Being Informed In The Modern News Climate

Can you find all the light blue ones? It's kind of like finding the truth in the news these days. You can do it, but it's not easy.
Photo credit: D Sharon Pruitt of Pink Sherbet Photography
Disclaimer: This is not an endorsement or disparagement of Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Howard Dean or any politician, political party or ideology, but I will use these individuals and their backgrounds -- with facts given -- as examples in this article. If you're a supporter of any of the named politicians, please try to not get offended, be patient and read through the entire article and try to understand the point that I am making. This is an article about: avoiding emotional reactions, being a critical thinker, using multiple sources of information and sniffing out deception. If you find yourself getting angry or defensive while reading this, then you're already missing the point of the article. Take a step back, calm your nerves, clear your mind and re-read objectively.


Introduction

Today -- January 1, 2017, after the closure and finalization of the 2016 election and Donald Trump is confirmed, but not yet inaugurated, the successor to President Barak Obama -- I was surprised to see a family member of mine (from here on out, I'll refer to as "Jane") share a change.org petition on Facebook to nominate Hillary Clinton as a Supreme Court Justice. Why would this surprise me? I was surprised to see this because, in the last half of the 2016 Democratic Primary race, Jane had decided to stop supporting Hillary Clinton and start supporting Bernie Sanders. I had thought, at the time, that Jane had stopped supporting Clinton because another family member of mine (whom we'll call "Austen" *wink*) and I had won Jane over to the idea of supporting Bernie for his merits while casting Clinton aside for her lack of merit. Austen and I had numerous discussions with Jane on the subject between Nov 2015 - Feb 2016 on this matter. We had argued many points over that time, slowly convincing her that Sanders was a stronger candidate for the people while Clinton was much weaker and untrustworthy. We focused primarily on that Hillary Clinton is heavily funded by Wall Street and large investment firms, whereas Bernie is far less tied to special interests, funded primarily by individual voter donations [2] and wants to limit the power that Wall Street banks have over the voters and their politicians. Both candidates raised similar amounts of money during the 2016 Democratic Primary [1234], but one raised most of their money from voters and small, individual donations (Sanders) while the other raised most of their money from large corporations and Super PACs (Clinton).

So, if Jane had decided that Hillary Clinton was not worthy of the Democratic nomination after all we had told her about Clinton's ties to Wall Street, why would Jane now support Clinton for the position of an impartial judge? Hillary owes much of her career to big banks and media conglomerates. Favors will be called in on these large donations at some point. I mean, you wouldn't simply give away $500,000 or more to someone if it didn't directly benefit you in some way down the road. Right? Large corporations commonly face SCOTUS rulings to prevent them from negatively impacting the nation and its economy with their business dealings and monopolizing of the market. It stands to reason that Hillary Clinton's ability to be impartial is at least somewhat (if not significantly) compromised by the $2,935,000 she was paid for 12 speeches that she gave to Wall Street banks from 2013 to 2015 and the more than $400,000,000 in financial backing she has received from for-profit corporations (the bulk of which from big banks), special interest groups and Super PACs catering to big business throughout her recent political career. Knowing all this, why would Jane support Hillary Clinton for a SCOTUS position when we have many other possible candidates who are far less influenced by large, corporate, special interests? You might be thinking, "this doesn't mean she can't be impartial." If you truly believe that, later on in this article I will tell you the story of another former presidential candidate who relied on large, special interest donations and where they are today and how common their story is in politics, and we'll see if you still feel the same after that.

So, after all this, why would Jane want a former presidential candidate, whose political career is deeply indebted to special interests, to be appointed as an impartial judge to the Supreme Court of the United States?


Being informed

It all comes down to is being informed, or being uninformed. Being informed is not an easy thing to accomplish, especially not now that most of the major news organizations we have come to know and rely on are owned by just a few major for-profit corporations and holdings companies [2, 3]. To make things even more murky, there is more information available to the average news consumer, today, yet it's getting harder to interpret and filter out all the political pollution, bias and blatant misdirection. And finally we are seeing more and more that the corporations that own the news outlets are tailoring the reporting to stricter and stricter narratives in order to drive ratings and increase the revenue of their holdings [1], which inadvertently also controls the political playing field (you keep trying to make the same types of politicians whom you fund look favorable in the news outlets that you control because they're looking out for your own interests as a for-profit corporation). Jane, and most other people, don't know that Hillary's top contributors to her 2016 primary and presidential campaigns were Wall Street banks. The same banks that ran our economy into the ground, the banks that crashed the stock market in 2008 and that paid Hillary Clinton almost $3 million over three years to have her speak at their companies are the same banks that made the largest individual contributions to her 2016 campaigns. Even though this information on Clinton's backers is publicly available, most people don't know these important details about Clinton. They don't know this because the long-established major news organizations that most people get their news from will not report on it. And no matter what their friends and family members tell them, the Janes of the world are not going to believe these things (or at least the information won't have a strong impact on their perception of things) unless their favorite news outlets tell them these things too. So, why won't the major news outlets report on Clinton's strong financial ties to these large for-profit corporations?


Isn't it the the news media's job to inform us?

Why won't the major news organizations report on how our candidates are funded and who is buying them out from under their everyday voters? Well, let's use Jane and her spouse (John) as an example: Jane and John greatly prefer MSNBC for their news and they love Rachel Maddow. I get it. I like her too, but I take what Rachel and her cable media ilk tell me with heavy skepticism. Even if what she is reporting on seems to be largely truthful, I am still left asking myself, "what is she not telling me?" I -- and many others like myself -- refer to MSNBC and many other major radio and television news organizations as the "corporate news media," and for good reason which I'll explain more as I go on. Jane once laughed at me, when I said that MSNBC was "corporate news media." Jane insisted that they were not corporate. Jane thinks of MSNBC as being somewhat rebellious and independent, probably because of how heartfelt and "unfettered" people like Rachel Maddow and former MSNBC anchor Keith Olbermann can get, almost as if they don't care what the chief editor and censors think, they'll say what they feel and anyone who disagrees be damned! It sounds and feels authentic, and in many (or most) cases it may very well be authentic, but they still have to play to a certain tune, which I will explain.

Note: I am sure that Jane and John also follow CNN, and perhaps another cable news outlet or two, but all those news sources are part of the same problem and are withholding some of the same critical information from their reports.

Whether you like MSNBC and other large news networks or not, most of them are for-profit organizations and their parent companies (which are media conglomerates as holdings companies) will have "horses" in public office as well as lobbyists pushing congress for legislation to better secure them increased revenue and reduce their competition (e.g. monopolizing). Most for-profit corporations don't have a policy of being empathetic toward human needs, seeking the betterment of society or being particularly patriotic about their country (especially not if they're a multinational corporation). No, their goal is typically just to make as much money as possible and to beat out all competition. The most successful of them often buy our politicians, funding their campaigns for (re)election (legally now, thanks to the Citizens United vs FEC ruling and Super PACs) and lobby congress and "instruct" already bought members of congress to pave legal roads to their continued corporate success, even to the detriment of the American people as a whole.

Right! You want me to get to the point. Why won't MSNBC give us the dirt on who owns Hillary Clinton? At the time of writing this article, MSNBC is a NBCUniversal company, which has been owned by Comcast since January 18, 2011. Who was one of Comcast's top donation recipients during the 2016 Democratic Primary and Presidential elections? Hillary Clinton. Comcast has also contributed to numerous funds and political action campaigns (PACs and Super PACs), many of which have put some or all of the money they have raised toward Hillary Clinton's Primary and Presidential campaigns.

So, Comcast owns MSNBC and is a major contributor to Hillary Clinton's political career.

Note: Comcast also contributed to Bernie's campaign in the middle of the 2016 Democratic Primary election, though not nearly as much as to Clinton, and only when it started looking like Sanders might actually give Clinton a run for her money. Big corporations tend to put a little money on multiple candidates who stand a chance to win, so as not to totally lose out anywhere. A typical investment strategy in more than just politics. But their big "horse" that they really wanted to win was Clinton and you can see that by the initial investment amounts as well as the ending total after multiple rounds of reinvesting. They wanted her to win because they new that she was the candidate most likely to give them what they wanted.

I'm sure that, with the kind of clout that Rachel Maddow has, if she saw something truly galling about Hillary Clinton that she thought the world should know, she would report on it to some degree. But, in the end, all of Rachel's reports need to be reviewed and approved by the MSNBC editor-in-chief before they go live and that person's paycheck is signed by Comcast. Comcast is not going to let one of their child companies sabotage their horse in the races. Other media conglomerates besides Comcast had also put their money on Clinton's presidential run. Those conglomerates will also make sure that their child news agencies do not hinder the success of their candidate. It all comes down to money. "Deliver the news, but make sure the message doesn't lose us money ... And try to spin the message in a way that makes us more money" is the tune you have to play to when you work for a for-profit corporation.


The Invested and their Fundraised Walking Dead

Typically, when a large corporation puts a large sum of money toward a politician's campaign, it's because that politician, if they should win, will use their position, sway and government connections to pave the way to their donors' increased success. It's an investment with a strong potential for returns that greatly exceed their initial cost. Even if their bought politician loses an election, they are still beholden to their largest donors in whatever they do afterward. This is the zombie effect of taking large corporate donations as a public official. Losing election candidates and retired public officials who were heavily funded by corporations will commonly become lobbyists for their biggest donors later on. One simple example of this is Howard Dean, who ran as a 2004 Democratic Primary candidate. He supported single-payer, universal healthcare and seemed to be a true representative of the people. I thought he was the best candidate the Democrats had, at the time. What I and many other supporters of his did not know at the time, was that his campaign was largely funded by big pharma and large healthcare firms and law firms. Well, he lost the 2004 primary and did not run again after that. But now he works as a senior advisor to the lobbying arm of Dentons (law firm) that lobbies on behalf of big pharma, healthcare providers and health insurance companies. Today Howard Dean is opposed to a low-cost, universal health plan. His tune completely changed after the election and now he talks like a lobbyist who is opposed to all of his original ideals. Large for-profit corporations paid for Dean's 2004 campaign and now he works for them. So, if elected and public officials are so strongly bound to their large donors, do you think this may affect their judgement when they have command over legislation, executive and supreme court decisions? And you never hear these big news agencies, like MSNBC, reporting on these important details. Interesting, isn't it?


Getting to the point

So, most household names of the news elite are controlled by larger for-profit corporate entities who only care about the bottom line. The reporting from these news agencies will always attempt to not hurt their bottom line and will often -- if not always -- try to improve their bottom line by using a biased approach to reporting [and commentary on] the news. It's a sad thing, but that's how it works today. But my ultimate goal in writing this blog post, however, is not to tell you what you should already know. I do want to open your eyes to the problem of for-profit and biased news media if you don't already know about it, but my primary goal in this article is to help you learn how to get around the problem and how to be well-informed.

So, how do you consistently get the right information? How do you learn that Hillary Clinton's pockets are lined with money paid to her by Wall Street executives? How do you find out that her pockets are lined with money from media conglomerates and that those same conglomerates are the ones controlling the messaging to everyone about Clinton? If you can't trust your favorite news agency to tell you these important details because they're owned by the same interests funding Clinton's personal and political path, where do you go to get the real information that you need? Well, there are four approaches to getting this information ...


Four ways to get the information that not everyone wants you to know

  1. Do the research yourself
  2. Don't rely on just one news agency; use many, conflicting news agencies
  3. Use independent news media
  4. All of the above

Do the research yourself

One way to get the information is to just do all the research yourself, like I did and showed earlier in this blog post. Using tools like Wikipediaopensecrets.org, Sunlight Foundation and fec.gov (and many others), you have all the power at your fingertips and you don't have to wait around for someone in a suit to come on and [hopefully] tell you what you need to know. Doing the research yourself can take a lot of time, though. So, I totally understand that this may not be an option for you.


Don't rely on just one news agency; use many, conflicting news agencies

Another alternative is to do some very basic research to learn who the owners of multiple news sources are and then to use those news sources that are not all owned by the same parent conglomerate. You can easily learn this information from Wikipedia. Additionally, you should watch some news sources that have opposing views to each other and to your own. So, if you're a left-leaning person who likes to watch MSNBC, you might also want to watch Fox News, and vice versa if you're a right-leaning person. We're no longer in an era where you can reliably get all your news from one source.

If you find yourself agreeing with most or all of what your news source is saying, that news source is likely manipulating you, or at the very least is unintentionally creating an ideological/political echo chamber tailored to its audience demographics. Just because you don't agree with someone's political or ideological views does not mean that their information they're reporting on is wrong. You're best served questioning everything, but especially so those that you agree with (lest you get unwittingly trapped in an echo chamber). As the old adage goes, "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."

Additionally, use news sources that are not all domestic (e.g. use foreign news sources in addition to your own nation's sources). Mix up the news sources by region and nation. Many U.S. news agencies will avoid reporting on a subject or will bias their reporting in order to avoid making the U.S. and its allies look bad. Likewise, other countries who are not entirely friendly with the U.S. (e.g. Russia), their news agencies may report on subjects in a biased manner that intentionally makes the U.S. look bad. Use a variety of news sources from multiple nations, even ones negatively biased to your country, to get a full picture of what is really going on.

A rather simple way to investigate a news source to learn who owns it, how it leans politically and what its overall accuracy in reporting is, is to use a site called Media Bias/Fact Check. This is a website funded by public donations that does research on news sources and has a user-friendly interface to quickly search for a news source and give you data-driven (and user reported) statistics on them.


Use independent news media

Most importantly, if you want to be well informed, you should start watching independent and non-profit news media. Independent news media is not controlled by large corporations and so they do not have the capital to have a "horse in the race," so to speak, which leaves them more amenable to revealing both the bad and the good in just about any candidate or issue. Most of the independent news media agencies are funded by donations from their viewers/audience. Some of them are funded by membership dues and so you should keep in mind that these dues-driven independent news agencies can be heavily biased toward the leanings of the membership demographics.

Ultimately there is nothing wrong with getting your news from biased sources, as most (if not all) of them are biased, just so long as you are constantly aware that the bias exists and what that bias is.

One of the many independent news agencies I follow is The Young Turks (TYT) and their funding comes from membership dues and fund raisers. TYT is a progressive-leaning news organization. I would argue that it is one of the most fair and balanced news agencies out there. TYT gets fairly accurate information, usually reports on all sides and rarely misreports. When they do misreport, they will publicly correct and apologize once they figure it out or when viewers point out the errors. But I am one of their long-time dues-paying members, so you may want to consider that fact along with what I am saying (i.e. I am possibly biased).


All of the above

I, myself, prefer doing all of the above. I do all the research myself, I follow multiple corporate news media outlets and multiple independent and non-profit news media outlets and I pay attention to both the left and right leaning sources, even if I disagree with their narrative. I follow many foreign news agencies as well. I probably follow close to 50 (maybe more) different news organizations and I spend a lot of my time reading into publicly available information on candidates and the agencies reporting on them. This process is very time consuming for me. I tend to spend about the first four hours after getting home from work following up on news and current events and reading up on sources and validating findings. I also follow all the Twitter feeds of these news outlets so that I get a steady stream of news updates throughout the day. The stream of news updates helps me know how to jump to the important bits at the end of the day, optimizing my news intake a bit.


Red flags

When reading (or listening to) news reporting, there are certain red flags you should train yourself to watch for. With time and practice, you will gradually find yourself becoming more and more aware of deception in the news, where the news might be completely false/fabricated or simply manipulating you into following a strongly-biased narrative. Some warning signs that you are being manipulated are:
  • You find yourself agreeing with the news source all the time
  • The same news source keeps reporting on the same subject hour after hour, day after day
  • Emotional or loaded language is being used to describe the news
  • The reporter/writer uses demeaning labels or nicknames to describe their subjects
  • Name calling, shouting, insult slinging
  • Focusing the attention on a subject's physical appearance or shaming or praising their physical appearance
  • Comparing a political figure with a famous or infamous historical figure
  • Always taking the same ideological or political side on every subject
  • Using broadly general terms ("they all," "we all," "[large group of people] is/are," etc.)
  • Stating "facts" without telling you what the sources are and/or how to find them
  • Using "us versus them" terminology
  • All (or many) of your news sources seem to have the same language and/or tone, using the same or very similar phrases
  • You knew what the conclusion/outcome of the story was before they even got to the conclusion (due to what we call "framing")
  • You find yourself getting energized/adrenalized, afraid, sad or angry as you take in the news

Wrapping up

To summarize, you cannot simply rely on your one or two (or even a few) favorite news sources anymore. If you do, the odds are good that they'll all have the same or similar biases with similar special interests controlling their content and, as a result, they will keep you contained within a minimally-informed, narrative-focused bubble. You must do at least some research on your own (and avoid confirmation bias at all times when doing this) and you need to get your news from numerous conflicting sources (not just the sources that you generally agree with) if you want to be well-informed today. Lastly, due to the continuous acquisition of parent companies by [often multinational] media conglomerates and holdings companies, you have to start paying attention to independent news media, as all of the corporate news outlets are currently owned by just a handful of for-profit conglomerates warring over market share.


Facebook and social media news dangers

Do not rely too heavily on Facebook and other social networks to keep you informed about the news. I work for a social network, and specifically, I support the Data Scientists that design the algorithms and data models that determine what you get to see and when you see it. Facebook is designed to show you things that cater ever more to your interests. They use machine learning to develop an accurate and evolving profile of your interests -- and more specifically what gets you to "click through" on a link -- and quickly adapt as your interests change. Over a pretty short period of time (less than one day of activity for most users), Facebook will tailor your viewing experience based on the things you like, the sites you visit, the products you buy and mention in comments and shares, as well as the similar shared interests of your friends and groups you belong to. If you rely on Facebook (even Twitter and LinkedIn) as your source for news, you will get a very narrow and heavily biased view of the news (i.e. you will not be well-informed). I mentioned earlier that I subscribe to many tens of Twitter feeds of the news networks that I follow. Go back and take a look at how I use it. I don't rely on it as a news source itself. And please bear in mind what I mentioned earlier in the "Red flags" section about agreeing too much with your news sources.

Heavily relying on social media for your news is a quick way to find yourself trapped in an echo chamber.

Resources used in this article

  • fec.gov's Disclosure Data Search engine: Search campaign contributors and election fund spending
  • OpenSecrets.org: Essentially providing the same data as the FEC, but in more convenient interface
  • Wikipedia: You all know what this is
  • The Young Turks: An independent, progressive-left news outlet funded by a graduated subscription model, donations, occasional fund raisers and [recently] given a $20M backing by 3 separate venture capital firms, who tends to use a lot of data and facts, is fairly accurate, but is known to use a lot of emotional language at times
  • The Intercept_: Independent non-profit Internet news agency
  • Media Bias/Fact Check: An easy to use site that lets you search for a news source and see where they tend to fall on the political spectrum (from liberal to centrist to conservative), how accurate and factual their reporting tends to be and if (and how much) they use emotional or manipulative language to drive a narrative
  • The Atlantic: A left-center magazine funded by subscriptions and advertisers who tends to be very factual, but has been known to spin narratives while occasionally using loaded words
  • YourDictionary: An easy-to-use, feature-rich dictionary that doesn't bombard you with invasive ads
  • Sunlight Foundation: A national, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that uses civic technology, open data, policy analysis and journalism to make our government and politics more accountable and transparent to all
  • Framing Theory: An overview on Framing Theory in communication

Other resources you might want to check out

  • C-SPAN (and its sister channels): Taxpayer funded cable television channels that track congressional and supreme court activity/sessions (likely what drove Jon Stewart mad in the end. BEWARE!)
  • AllSides: An objective aggregator of news that categories the news and their sources based on their political leanings and bias
  • Vice News: Definitely a corporate news entity today, but started out very independent and still has amazingly deep and entrenched field reporting on issues often ignored by most other agencies
  • RT (Russia Today): Russian State Sponsored Internet news; Heavily biased in favor of Russia and against the U.S. and NATO with a lot of propaganda, yet they have some of the most comprehensive video footage of current events freely available on the Internet and they have offices and news outlets all over the globe. They also have possibly the largest number of field reporters (basically hundreds of thousands of people like you and me with their mobile phones). Watch them if you want, but keep in mind their strong bias and propaganda. The link to their site may not work from Chrome, as Chrome blocks them. You might need to proxy or use another browser.
  • PBS: A taxpayer and charity funded non-profit media network
  • InsideGov by Graphiq: A government research site that uses Graphiq’s semantic technology to deliver deep insights via data-driven articles, visualizations and research tools
  • TheRebel Media: A strongly right-biased news agency that commonly uses loaded language to drive their narrative that can be used as one of many examples of right-biased reporting with manipulative language
  • MoveOn: A strongly left-biased petition site that commonly uses loaded language to drive their narrative that can be used as one of many examples of left-biased reporting with manipulative language
  • Agenda Setting Theory: An overview of Agenda Setting Theory in communication
  • AllSides: A site that attempts to show the left, right and center reporting of stories, by presenting a main news topic and its various left, right and center reports (from various news sources)
  • Disobedient Media: Another right-leaning option for independent media -- not as strongly right-biased as TheRebel -- that tends to have fairly accurate reporting.
  • Smarter Every Day video on the problem with biased news and modern social media and search algorithms creating echo chambers of false news and how to combat it. [Added to this blog post on Mar 17, 2019]

There are probably well over 50 other sites and sources I can personally recommend, but the list is just too long. I encourage you to begin familiarizing yourself with the process of just getting to know multiple, conflicting & competing news organizations, independent and non-profit, and learn how to research using public filings and various online databases and information archives. Once you start doing this for a few months, it becomes intuitive and natural for you to validate the news and be continually informed. And I can't stress enough the use of Media Bias/Fact Check as an invaluable, centralized resource for seeing all of the news sources in one place, grouped by their political leaning. This is an excellent place to start your education.

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