{"id":2178,"date":"2017-03-06T10:21:39","date_gmt":"2017-03-06T08:21:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ofcourseimright.com\/?p=2178"},"modified":"2017-03-06T14:26:07","modified_gmt":"2017-03-06T12:26:07","slug":"finding-real-news-as-opposed-to-fake-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/?p=2178","title":{"rendered":"Finding REAL News as Opposed to Fake News"},"content":{"rendered":"

The great New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan<\/a> famously said that everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.\u00a0 Unfortunately, our democracy is being undermined by a combination of an epidemic of fake news and people being willing to believe the drivel.<\/p>\n

What, then, are trustworthy news outlets?\u00a0 To start with, they have to have paid <\/strong>reporters.\u00a0 Determining the truth requires investigation with feet on the ground.\u00a0 It requires document searches, interviews, and research.\u00a0 That costs money.<\/p>\n

Still, a well funded propaganda outfit could pay (or claim to pay) for \u201creporters\u201d.\u00a0 How to tell the difference?\u00a0 Be suspicious of any site is primarily focused on national politics or any<\/strong> single issue.<\/p>\n

Here are a three tests to guide someone as to whether a news outlet is likely legitimate for daily consumption.\u00a0 The tests themselves aren\u2019t perfect, but they\u2019re pretty good.<\/p>\n

1. Does the outlet have many news bureaus?<\/h3>\n

A real newspaper will have at least one regional bureau for the region they are covering, and will often have an additional bureau for a state capital or for Washington.\u00a0 Fake news sources may not have any bureaus.\u00a0 A simple test is to type the name of the site and then “news bureaus” into a search engine and examine the results.\u00a0 Note that a regional paper will tend to have only a few bureaus outside their region.\u00a0 That’s okay, so long as they stick to news where they have those bureaus and more importantly reporters.<\/p>\n

2. Does the outlet have multiple unrelated sections?<\/h3>\n

Real news sources will have sections such as weather, sports, obituaries, arts, finance, and region, as opposed to just politics.\u00a0 They may not have all<\/strong> of these sections: for instance, the Wall Street Journal doesn\u2019t have a weather section, but their finance section is unparalleled.<\/p>\n

3. Does the outlet ever publish corrections?<\/h3>\n

Even if the answer to the first two questions is \u201cyes\u201d, no one is perfect.\u00a0 But a good news outlet will recognize their imperfections and always seek to report the truth, no matter how embarrassing it may be.\u00a0 A good measure of an outlet\u2019s trustworthiness is how regularly they correct themselves.<\/p>\n

Let’s Test<\/h3>\n

Given these parameters let\u2019s see whether a web site is a good source for news.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Source<\/th>\nMultiple Bureaus?<\/th>\nUnrelated Sections?<\/th>\nCorrections?<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
The New York Times<\/a><\/td>\nMultiple, throughout New York, US, and the world<\/td>\nNY region, sports, weather, obits, arts<\/td>\nRegularly at the bottom of an article online, or in a section in paper.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Fox News<\/a><\/td>\nMultiple affiliates<\/td>\nSports, weather, numerous regions<\/td>\nNot too often.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Breitbart<\/a><\/td>\nFour bureaus<\/td>\nno<\/td>\nVery rarely<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Wikipedia<\/a><\/td>\nNo<\/td>\nYes (vast)<\/td>\nEntries are continually edited<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
The Daily Caller<\/a><\/td>\nNo<\/td>\nNo<\/td>\nNever<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
NPR<\/a><\/td>\nMany regional affiliates along with international bureaus<\/td>\nNumerous<\/td>\nRegularly online and on radio<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
The Wall Street Journal<\/a><\/td>\nStrong presence in financial capitals<\/td>\nFinance, Travel, even some Sport<\/td>\nRegularly at the bottom of articles<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Politico<\/a><\/td>\nPrimarily national, with a few state and international bureaus<\/td>\nNo<\/td>\nVery Rarely<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Trust, of course, is not a binary.\u00a0 That\u2019s why it\u2019s important to get information from multiple sources, maybe not every day, but regularly.\u00a0 Also, just because something is not marked as a trustworthy news outlet doesn\u2019t mean their lying.\u00a0 It does however, mean, that they’re something other<\/strong> than a trustworthy news<\/strong> outlet.\u00a0 A blog, perhaps, or an analysis site.\u00a0 Wikipedia is an interesting case because nobody gets paid, but the information tends to be reasonably trustworthy (or at least transparent).<\/p>\n

All of this doesn’t get people off the hook from using their common sense.\u00a0 RT would easily pass the above tests, and yet they are a well known and well funded propaganda arm of Vladimir Putin.\u00a0 Probably not a good news source.\u00a0 Most blogs aren’t so well funded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here are three simple tests to determine whether a site is a trustworthy news outlet. Are there multiple sections? Does it have multiple news bureaus? Does the site post corrections?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":172,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,30,4],"tags":[503,558,559],"class_list":["post-2178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-complexity","category-humanity","category-politics","tag-news","tag-real-news","tag-trust"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/172"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2178"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2178\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2185,"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2178\/revisions\/2185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}