(Chart brought over to make the case):
![[Image: main-qimg-12f43747967c9c690a3f29e6bb5ecd29]](https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-12f43747967c9c690a3f29e6bb5ecd29)
Straight reporting is difficult to manipulate. If you were to ask me what I thought are the most reliable news sources, I would choose the wire services of AP and Reuters because their blitz writing makes manipulation impossible in the wires. Rush jobs are usually awful, but it takes effort to manipulate news into propaganda. If one relied entirely upon media in the upper part of the gray circle, one would get little wrong. Obviously, the Wall Street Journal is decidedly conservative because of its clientele that consists heavily of investors who have an obvious stake in capitalism at its purest, but it is worthy reading. You might balance it with NPR and be OK.
But -- straight reporting isn't enough for most people. Most people like some analysis, and in that the divergence between Left and Right begins. Maybe the Left insists upon better literary content, and the Right is more willing to fall for something 'provocative'. There is complex analysis in or near the political center, but the more that the news product is persuasion. let alone propaganda, the less likely one is to be near the political center.
At or near the bottom is either non-news (the National Enquirer has gone back from politics to its traditional stories of celebrities acting badly), quackery (natural foods cures all, anti-vax stuff) or outright propaganda. Religious fundamentalism and racist bilge such as Stormfront are missing from this array, but we probably get the idea anyway. Such is the septic tank of the mind. A hint: do not brag about getting knowledge from InfoWars.
Straight reporting is difficult to manipulate. If you were to ask me what I thought are the most reliable news sources, I would choose the wire services of AP and Reuters because their blitz writing makes manipulation impossible in the wires. Rush jobs are usually awful, but it takes effort to manipulate news into propaganda. If one relied entirely upon media in the upper part of the gray circle, one would get little wrong. Obviously, the Wall Street Journal is decidedly conservative because of its clientele that consists heavily of investors who have an obvious stake in capitalism at its purest, but it is worthy reading. You might balance it with NPR and be OK.
But -- straight reporting isn't enough for most people. Most people like some analysis, and in that the divergence between Left and Right begins. Maybe the Left insists upon better literary content, and the Right is more willing to fall for something 'provocative'. There is complex analysis in or near the political center, but the more that the news product is persuasion. let alone propaganda, the less likely one is to be near the political center.
At or near the bottom is either non-news (the National Enquirer has gone back from politics to its traditional stories of celebrities acting badly), quackery (natural foods cures all, anti-vax stuff) or outright propaganda. Religious fundamentalism and racist bilge such as Stormfront are missing from this array, but we probably get the idea anyway. Such is the septic tank of the mind. A hint: do not brag about getting knowledge from InfoWars.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.