PSA: Link posts on the fediverse can still contain a body lol
this post was submitted on 15 Dec 2024
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Politics
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Thank you. I chose to do it this way to allow others with different fundamental takes to start different conversations on the topic. This is a confusing time and I want to hear it all on this subject.
I posted this because I am personally invested in the idea that we, the people, must become our own media.
We know we cannot rely on corporate owned media to work in our collective interests. Yet they will remain because they are useful to the ruling class.
I know lemmy is full of special people ;) but I have been impressed by the level of media savvy on display.
How do we improve the quality of our information diets in the face of blatant propaganda? It has become so obvious to many people, now.
I was actually just searching for information on unbiased news source on Lemmy earlier but was not able to find much, so I went ahead to search Reddit. I found the top post for this thread informative, and here's the list of the main points:
- There is no such thing as unbiased news.
- Get news from multiple sources with opposing biases, and form your own opinion.
- Avoid media outlets whose business model incentivizes sensationalism.
- If a story seems even slightly questionable, find a confirming source.
- Be aware of the reliability of your sources.
- Journalists and editors are not, on the whole, bad people.
I think it's important to exercise critical thinking and try your best to recognize biases in articles. It helps to try to discern words/opinions that are meant to sway how you think and feel versus facts that you can attempt to fact check.
I found this news bias chart (which in itself can have bias), that was shared from this Reddit post, which I used to add more news sources to help broaden my view. For sites that do not have RSS feeds, you can use one of these RSS bridges to subscribe if it's supported.
I also stumbled upon these, from posts I don't remember, which might be useful:
some high-quality non-capitalist media organizations and businesses:
ProPublica, The Guardian, Democracy Now!, NPR, PBS, Associated Press, Texas Tribune, Mother Jones, the Intercept
The Guardian absolutely is capitalist (neoliberal, even). Just go check back on their campaign against Corbyn (a leftwinger who won the Labour Party leadership from the New Labpour neoliberals some years ago) which included such memorable pieces of slander like calling a Jewish Holocaust Survivor an anti-semite because of him in a conference about Palestine comparing some of the actions of the government of Israel with those of the Nazis, this done in order to slander Corbyn by association since he was in the same panel in that conference.
Also you can merely go back a few months to see how The Guardian supported Israel well into their Genocide (though they seem to have stop doing it quite as eagerly in the last few months).
Last but not least they very openly support in British elections the Liberal Democrats (who are neoliberals) and the New Labour faction of the Labour Party (also neoliberals) and very often have pro-privatisation articles on UK subjects and are never for bringing things back into public ownership even when privatisation has failed miserable to give better services or lower prices.
I lived in Britain for over a decade and read The Guardian for most of it, so maybe The Guardian's political slant is clearer for those familiar with British Politics.
I do agree on The Intercept and Democracy Now! though.
Can't really speak for the others with any knowledge.
I am not referring to the politics of any of these media outlets when I say they are non-capitalist, but their ownership structure. I don’t disagree that the guardian has a major status quo bias, but at the end of the day, it is wholly owned by a non-profit trust as opposed to shareholders (aka capitalists in the pure economic sense of the word)
By that definition all "Industrial Associations" would not be capitalist.
Personally I would be wary of telling people they should trust the words of the spokespersons of most of them.
There are more than one way in which the elites and near-elites organise to advance their interests and IMHO The Guardian is very much The Voice Of The English Upper Middle Class.
Like, AP, AFP is also a news agency, the world's oldest, in fact.
As a stopgap, I have been relying mostly on National Public Radio and Associated Press.
How about Reuters and the AFP?
It's been a decade since I was selecting stories from wire services, and I don't often run into AFP in the wild. Reuters seems to still be decent, and I'd assume the same of AFP, but remember that one C-suite change can very rapidly see a decline in quality, so I don't want to say they're both fine lest something happened Thursday.
In the face of blatant propaganda, the best you can do is stay grounded in reality, and only rely on sources that have proven themselves to be independent, fact-based, and free from corporate influence. ProPublica and Democracy Now are the two outlets I always recommend. You won’t miss much if you read them exclusively with maybe some AP and NPR sprinkled in there.
I think it’s also important to be aware of and sometimes read the sources that consistently spout propaganda and misinformation, as long as you can keep the fact that you’re reading bullshit front of mind. Not everyone can do that naturally, but being able to spot propaganda is the best first step in defeating it.
That’s just how I approach it though, I’m sure others have better ideas.
Why call it media anymore? It's a propaganda machine.
Always has been
If capitalist media were working (in the other sense) for the ruling class, we'd all be compliant consumers. Instead, it's not working for anyone.