as though I'm far from alone in that. It wasn't as important a skill to have in life as it is today for the general public, because the responsibility for gathering and interpreting information wasn't on us, it was on journalists. At medium-dependent intervals ranging from a few times a day to once a month or so, we were given neatly packaged bits of information generally harvested by professionals. While it wasn't always accurate, it generally tried to be, and error correction was not an uncommon practice. Now we've got a 24 hour news cycle and more widely available sources than anyone can keep track of. If error correction happens, it often goes unnoticed. Most stories aren't compelling enough to keep our attention as they develop. Unless we specifically decide to look further into something, or it happens to become a topic of general interest, all we're going to see is a flash in the pan of a few headlines, never knowing the end result. Even if you're doing more digging than the average person, we can't fact-check everything, so source quality is a big issue. The best sources still get things wrong sometimes, so how can anyone hope to improve the quality of information they're getting? By identifying and cutting out the worst offenders. Let's talk about what that entails.

How can you tell if a source is particularly biased, or even fabricating stories? The first line of defense is Google. A quick search on a source will often bring up criticism regarding neutrality or accuracy of reporting. Searching for the story in question, or other stories on the site, can also be helpful. If you find that the only other places reporting the story are copypasta blogs, forums, and biased "news" sites, that can be a good indication that you're dealing with a source that's not very reliable. Reputable sources generally want to print interesting stories if they're real, so chances are you'll be able to find some decent sources talking about it if a story is legit. Again, even that's not a 100% guarantee of the veracity of the claims made in the story, but it's a hell of a lot more likely to be accurate than something you read on InfoWars. Another big indicator of lack of authenticity can the image they try to project in what they report on, how they report on it, and even their name. When a site advertises itself openly as conservative, liberal, religious, anti-establishment, pro-establishment, "natural", etc, it's coming out and telling you that it's going to stack the deck in favor of the opinions it endorses. Even if they don't fabricate information themselves, they're more susceptible to repeating fabricated or misconstrued information without carefully examining it. They're also more likely to report stories that seem to confirm their beliefs and fail to report stories that would hurt their position, so even if they actually manage 100% factual accuracy in all their stories, they're going to present them in such a way that it skews the apparent degree to which the world conforms to their ideas about it.

With this in mind, I'd like to address a few particularly bad sources.

Fox News - Has a well documented history of sensationalist reporting, misrepresentation, and outright lies. Responsible for the Tea Party.

The Daily Mail - A British paper with a strong conservative bias with a history of fabricating news, as well as sensational, misrepresentative headlines.

RT (Russian Times) - A Kremlin mouthpiece covered in conspiracy nonsense.

The Huffington Post - As if anti-vaccination propaganda and advocating homeopathy weren't enough, they're also in the habit of tossing around other bad science and conspiracy garbage. Occasionally they have a decent article on something, but with the quality of reporting you really can't trust that it's got any basis in reality.

Natural News - Bad science and conspiracies again. Note the name. There are many other sites that are very similar to this one that run the same stories and have very similar names.

Infowars et al - These sites make a point of letting you know that they're telling the truth, because what everyone else is telling you is a lie. That's a pretty good indication that they're off their rockers.

Again, even the best source gets things wrong sometimes, but by cutting out the worst sources, and by doing the extra footwork when we can, we can fill our heads, and the heads of those around us, with a little less garbage. Don't take my word on this stuff, don't take anyone's word on anything, check up on it yourself. Half of us have computers in our pockets wherever we go now, we might as well start doing what we can to have some idea what we're talking about.