(My answer on Quora).
No. The reason is that a great deal of the media is driven by the preferred narrative rather than the truth. They are also impacted by the maxim of being ‘first to publish’. Unfortunately it is becoming more evident with each passing moment that people would rather have their biases confirmed than challenged and this is what the stories cater to.
In addition ideology has corrupted a great of the reporting with many journalists seeing themselves as makers of the news rather than reporters of it. In short post-Truth tends to dominate which is why we see a litany of stories that were rushed to press, filtered through an outrage industry only to come crashing down once the dust of clarity had settled.
If you don’t believe me….check these out!!
Here is a list of 20 stories that broke the other way, in contrast to the original predominant media narrative, once the issues were flushed out.
1. Kyle Rittenhouse shootings
2. The Covington Kids
3. Jussie Smollett’s MAGA Attack
4. The Michael Brown narrative.
5. The Jacob Blake shooting
6. The Kavanaugh charges
7. No crisis at the border
8. The Border patrol using whips on illegal immigrants
9. The Duke Lacrosse rape allegations
10. Bubba Wallace’s Noose charge
12. The Steele's Dossier + the entire broader narrative of Trump Russia Collusion
13. Bill Barr not telling the truth about Mueller Report
14. Hillary Clinton will win overwhelmingly in 2016
15. The Killing of Muhammad al-Durrah
16. The Credibility of Michael Avenatti
17. The notion that the Taliban won't take Kabul
18. A successful US drone strike killing ISIS operatives in Afghanistan (August 2021)
19. Andrew Cuomo's successful handling of the COVID-19 Pandemic in New York.
20. Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq.
So what is the solution to all of this now that trust has been tossed under the oncoming train?
Try this seven step mechanism for making sense of a story in a Post Truth world.
1. Hold back on making judgement for any issue until more of the evidence is available
2. Go back to the source material instead of relying on secondary or tertiary descriptors.
3. Train yourself to recognize narratives. Watch out for journalists who editorialize.
4. Flip paradigms. Ask yourself if the shoe was on the other foot would you still feel/think that way?
5. Train yourself to separate fact from feeling. Remember that the truth is more important than your own preconceived bias and your specific ideology.
6. Familiarize yourself with the other side of the argument.
7. Always entertain the notion that you could be wrong.
Yes…this requires work and patience. However at the end of the day your soul will thank you.
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