There’s a lot of chatter over what is and isn’t “fake news.” I think people are missing the point when they start to pick and choose which publications they consider reliable though.

I guess it’s okay to say (for example) that the New York Times is usually pretty reliable because yadda yadda reasons. But that’s a) only a first approximation; and b) subject to the Judy Miller phenomenon, in which they trade on their credibility to feed you some kind of made-up bullshit.

A better idea than keeping a mental list of good and bad news operations is to LEARN HOW TO READ. How to distinguish fact from opinion from speculation. How to identify supporting facts. How to pick out innuendo and discard it. How to question the sources: “Who is this person? What do they claim to know? How do they claim to know it? What is their motivation for telling the truth? If they’re lying, how would we know? Who’s in a position to contradict them? Are they even telling us something they know about firsthand?”

Don’t tell me “This thing was on CNN so it must be right.” Tell me “There are two main facts here and the sources are named and they have reason to know what they’re talking about and they have no incentive to lie.”

End of today’s media lesson.