skirtyscot wrote:Just because you hate the messenger, doesn't mean his message is wrong.
If nothing else, it's worth remembering that the essence of "information intelligence" is verification of veracity. Unfortunately, if one does not have first-hand access to the assorted participants one is subject to the vagaries of editorial bias in the communications channel.
Thus, the wise observer never takes one source as entirely "truthful" (or even factual) without verification from other sources. In fact, the safe assumption is that everybody is lying to some extent, some more wildly than others. The answer is to find several -- the more the better (including ones you might habitually detest) -- sources, take the rough mean of the lot of them, and then you may actually be close enough to what actually happened to be able to form a proper opinion.
The unfortunate side of the above is that it takes effort -- outright work sometimes -- on the part of the observer, and, most of the time nobody can be bothered. So they accept what Fox "News" or NPR, RT, or Aljazeera, or {insert your favourite here} are feeding them as gospel. And they fail because they are experiencing nothing contrary.
Many, many, years ago when I was still a minor I committed an unwitting crime by picking up and listening to a Radio Free Europe broadcast using a long-wire shortwave setup. This led to a
very interesting discussion with my family when I mentioned it and asked, "Why are we broadcasting stuff that I know full well is outright propaganda to the Eastern Bloc and I can read the very same stuff in the Boston Herald (a Hearst rag at the time, but later bought out by Murdoch with no perceptible change in editorial stance)?" There was a bit of a highly local "stink" about the matter, I got the riot act read to me on the matter of what US citizens are allowed to listen to, and there was more of a stink about my perception of the content -- which I stuck to -- and which was subsequently quietly dropped because of ideological differences within the family. I was allowed to keep the shortwave rig.
I believe the statute of limitations has expired, and, in any event, Radio Free Europe no longer exists. If it did, I'd suppose it'd sound like Fox now.
Information is important and powerful stuff. Choose your sources wisely -- and trust none too highly.