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Comment by skylan_q | Hacker News Reader

I've been there for a while. I only trust a few people who thanklessly go through materials and study issues in detail. If I want to verify further I can only then trust primary sources and direct evidence.

For a long time now, all forms of traditional media have had a bent. It's just gotten very monied and politicized as of late.

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One option of course, which as a European who had to live with media-government collusion his whole life, is to triangulate: Read foreign media, read political opponents views on the same topic as the mainstream media, read (if available) conflicting mainstream media stories. Take it all in, and triangulate. Very often the BS from one side cancels out the BS from the other side and you are not closer to reality. But very often it's the scrutiny from either side on an opposing paradigm, that gets you closer to what actually happened. Finally, draw your own conclusions based on history/education/philosophy.

Yes, this was something explicitly taught in political science. It's important to understand the paper and writer bias, by reading multiple sources it's possible to unwind the ideology to a fairly good degree - and triangulate.

> One option of course, which as a European who had to live with media-government collusion his whole life, is to triangulate

That's what's really depressing about this: it is absurdly easy to get to the bottom of whether a fricking blender is worth buying, but important events happening in the world? Get your researchin' shoes on.

By the way, thank you very much for your input - your experience in that arena is unique and very valuable to the discussion.

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