How to sift BS in the NEWS

[nomadpete]

We all get caught up in major news stories from time to time.

 

With all the tech & social media "improvements" to our information sources, what can we trust?

 

When you say "the press", do you mean the multi-billion-dollar corporations owned and/or controlled by  billionaire oligarchs?

Just my opinion, but if you're still consuming, or worse paying for that stuff, it's probably best to quit the habit.

 

These days we have to dig deeper.

[nomadpete]

    One trick is going to the propagandists and official PR first to identify what definitely is not a truth, and to set floors and ceilings for where reality might be.


I applied that to the news about the Good murder in USA. When the WH called it domestic terrorism, I combined that with assuming that any story headline that stirs deep emotions is likely non-credible.

So I figured it was murder.

 

Of course in that particular example we'll probably never see a court ruling to confirm.

 

 

Edited Monday at 09:56 PM by nomadpete

[onetrack]

I can't remember the last time I paid for any news, it was at least a decade ago. Oh yes, I remember - I paid for a "subsidised" short subscription to one of the local Murdoch newspapers - about 3 mths, I think. Then, when I decided that paying for loads of useless crap disguised as "news" was a dead loss, I decided to cancel my subscription.

 

Holy Mother of God, what a devious and convoluted performance, that immediately turned into!! Every single obstruction that one could think up, was placed in my way, to avoid cancelling my subscription. They even called me, to try and pressure me, to NOT cancel!! It was unbelievable, they were operating like a multi-level marketing scheme, trying to ensure you never left their snare, and you provided a permanent source of income for them!

 

The exercise has made me very wary of devious corporate behaviour when it comes to subscriptions, and the lengths these scumbags will go to, to ensnare you.

I see where Amazon has had to refund customers that they deviously trapped into paying for Prime subscriptions, when they never intended to subscribe. Unfortunately, it was only Amazon customers who signed up to the Amazon U.S. site, Australian Amazon customers get nothing.

 

[facthunter]

He Runs NEWSCORPSE. May HE live long enough to see it DIE. Nev

[Jerry_Atrick]

I am a paid subscriber to the Financial Times, though I recently cancelled it, so some time in February, my access to the articles will run out. It is owned by Nikkei Inc, a Japansese media company. It has been for some time. 

 

Why am I leaving? Because is has become a paper reporting more on politics than finance. Also, at over £300/year, they restrict the articles I can see. Effing ridiculous. 

 

They do have a good reputaion though. However, it is still, in my opinion, embellisdhed. Twice I have read articles about subject matter I am directly involved in, in a professional capacity. And twice, they were not terribly accurate. One was during the implementation of the EU financial directive and regulation, together referred to as MiFID II. It doesn't matter what it is about, however, the story they wrote was for a particular part of the regulation I was working on was that the regulation was nebulous, that the industry working groups had no idea what to do, and it was effectively unworkable. That article was read by the managing director of one of the businesses (effectively a CEO), who sent me a sharp email referring to the article and a please explain given the progress updates I provided to him did not highlight this dire situation. 

 

My response was that there were some minor questions on the meaning of a couple of paragrpahs in the regulation, that the regulator had porovided clarification, and not only was it well understood by ourselves, but the industry groups had also understood it.. and that our bank as well as three others I was in contact with had implemented the systems to meet the rule - 18 months before they had to! 

 

They also reported that the total number of paragrpahs for the regulation and all of the supporting officlal clarifications, technical standards, implementation standards (EU law is bloody verbose), came to over 9 milliion. Well, I haven't read all of the EU member states extensions, but I had read all of the EU and FCA regulations, clarigications, explanatory notes, technical standards, and implementing standards, and bugger me, it was no where near that. 

 

You pay for BS with any media - they want you get read it for eyeballs sell advertising. The more hysteria they can raise, the more people will look, the more advertising they will sell. 

 

(p.s. in Aus, I may have kept the subscription as I could probably write it off against my taxable income; over here, they are tight-arses..)