Not sure what to believe about Covid-19, civil unrest, can the mainstream media be trusted?

Feel free to post all of your alternative thoughts here from any sources, especially youtubers who put more personal time into content than corporate media does now days. This is just one example of thousands I can post.

This is Prime Time on the "most trusted name in news" during a pandemic.

 

Suppose I saw someone on the television, or heard someone on the radio, claim that, "the sky was blue."

I would feel compelled to step outside and actually confirm that for myself. Such is my confidence in the accuracy of the media. Worldwide.

 

Independent thought is needed now more than ever.

 

Pretty much sums it up.

People dwelling on most inconsequential issues and using their skepticism capacity to challenge or to disbelieve simplest and most plausible explanations of reality, while just accepting or being fully open to looniest and most complex.

There is no such thing. Everything is regurgitated millions times over. Just because a certain thought, idea or narrative is not getting aired on every TV station, that does not make it independent.
Moreover when ppl say "independent thought" what they usually mean is "relentlessly pushed by my kind of mainstream ghouls".

 

Media is a business. They have to make money and/or make their investors/government happy. To make money, they have to get clicks and attention to sell ads.
Recently media seems like a TV show to me. It has it's color, it has it's core audience that follows it by a political belief.

However the main problem with news (especially internet), is that people don't read past those headlines.
So media is really just sells a headline and see how many people get excited / triggered and click on it. Really, not really that different from a TV Show.

If people would carefully read through the content and not just the headline, the facts will be more or less the same as other sources, just different wording.
People are just lazy and want drama straight from the headlines with some spice on top of it.

Anyway, issue is the people, not the media. If you don't want to read the media, don't click on it.
Or watch media of different country, like BBC or something, that has different view.

It is our choice to read OR not to read OR read something different.
I am done with media, if there something that I really have to know, I will be notified one way or another.

 

That's exactly my point. I haven't had broadcast, cable, or satellite television in nearly two years. Even then it was nothing but advertisements for boner pills and mindless "reality" shows. My main point is that now days if we want truth we have to dig for it ourselves, and there are lots of people out there that are doing digging. That's why it kinda frustrates me when I post a link to a youtuber who has done hours, days, and weeks of research only to have it immediately dismissed as a "conspiracy." You get what I'm saying?

 

I gonna be honest here, single youtuber is not a good source of the news. It might be entertaining, has it own story to add, etc....
If you watch it as entertainment, good, no issues here. However, if you watching it as a valid news source, you have to double check it.

As in hardware world, if I want to know how exactly new CPU perform, I would read 3-5 different benchmark sites/sources (Guru3D, Tomshardware, GN, LTP, etc...) and conclude what CPU actually capable of. Everyone makes mistakes and I want different views.

If I just want to have fun and meme Intel, AMD or Novidia, I am not after validity of information, I just visit Guru3D Forums and have fun.

 

You're implying that I'm somehow new to the internet and believe everything I see for the first time lol. We're in the information age, and its an incredible time to be a part of it.

 

It's a pain in a butt to organize and validate all the information. It's a blessing and a curse. But yeah I'd rather be born in this time frame. Gotta suck to be born during World War or other conflict.

 

The mainstream media is despicable and literally laughing in everyone's face, while fueling the pandemic fire with blm race-bating crap and police/military hatred. It's the same kind of people, who called everyone who wanted to go back to work for murders, while deciding who and what's essential and not being affected by it themselves.

We kind of brought it on ourselves though, because enough people didn't say no and kept their businesses open, rolled over and lost everything. If you listen to the wording from the UN and WHO, basically what they're implying is that this will never end and/or truly become the "new normal", a tap that can be turned on/off until everyone gets a vaccination and put in a social credit system.

 

My god you people are all so procreating stupid.

I got a warning for talking about a law in a frontpage thread about a law posted by Hilbert on the frontpage because it was "political" but this nonsense is acceptable?

 

With regard to the BLM topic:

Even if you remove the "main stream media" from the equation, the same incentives to hyper-focus on the most inflammatory stories are present in social media. Even if you remove the potential profit making from social media, the "social currency" incentive is strong enough that you would still see the same stories getting outsized attention and outrage. So blaming the "main stream media" as if they are forcing some top-down narrative that wouldn't exist without their input is simply inaccurate.

The foundation of all this is that we as a culture enjoy getting emotional and reacting/creating based on those emotions. If you haven't seen it, check out the recent Dave Chapelle piece on it. He's a perfect example of the issue: He takes a handful of data points, weaves them together into a narrative that is highly emotional, and suggests a full on race war with automatic weapons in the streets is justified because of his emotions. It's a very impactful thing to watch, but it's completely selective in the pieces of data he chooses to react to and a completely unbalanced view of current events.

Unless we as a culture decide to start paying attention to our potential to be emotionally manipulated, and actively work to combat it, things aren't going to change. Blaming the "main stream media", or the government, or whoever is just kicking the can down the road. This is a matter of personal responsibility. Most of us know we shouldn't eat junk food, candy and soda all day everyday. That's not healthy for our bodies. The same is true of media influence over your mind. People need to recognize what is unhelpful and unhealthy for them, and follow a well balanced mental diet.

 

Bizarro world indeed.