Be an Informed Citizen [Guide]

I would like to spread some of my copy pasta on being an informed citizen, here, as I think it's relevant. As much as we take issue with media, we also need to educate ourselves on how to seek out the hard-hitting journalism you describe:

Perceived Bias is NOT an indicator of truth or falsehood in itself.

We got to where we are today because the ludicrous and absurd is normalized along with the reasonable and factual. That is, certain media outlets are in the middle-ground; but don't confuse being in the middle-ground with being objective. What happens is outlets such as CNN purport a viewpoint knowing that it's factually incorrect, but giving it equal weight/time with something more factual. When climate change was the primary contentious topic a few years back, you would see news outlets propping up these fringe groups against an academic consensus of expert climatologists. This is the problem with false middle-grounds is it can muddy the waters.

It can be okay to be biased in the informal sense; a climate scientist is absolutely biased, but a pool of knowledge and expertise informs their judgement. Conversely, the Congressman who threw a snowball on the House floor to disprove climate change... Both have a perceived bias by respective groups, but only the former has the evidence and expertise to inform his "bias."

Both the truth and ignorance tends to have a bias; it's up to you as the critical thinker to distinguish which is which.

Speaking of consensus of experts

Bertrand Russell, famous 20th century philosopher and mathematician made what I believe is a very important point when it comes to seeking the truth and relying on experts:

Nevertheless the opinion of experts, when it is unanimous, must be accepted by non-experts as more likely to be right than the opposite opinion. The skepticism that I advocate amounts only to this: (1) that when the experts are agreed, the opposite opinion cannot be held to be certain; (2) that when they are not agreed, no opinion can be regarded as certain by a non-expert; and (3) that when they all hold that no sufficient grounds for a positive opinion exist, the ordinary man would do well to suspend his judgment.

It is for this reason we submit to the consensus on things from climate change to vaccinations.

I am currently working on a guide to being an informed citizen; it's been an ongoing side project for years now. But a few of the basics:

Diversify Your News - You wouldn't write a research paper with one or two sources alone, why would you do that with obtaining information to inform yourself?

• Domestic/Mainstream Outlets: New York Times, USA Today (HQ'd in Switzerland), Time, Washington Post, The Atlantic, Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, C-SPAN (cable-provided as a service) etc

• Foreign Sources: Al-Jazeera English, BBC, CBC, Reuters, Der Spiegel, The Economist, UK Guardian, Deutsche Welle (DW)

• Publicly-Funded News: NPR, PBS, PRI, APM, The Associated Press (AP - Non-profit Cooperative), Duetsche Welle

• Indie-Sources: Truthout, ProPublica, VICE, The Intercept, Democracy Now!

• Fact-Checkers/Media Watchdogs: Politifact.com, Factcheck.org, NewsGuard, MBFC, MediaMatters, Fair.org

• Research/Statistics Centers: PEW Research Center, Gallup, 538.

• Photo-Blogs: National Geographic, The Boston Globe’s The Big Picture photo-blog, LIFE, The Atlantic's "In Focus"

• News Aggregators: Google News, Digg, Reddit

• Documentaries:(Find mostly on Hulu, Netflix, or Youtube). Fairly comprehensive list can be found here: http://topdocumentaryfilms.com and archive.org

• (And of course, please continue to read)

Each of these serves a particular purpose and are curated based on consistency, reputation, studies (analyzing reporting on pivotal events, how informed respective audiences are, where funding is coming from, etc.), and my own anecdotal experience with them over the years. The best defense against ignorance and tinting your own lens? Remain humble and reflect on the notion that you perhaps don't know it all. And two: tap into as many different sources as possible in order to garner a Big Picture perspective. If you feel the need, you can include the mainstream cable news outlets in order to get the perspective of who else is watching them, but I don't particularly advise them.

RSS Feeds are a great way to diversify your news. You can have them dump into one feed, or I have about 24+ RSS Feeds on my browser's toolbar.

Each year, PEW Research issues a "State of the Media" report that highlights how people receive their information, and associated with this there is a lot of valuable information on journalism and the quality of sources. Their reports along with others are a part of the baseline for which media outlets I choose. For example, some key research in recent years:

• Media habits along the political spectrum; who trusts which outlets?

• What is the demographic information of a variety of major news outlets, and how informed are their audience when tested on current events?

The above links are from 2014 and 2012, respectively. I highlighted those particular studies because I found them particularly pertinent to today. Here is an archive of every report. Remember, keep in mind that no single media outlet is perfect.

Also, a while back I made the case against Politifact's verdict on Jon Stewart saying, "FOX viewers are consistently the most misinformed." You may find the many links within informative.

Familiarize yourself with Logical Fallacies - Starter

... And the triangle of rhetoric

When you challenge the ideas of others and they challenge yours, it's important to maintain the focus on the mutual pursuit of truth and knowledge rather than the competitive aspect that is, winning the argument. This is easier said than done, but mutual respect can ensure a healthy discussion where both parties walk away with new information—even if their stances have not shifted.

Any questions, please ask! This is something I'm very passionate about. Since writing this, I've made a follow-up post to this, addressing some common questions

Edit: Updated 06/28/17

Edit: Updated 11/1/19 - Added MBFC, NewsGuard, Fair.org, 538; link to Part II Follow-up post, general clean-up.

Edit: 06/16/2020:

I've had some past criticism of a couple sources, and I wanted to address the background of my choice:

There was a time I even had Real News Network on there, and on review of the list (and noting how objective fact-checkers caution against it), I've been on the fence about why I left Truthout on but removed RNN (which has better scoring). If I'm honest with myself, I had left it on because years back it was a source that helped me see a different perspective than what I was used to seeing. They did a lot of critical reporting during the Bush Jr. administration and the Iraq War and transitioning into Obama's presidency.

Then there is The Intercept. That one is very perplexing to me, which is why I leave it on there for now. Greenwald's ethos to me have been called into question in recent years. I've listened to interviews he's done and read some of his articles; and boy, he's come a long way from the days of being a reputable Guardian journalist covering Snowden. I can't help but to wonder if there's some sort of blackmail going on behind the scenes with he and Snowden having been in Russia for so long.

Edit: 9/14/2020: Added Deutsche Welle, a publicly-funded German broadcast similar to PBS or BBC.