Where do you get your information from?

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#1
Double_R
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“Think for yourself” is a theme I’ve come across quite a bit lately, the implication of course being that you are not doing so but rather just regurgitating what other sources have told you.

This always amuses me. Take Covid for example. Is anyone on this site a doctor or scientist? Has anyone on this site rolled up their sleeves in a lab and performed the experiments themself? I’m betting not, I’m betting instead that the overwhelming majority of us get our information from sources we trust telling us how to interpret the data, or at the very least reports that someone else we trust performed.

In fact nearly everything we think we know, especially when it comes to politics is gained this way. It’s almost entirely about who we trust. There’s little way around that.

So with that said I have a few question for the group:

1. Where do you get your information from? What news channels are you watching, what publications are you reading, etc.?

2. How do you go about vetting the information you consume?

3. How exactly do you identify when you think someone else is not “thinking for themselves”?

And BTW, if you haven’t told us where you get your information from please do not jump in here and criticize anyone else. You have no standing to do so.
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#2
Double_R
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I’ll go first…

1. Where do you get your information from? What news channels are you watching, what publications are you reading, etc.?
I get my information mostly from MSNBC (Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow), and the David Packman show on YouTube. Sometimes I’ll also watch a little CNN out the Young Turks and when I’m bored I’ll read Huffington Post. My YouTube TV also records Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity, I try to watch at least one episode a week. I would watch more but I find them to be so full of crap I normally don’t make it through the episode.

2. How do you go about vetting the information you consume?
That’s why I come here. I think the best way to test your views is to put them up against someone who opposes them. I will also do a search anytime I’m not sure what to make of a claim, I generally don’t accept anything until I’ve given the opposing side an opportunity to rebut. I think pod casts provide the best conversions, I’ll watch a debate like at Politicon but those tend to be more theater than anything else.

3. How exactly do you identify when you think someone else is not “thinking for themselves”?
Blatant hypocrisy for one. But also when one repeats claims to which they have no reasonable argument to support. Like when someone claims the 2020 election was stolen, then talks about vote dumps or states changing their laws last minute. I mean seriously, just say you believe the dear leader because they told you so.


#3
Athias
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“Think for yourself” is a theme I’ve come across quite a bit lately, the implication of course being that you are not doing so but rather just regurgitating what other sources have told you.
Yes, it's been my experience that most of the members here--at least the ones I've come across--do this.

This always amuses me. Take Covid for example. Is anyone on this site a doctor or scientist?
Irrelevant. The information is either true or not, source notwithstanding.

I’m betting not, I’m betting instead that the overwhelming majority of us get our information from sources we trust telling us how to interpret the data, or at the very least reports that someone else we trust performed.
You should not trust another on "how to interpret the data." You should already know/have learned how to interpret the data. And if don't/haven't, then all you are doing is regurgitating.

In fact nearly everything we think we know, especially when it comes to politics is gained this way. It’s almost entirely about who we trust.
This is not an endorsement of politics.

There’s little way around that.
Regurgitation.

1. Where do you get your information from? What news channels are you watching, what publications are you reading, etc.?
I read: books, newspapers, journals, the internets, etc. You name it. I rarely watch the news--too much pageantry for my tastes. On occasion, I may watch ABC News.

2. How do you go about vetting the information you consume?
Logic.

3. How exactly do you identify when you think someone else is not “thinking for themselves”?
Their arguments exhibit repetition rather than rationalization.

And BTW, if you haven’t told us where you get your information from please do not jump in here and criticize anyone else. You have no standing to do so.
Regurgitation.

#4
Greyparrot
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@Athias
I read: books, newspapers, journals, the internets, etc. You name it.

I find the study of human instincts and biology and how it has helped shaped history makes me more prepared for what is to come.

Definitely love reading books.
#5
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Their arguments exhibit repetition rather than rationalization.

Yep, for example, it's objectively true that the 2020 election was the first of its kind with the sheer volume of mail in ballots, many of which were mailed to voters unsolicited. It's a feature acknowledged by both sides, yet somehow it's supposed to be a disputable fact because a millionaire on TV said so.
#6
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@Athias
A big reason why I don't come on here to really change anyone's mind is because they haven't read the books I read. I've asked before if they read "The Gulag Archipelago" or actually read Orwell. Most have no clue what really happened in Cambodia.

Apparently it's not required reading anymore sadly.
#7
oromagi
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1. Where do you get your information from? What news channels are you watching, what publications are you reading, etc.?

  • AP News app is my base standard.  If TV news says something has happened but AP News doesn't then it hasn't happened as far as I'm concerned.
  • NY TImes, WashPo, 
  • Denver Post, CBS local affiliate, NPR KCFR for State and Local
  • BBC World, Al Jazeera, Reuters, for Int'l- Le Monde for French perspective
  • KQED, WETA for NPR news, talk
  • The Daily, The Weeds, FIveThirtyEight, Pod Save America, Morning Joe, Ari Melber, Rachel Maddow
  • Bill Maher, John Oliver, Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me for comic weekly summaries
  • Twitter for what's trending
  • MSNBC on Sirius for Live or Breaking News, if video is a must ABC on FIrestick, ABC if local
    • For big police or firefighting stories I like to listen to police scanners live when possible
  • Wikipedia provides background and context to the new more or less constantly
  • So, almost all my news is read or heard.  I very rarely watch any news.

2. How do you go about vetting the information you consume?
  • Bylines.  Reliable sources have bylines that come with credentials and contact info.  Any true reporter leaves his contact info because she wants that follow up- no name?  no creds? no contacts?  is always a big hit to reliability
  • Wikipedia usually provides background and context
  • I distrust all Russian and Chinese sources by default
  • I distrust all NewsCorp and Sinclair Media owned sources by default
  • factcheck.org, politifact, Snopes, mediabiasfactcheck.com
3. How exactly do you identify when you think someone else is not “thinking for themselves”?
  • Plagarism.  Catching a debater cutting and pasting without attribution is the most persuasive way to discredit an opponent as unoriginal
  • Trumpist News is pretty monolithic these days.  John Moody's morning memo dictates Republican talking points across the nation- Fox News, OAN, NY Post, WSJ, Washington Times, Infowars, Breitbart, talk shows, politicians. The morning memo forms the skeleton of all Republican daily  news coverage and GOP politicos and ensures that everybody's on the same page politically.   Everybody denies getting their opinion from FOX but its amazing how often opinions expressed on this site perfectly echo an opinion expressed on Tucker or Hannity in the previous 48 hours.
    • As you say, our thinking is profoundly influenced by our sources.  To a significant degree, none of us is thinking for ourselves- at least not to degree of fashioning entirely original arguments on every subject.  The major cable news channels- CNN, MSNBC, FOX are all more like political talking points generators than surveys of national news.   Most political opinions expressed on this site echo some recent punditry somewhere that can be identified.
      • The accusation of unoriginal thinking is an effective debate tactic but truth be told any kind of productive generation of opinions on this site is bound to be less original than what we like to project in our arguments.


#8
cristo71
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1. Where do you get your information from? What news channels are you watching, what publications are you reading, etc.?
Yahoo, which comprises, among others:
- The PuffPost
- The Daily Least
- The Giardian
- The AOCiated Press
- NYT
- The Washington Compost
- Reuters
- Politico
- The Washington Examiner
- The National Review

The WSJ, Fox News, The Ben Shapiro Show, Anthony Brian Logan, Waking Up with Sam Harris, Jordan Peterson, Douglas Murray

Sometimes, out of morbid curiosity, I will check out CNN and MSNBC just to see if I can guess what they are talking about/not talking about and to see how they frame stories so differently from Fox

2. How do you go about vetting the information you consume?

To help “center” the news, I will peek at The Christian Science Monitor, but it’s only a weekly now, which is too bad.

In general, I use critical thinking skills and a BS detector honed over many years. If something fails the “smell test,” I will look at mediabiasfactcheck.org (to analyze sources), fact-check.org, politifact, snopes, media research center, Wikipedia (and its links) for less current information 

3. How exactly do you identify when you think someone else is not “thinking for themselves”?
I don’t really think that very often. When I do, it’s when someone claims to like or dislike a particular politician but cannot substantively explain why.




#9
RationalMadman
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1. Where do you get your information from? What news channels are you watching, what publications are you reading, etc.?
While I get it from a genuine variety of sources and more often than not I only particularly care what's in the News if either it's mentioned elsewhere or my parents talk about it, I will be specific on this as I'm aware this sounds ignorant.

I am a firm believe in the Illuminati controlling the News and yet I am left-wing. I do not understand why most conspiracy theorists are right-wing, it is a fact that right-wing News is even more blatantly geared to disinformation than the left-wing news but both have their fair share of context twisting and brutal manipulation of the facts to fit their biases.

So, I firmly believe that almost no news source that's mainstream is at all not a part of the problem and instead I focus on news sources that I think have the kind of biases I would like to see actually supported, I do really look at all news sources but the ones I trust most and take most serious on matters are those whos biases align with my own, this is the actual way to operate in a world of fake news, the one with the agenda you support is likely to tell you the line of thinking you should hate the least and question the least. I do always look around a topic, even in 'metoo' scenarios, to check if really the person was frame or not but what I do trust most and found my cross-source investigations support nearly 95% of the time (genuinely 92-95 out of 100 kind of ratio) is the ones with both a left-wing lean and yet a lean that isn't entirely dedicated to 'hating the right-wing'. To avoid helping people locate me, I will give examples of sources I trust most.

The Guardian (all countries where it has a branch, it's reliable)
BBC News
ABC News
Vox
Sky News Australia (massive right-wing lean but my investigations found that it actually states the truth often)
CBS News
The Independent
Often CNN (extreme bias but it fits my own and rarely directly lies, just twists context)
Al Jazeera (but I never trust it on matters it has locally in the middle east, instead its international reports are where its real reliability lies, it is very biased to be anti-israel and anti-American-right etc so I am careful what I trust or don't trust).
The Atlantic

and many others of course.

Canada is a developed nation where I personally have found a real overload of bullcrap filled with bias in its News so I stick to the source 'The National Post' there, even the national news source of Canada is filled with too much bias to bother following regularly. Just take one look at its website: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada

It looks like a teenager with 2 week's experience designed that website under extreme time pressure. I don't feel they put much effort into removing blatant bias from their articles.

There are many others I follow on the side but basically those sum up what I look at.

I follow many scientific magazines/papers. These include Psychology Today and New Scientist (as well as BBC's science branch). I also follow many YT channels that aren't officially 'news' for hot takes on things etc. Some are even right-wing, I am a Jordan Peterson subscriber for instance.

2. How do you go about vetting the information you consume?
Aside from when I give a damn about a particular article and do that cross-checking exercise (forcing myself to read many reports on the same topic/event) what I generally do to vet is just go with what I basically know the bias is and will fit mine. You see, since bias and twisting the truth to suit one's agenda is fairly inevitable in journalism, what I want is a twisted truth coming from a source that ultimately has the same overall morals and goals I have for society since they'll rarely report the truths that matter for my agenda in a twisted or fallacious manner. 

Such biases include, supporting a shift to higher minimum wage, better workers' rights, a total shift to the left for overall politics, not overly pandering to minorities just because left-wing (overly pandering includes things such as forgetting that Islam is linked to Sharia Law and that the influence it has on a culture they immigrate into needs to be significantly mitigated if it is to remain left-wing and liberal, it also includes not supporting calling Caitlyn Jenner 'woman of the year' after she had only been a woman for one year despite definitely supporting trans rights on a personal level). I also would say a huge thing for me is to report more on the mental health aspects of mass shooters without needing to deny them being the villains they are. We need to empathise even with those we despise, this is a significant life skill both wings lack at the moment but the right-wing lacks more for sure.

As for science news (which matters much more for our species than bullshit political news but unfortunately the latter can't be ignored) I generally find they don't lie even if they're biased, so if they state facts you can trust it regardless of agenda and it's nice to read.

3. How exactly do you identify when you think someone else is not “thinking for themselves”?
Well, it's pretty easy really, the hard part is accepting that barely anyone does. What I do is ask them 'alright, this is your take on this topic so why do you believe it and are you willing to let me attack it?' obviously I don't directly word it like that but I basically do that. Be careful doing it, it can cost you friendships and pleasant exchanges, however that ultimately is the test. If they get more hostile the more interest you take and less hostile the more you nod and gloss over any take they have on any topic, you know that you're dealing with a 'sheep'.

Unlike others who are very self-driven and notice 'sheep', I've learned to accept them, I don't have hostility. Some of my close family are what I'd call 'sheep' but I just let it be, I can't change them being sheep any more than they can change me being a self-thinker with a rare ability to admit my own biases while determining truth. The more you fight to change people, the worse your life will get. Instead just get along with them, socialise with them and appreciate their strengths, leave the deep chats for people who also want that. Your life will get much better and more fulfilling.

When with shallow thinkers, learn to think shallow. I say that without any resentment or hostility at all, I have come to be at total peace with this concept and way of living life. Save the philosophy and political shit for people who really wanna chat about that.
#10
Ramshutu
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@Double_R
1. Where do you get your information from? What news channels are you watching, what publications are you reading, etc.?
To keep up to date with what’s happening, I look at WaPo, and CBC and bbc news: I have apple alerts from a bunch of news sources across the board. But those are the ones I read. I keep an eye on fox and oann from time to time to make sure I don’t miss the general right wing themes.

If something big happens that interests me or I care about, I will dig into a bunch of different sources to work out what actually happened.

For general analysis, I do read www.electoral-vote.com a fair amount.

2. How do you go about vetting the information you consume?
I keep an eye on what the different sides are saying: and when they conflict I tend to dig deeper; it’s not like what most large viewership sources are saying are inherently wrong - on any side, at most they miss our data that changes the conclusion. Just figure out all key data, and the vetting tends to take care of itself.

What is hilarious is that Facebook and Google algorithms have not managed to figure out my political persuasion yet.


3. How exactly do you identify when you think someone else is not “thinking for themselves”?
People who don’t think for themselves are (obviously) unable to defend against novel arguments; and return to talking points or trolling.


#11
oromagi
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@Ramshutu


What is hilarious is that Facebook and Google algorithms have not managed to figure out my political persuasion yet.
google definitely has me down as a Trump voter


#12
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@Double_R
Good questions.

1. Data input.......Typical sources.

2. Data assessment.

3. Everyone thinks for themselves......Data input and data assessment.....Though their thoughts/output might be more or less repetition.....Data is usually modifications of existing data......New and unique data is rare.
#13
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it also includes not supporting calling Caitlyn Jenner 'woman of the year' after 
I meant includes supporting.

What I am saying is I don't support that award. What could Caitlyn Jenner possibly have done post-transition within her first year as a woman to qualify for woman over the year over every other woman in existence that could be picked instead of her?

It's things like that which I, personally, don't feel that censoring the opposition on it is correct.

People are cancelling JK Rowling, a passionate feminist and literal pioneer of female authoring in the modern age becoming mainstream, because she said (quite rightly) that one can't just put on makeup and undergo some operation and say they've lived life with the same disadvantages as a cis female has.

You don't suddenly become a woman because you ask people to call you 'she', people should call you a pronoun you like but you didn't experience the life of a woman you had a different struggle which is insulting to both trans people (and their struggle) and cis females to pretend is the same struggle.
#14
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It seems the right wing users are all too embarassed to name their sources or explain anything here. Athias for instance deflected the questioning.

108 days later

#15
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I would like to add the Indian news network WION

fantastic journalism I've seen and read from them.
#16
badger
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You all sound like you're spending 6 hours a day watching the news. 
#17
thett3
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@Double_R
3. How exactly do you identify when you think someone else is not “thinking for themselves”?
This is actually a harder question to answer than one might initially think because even really heterodox thinkers have biases that motivate their opinions. But I would say the thing that rubs me the wrong way the most when I see is is saying things that are objectively wrong, which can be determined to be objectively wrong with less than five minutes of research, such as claiming that the Covid-19 vaccine doesn’t significantly reduce the risk of hospitalization and death from Covid, that hundreds or thousands of unarmed black people are killed by police each year, that Covid-19 poses a significant risk to children, most of republican economic policy (okay this one isn’t *quite* objective but the performance of stuff like trickle down economics is extremely unimpressive)…the list goes on and on and both sides are guilty 

As to where I get my news from I try not to pay attention to the news or current events but I always learn about them through social media. I’ve been a Twitter lurker for years now and follow a lot of news accounts, liberal blue check marks, the election analysis people, a few normie conservatives, but the largest portion is largely anonymous but interesting accounts who lean right wing but not always. I generally try to find the primary sources myself whenever I see something that contradicts what I am pretty confident about or affirms what I want to believe to an extent that seems to good to be true


#18
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Things that I hate about both sides:

Liberals: snobbishness, humorlessness/puritanical nature, desire to censor, inability to mentally model the opposition, think because some elements of the past were bad the entire thing can be discarded

Conservatives: defeatism, general propensity to bitch and moan, no substantive policy proposals, easily taken in by hucksters, backward looking, think because some elements of the past were good we must “RVTURN TO TRADITION”

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#19
Double_R
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@thett3
inability to mentally model the opposition
I agree with everything you listed for both sides, but I don’t know what you mean by this one and am curious.
#20
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@Double_R
I agree with everything you listed for both sides, but I don’t know what you mean by this one and am curious.

It comes from the work of Jonathan Haidt, who did some very interesting studies on political affiliation and tried to model peoples values over 5 different axis. Basically in surveys on moral questions self identified conservatives were able to accurately predict what an average liberal would answer, but self identified liberals generally failed to predict what an average conservative would answer:  https://theindependentwhig.com/haidt-passages/haidt/conservatives-understand-liberals-better-than-liberals-understand-conservatives/

One study but it tracks with my experience extremely well. My theory for why this happens to the extent it does is that unless they just don't interact with the broader society at all even someone who lives in the deepest reddest area is exposed to liberal narratives in media, advertising, sometimes the education system even in very deep red areas. Whereas a liberal could easily go their whole life without encountering a conservative narrative more than a few times. 
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#21
Double_R
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@thett3
I agree with your assessment, but add that the ability to predict what someone will say is not the same thing as understanding them (not sure if that’s the implication here but it’s what it sounds like). It’s like the abortion narrative where the right hates the idea of women having a choice on what to do with their bodies while the left just wants to kill babies.
#22
16kadams
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I get my information exclusively from online anonymous schizos with anime, pepe, or groyper pfps. They seem to have a good track record.