Media Analysis & Research 101: Assessing Sources

“Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.”
– the Buddha

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People need to learn how to evaluate sources. For example, the New England Journal of Medicine is a somewhat reliable source of information on health. Facebook chat groups are not. Better still, generally speaking, are Andrew Weil and GreenMedInfo, for science-based health information that is not based on hysteria, fads, corporate manipulations, marketing or whitewash, government disinformation, or out-dated models, information and ideas. Remember, no one is infallible. Question ALL sources.

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In terms of media, CNN, MSNBC, Fox, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the BBC, CBC, and the establishment media in general, are simply not reliable. And that is an extraordinarily mild way to put it.

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They are unreliable at best. More generally, they parade lies, half-truths and illusions (as Thomas Jefferson described the media of his time, and it has not changed since) and market this as “the news”, or informed commentary and analysis.

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It’s not news. It’s propaganda. Read Chomsky: Necessary Illusions. Or just look beneath the surface, question, and look to the actual facts – do some fact-checking.

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Go to multiple sources. See what other people are saying – people outside of your clique or milieu included. And venture beyond the establishment media.

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80% of the major media in the world is now controlled by six corporations. This is not “news”. It is an echo-chamber of disinformation narratives, spun by the ruling elite, for the benefit of the ruling elite.

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Question everything.

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Question what your family, friends, clergy, teachers, professors, and neighbours believe, and question what you believe, and what you assume to be true.

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Question every assumed fact, and every assumed truth, every authority and every source. Then, piece by piece, glimmers of truth will appear, and slowly become clarified. Slowly, the fog will part. But only if you question; and dig for the truth.

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And when you find one good source, that leads to an explosion of new information, new perspectives, and new ideas, which leads to other new sources, and more information, new perspectives and new ideas.

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But remember, the new wonderful source may be wonderful only for a short while – until you strip away more layers of illusion yet.

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The Huffington Post, for example, may seem like a wonderful improvement over CNN, MSNBC or Fox, and maybe it is, at times. But that is a pretty abysmally low standard to beat. That’s like winning a contest in integrity with sewer rats, and strutting around bragging about it.

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When you begin to see deeply held illusions that are pervasively held at that source as well, and deeply held cognitive bias, deeply skewed “reporting” that omits major facts and major elements of the story, and worse, adopts the greater part of the standard official narrative that is being put out by the echo-chamber of the major corporate-state media, then you might come to realize that the Huff and Puff is only marginally better than the big corporate news empires, and only by a very slim margin at that.

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Keep digging.

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Where to begin? Start with Chomsky, Necessary Illusions: Thought Control In Democratic Societies. It’s a book, also available in audio, and I think the grand old dissident may have made it available free online. That is essential reading. Then look to John Pilger: one of the few honest, or even, real journalists left in the world, as we move into a Brave New World that would make Orwell shudder, as the new global corporate fascist empire takes hold.

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Between Pilger and Chomsky, you will have an excellent head start. And you don’t have to agree with them on everything. Just listen to what they have to say.

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Above all, think for yourself – and question everything.

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JTR,

March 17, 2020

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(Now, if only WordPress would stop being buggy – which it usually is not – and let me format my writing without use of stars to separate paragraphs! Techno-savvy I am not…)

And Happy St. Patty’s Day! I’m going for brunch with my boy. And remember what Public Enemy said: “Don’t believe the hype.”

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Post-Script:

Want to know what’s happening? Listen to John Pilger and Gerald Celente. What to understand the deeper patterns and big picture? Listen to Chomsky. Between Pilger, Celente and Chomsky you will understand the world very well. No one is infallible, but they’re 99% right, 99% of the time.

#Coronavirus.hype=fascist.machinations

 

Further reading – big picture analysis:

Noam Chomsky, Necessary Illusions: Thought Control In Democratic Societies,
Year 501: The Conquest Continues,
Class Warfare, and
Requiem For The American Dream: The Principles Of Concentration Of Wealth & Power
George Orwell, 1984
Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, and Brave New World Revisited
Yevgeny Zamyatin, We
Jack London, Iron Heel
Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine
David C. Korten, When Corporations Rule The World
Susan George, Shadow Sovereigns
John Pilger, The New Rulers Of The World
John Perkins, A Game As Old As Empire, and
The New Confessions Of An Economic Hitman
C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite
Peter Phillips, Giants: The Global Power Elite
Murray Bookchin, The Ecology of Freedom
Erich Fromm, Escape From Freedom
Bertrand Russell, Roads To Freedom
Joanna Macy, World As Lover, World As Self
Ronald Wright, A Short History Of Progress