My two cents:
- I think you've got to read and compare a variety of news sources, look hard at the facts and logic cited for the positions, do your own research, and come to your own opinions.
- I personally consider the NY Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and The Economist to be among the most reputable and reliable news sources, but I wouldn't unthinkingly believe something just because they say it. I could care less who they endorse, but I don't think just because the editorial board of a paper expresses a view, the rest of the paper is automatically untrustworthy.
- Most TV/cable news is pretty far down the reliability scale, I feel, and that includes CNN, Fox, CNBC, etc.
- Most radio and TV/cable "talk shows" are pandering garbage, not news. - I consider most of the Internet commentators, bloggers, forums, and ranters to be opinion and not reliable fact, but there are still some pretty good sites like
www.factcheck.org.
- The Internet does make a wealth of actual data available to normal people.
- The Internet also makes it easier to read the media of other countries, which can be awfully useful sometimes.
- Unfortunately, all this takes time and effort. The world is complicated and a huge amount of what we read and hear is slanted, misleading, and just plain false.