> I have definitely no problem discerning factual statements from opinions or framing and in my book only the former constitute news.
What if the facts you are discerning have been somewhat modified, or some of the facts relevant to a specific story have been excluded from the article entirely?
Then I'm still better informed than anyone who thinks he has "eaten the wisdom with a spoon", to use an old German proverb.
I said that I see no viable alternative (unless you have unlimited spare time and unlimited travel funds to interview witnesses and take photos yourself), not that traditional newspapers are perfect.
Besides, the problem of most people nowadays is that they are overinformed, leading to an overly negative world view. That problem worries me personally much more.
An obvious viable alternative is to avoid consuming the news in cases when you detect that the information has a high likelihood of being manipulative or not containing accurate information.
If you happen to be an expert in a certain topic, you’ll reliably detect this for news items of that topic.
The OP is meant to talk about extending that experience into a general prior belief that such mistakes also occur in areas of the news about which you are not an expert.
Even if you only have one potential modality for consuming news information (i.e. consumer media), you still have the option to try to mentally model the uncertainty within that modality, and either adjust your general skepticism of all news upward, or adjust your consumption of news downward. Either of which could be policies that cause you to become more informed by consuming / believing the news less, depending on your personal parameters for the optimization policy.
> Then I'm still better informed than anyone who thinks he has "eaten the wisdom with a spoon", to use an old German proverb.
Or in other words, the "I have no problem...." part is not quite accurate. Yes, I'm being rather pedantic, but I think it is perfectly fair to point out any flaws in any "no need to worry" explanations of the shortcomings of journalism.
I have argued that there is no viable alternative and that getting your information from reputable newspapers is the best option. You argued that I have a problem. I suggested that choosing the best option (even if not optimal) ought not be conceived as a problem.
What if the facts you are discerning have been somewhat modified, or some of the facts relevant to a specific story have been excluded from the article entirely?