12-05-2020, 12:14 AM
(12-04-2020, 06:44 PM)TnT Wrote: I've kept the MediaBias.com chart handy for a couple years now. It's an excellent source when I read something that I'm skeptical of at first glance. Also, it's a good source when I'm curious about what's going on, opinion-wise, in various corners of the bedlam. I despair when I realize that our friends on the right, by far, get their info either from the lower right or from the fetid cesspool of misinformation that is the internet.
Worth remembering: Google, Facebook, and Twitter are not news sources. Social media is no better than the supplier, and unless your friend really is a professional journalist, the best that one can get is eyewitness accounts. So if someone actually has an eyewitness account of an event -- fine. But if someone says "I saw this on the Internet", let alone "Some people say...". Third-hand material from InfoWars or Breitbart is no better than the original mierda del toro.
OK. I have a bias because of an education that tells me that the common person rarely has a novel idea. Maybe a unique experience, but that is it. I may have come up with a conclusion much like that of some philosopher (Hegel and Schopenhauer often popped up, as I found, when I offered some pretense of brilliance)... but one might as well read Hegel or Schopenhauer as to rely upon me. So before I say anything that isn't obvious opinion, I try to look for a source. Hegel and Schopenhauer have more credibility than I do. I have only a BA degree. The best that I can do is to simplify... which might be of value. Popular Science is far more accessible than Scientific American.
The splaying of opinion to the Left and Right itself demonstrates the polarization of America into hostile, exclusive camps. With this chart we have an objective guide to what is useful and reliable... and what isn't. I have become chary of citing the Huffington Post and Daily Kos just because they are available without a paywall and have the ring of truth to me. Even if CNN isn't particularly extreme in its bias it is awful.
All sources are not equal. We all have an obligation to identify our sources as if we were in Academia if we are to have credibility on something not strictly personal, right?
I am not afraid to ask the question "What is your source?" "My friend Gary Smith/Lois Garcia/Terry Suzuki" just isn't good enough for me. Most people are honest, but they are all too often naive about their sources.
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.