Which Is The Fake News?
By
Leonard Zwelling
A lot of the criticism I get from readers of the blog is based on what I use as sources of information vs. what others use. I am a bit of a traditionalist choosing to acquire my information about the world from the main stream media of radio, television, newspapers, and magazines.
I try to attach to the blog an article from which I believe I have learned something about a relevant topic of interest from such sources. Most of the articles are from The Wall Street Journal or The New York Times, but I have also attached articles from The New England Journal of Medicine and The Houston Chronicle over the years of writing the blog. I also glean a lot from the electronic media: NPR on the radio and Fox, MSNBC, NBC, CBS, and CNN on television. I watch all of them during an average day.
I think this gives me a broad view of what is happening in the world allowing me to try to make a judgment about what was and is reality. This can be hard as many political sources want to bend the news in their favor with spin and manipulation of the truth. This occurs from both the left and the right. Does that affect what the main stream media broadcasts? It does. Watching coverage of the same story on Fox vs. MSNBC, you might think you are watching reports from different planets. That’s OK. My job as a consumer of news is to sort fact from fiction as best I can and mainly sort fact from opinion which is pretty easy once you know the political inclination of each media outlet.
Now, there are many other sources of news for people to consume, too. Many are on-line sources like TikTok, Instagram, X, and Facebook. Usually, this information is conveyed by individuals not organizations and thus is less apt to have been vetted by anyone other than the poster. By the way, this is true of this blog as well, obviously.
This leaves anyone with an intrinsic dilemma if what the mainstream media broadcasts does not agree with what is on-line. One is forced to make a choice. Do I believe what I hear on television or what I read on the Internet?
It is the position of this blog having had a pretty broad experience in my past life with traditional media (TV, radio, newspapers) as being a commentator and interviewee, that the rigor that the mainstream media brings to its job, though at times flawed, is far greater than any writer on Facebook brings to his latest post. I have been interviewed by many news outlets and I have always found that the personnel strive to get the story right.
There are absolutely no constraints on individuals posting on the Internet. Even worse, using other people’s opinions as sources of information when those opinions are based on their personal experience is fraught at best.
If you wish to get your news from the Internet and you are not using reputable media sites, I wish you the best of luck assessing anything you read—including this blog. That’s why I frequently attach articles and I certainly don’t expect anyone to take my word for anything.
It is the obligation of each American voter to ascertain as best he or she can for himself or herself what the truth is about candidates and issues. As unemotional as you can be about this, the better. My major objections to Mr. Trump are his appeal to people’s emotions instead of their intellect and his propensity to lie while presenting what he claims is the truth. Of course, the Democrats are hardly better.
Many people believe that it is in the nature of politicians to lie. I have known a lot of politicians from my time in Washington, DC in 2008-2009. Most try to tell the truth.
But, just like news outlets, politicians have political proclivities and those tendencies can get them to say things that are not always accurate. Furthermore, media outlets can obscure what politicians say by editing quotes rather than showing them in their entirety. This is frequently done to Donald Trump and it is shameful.
Get your news from as many sources as you can, but don’t give up on traditional news gathering organizations in favor of X. At least the mainstream media try to vet what they say. There are no filters on X and almost no editors. Some find that a positive. I don’t.
