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Where do you get your news and information from?

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I watch a lot of cable news and in between aneurysms occasionally I hear someone say something that makes sense. I was wondering where the members of this forum get their news and information from. (Keeping in mind that I don’t have internet access.) I have a hard time finding anyone hwo makes any sense. Whom do you trust?

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Unfortunately, without internet access, I think you may be hard-pressed to find anything worthwhile. I really don't know that there is any one source for good information. I like drudgereport.com because his links take me out to other news websites and I just keep exploring from there, gathering news and data from many sources quite quickly. It would take weeks to do that at a newsstand or library and impossible to do on TV. :P

EDIT: I agree with Kendall, the WSJ is usually pretty good.

Edited by K-Mac
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You could use the internet at your library or some other place that offers free access. (The place where I get my oil changed and car washed offers free internet access while you wait.)

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You know, there are relatively few bad sources of information. What you really need to do is filter out the media from the news. What I do is skim through, "In a bold move..." and "risky speculators have..." and just focus on the facts and figures of what happenend, where and when. I'm also careful to think, 'Is there anything that might NOT have been mentioned'. This is the hardest skill to develop, one which I'm still working on, and one which 'Freakonomics', funnily enough, pushed me in the direction of developing.

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I would definitely agree that the web is the way to go; unlike the periodical version of the Wall Street Journal, etc., and the TV programs of the likes of CSPAN, etc., web-based information sources offer one thing that I love: links. You can shoot off to other sources to see where they're deriving their information from and so on and so forward. Links are like the internet version of footnotes, and I am very fond of them. (Tracing footnote trails was the foundation of my research method for my history thesis). Granted, some links can lead you very astray, but sometimes little journeys can be fun. ALso, since links can help you discover what sources news sources are using for what they report, it can help you determine what news sources are more to your liking and reliable. I am presonally quite entertained, and disgusted, when I find out that an interesting and ground-breaking news article is using opinions more than facts as their "evidence"-- even though they lead you to believe they're citing facts. For example, a lot of economic articles out there right now are fear-mongering because they're citing certain economists and politicians' predictions rather than evidence of past or current fact. You can sense this from periodicals, and from the television programs, but I think the web really allows one to prove how subjective many "news sources" can be.

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This reminds me of a question I've had, ever since I read 'The Fountainhead': Do the newspapers actually lead public opinion, or do they follow it? Or do academics become very vocal, the newspapers use it as their basis for choosing what to publish(e.g. lots of vocal global warming scientists = lots of pro-G.W stuff) and then it becomes public opinion?

Edited by Tenure
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This reminds me of a question I've had, ever since I read 'The Fountainhead': Do the newspapers actually lead public opinion, or do they follow it?

They actually follow public opinion. They try to cater their stories and headlines to what they believe the public is interested in. They are usually right; the problem is that the public is usually interested in garbage.

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Just about every morning at 7:40 I go to my school's library and read the first page of the Wall Street Journal. If there's anything interesting, I'll continue reading it. Then, from about 3:30 - 4:00, I'll alternate between Headline News Channel, CNN (believe it or not), and FOX. At 7:00, if I have time (which I usually don't), I'll watch Glenn Beck. I actually think Glenn Beck is pretty good (at least comparatively). Then again, every couple of weeks he'll say something that makes it so I can't watch him for days on end.

Edited by Devils_Advocate
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  • 4 weeks later...

There is no really in-depth reporting anywhere. I usually just check Drudge and CNN, and if something that I'm interested in pops up, i'll just google it (Google News) and try to find the most accurate story-usually a newspaper local to the area.

Unfortunately, when it comes to the middle east, evryone who has any resources to report on a story is heavily biased towards the multiculturalist side of the story, so the israeli media (the leftists there, somewhat surprisingly) are actually the only ones covering it fairly objectively. I check them out even if the story doesn't concern Israel, if it's in Asia.

The US presidential election however is in my estimation simply not covered. For some reason, the people who have any idea what a journalist is supposed to do do not cover Obama and Biden.

There is nothing more I need to know about McCain and Palin: McCain is a warhero, but has an awful record as a legislator, and Palin is just a fanatic and generally dishonest. There is no way I could vote for that ticket.

I would love to make an informed decision, however, on Obama. Since there is no real media to vet him, I couldn't, in good conscience, vote for him, even as a vote against McCain.

Here's a great editorial on the media coverage this election-year:

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Story?id=6099188&page=1

I've found it worth my time, which is rare for me.

Edited by Jake_Ellison
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