A journalist's truth

Journalism and the Truth

Our lives are dominated with modern technologies that gives us information in less time than ever before. We live in the age of social media and the truth swirls around us in rapid speeds we cannot or even begin to understand. The transfer of information is extremely powerful and if the source provided is not truthful, then lies are spread pretending to be the truth.

Social media has become a measurement of government approval or disapproval. Wars are fought in the dissemination of information that justifies the means to kill people or invade countries for reasons fabricated to suit the needs of these aggressors. So vital is the maintenance of controlling the flow of information, people are manipulating the truth to justify the means.

Sadly, we live on the other side of this coin dubbed truth. A greater power has wielded the ability and opportunities to spread deliriously evil contrived fables, myths and stories with deliberate misinformation, and their efforts to do so are at an all-time high as they not only feed the mainstream media outlets, but they have organized bloggers spread their ideologies around the world in nanosecond times.

Because the delivery of such untruths are so smooth, so consistent and deliberately formulated for mind-control, this method of spreading information has become very dangerous.

It is the core value of the foundations involved that impact the cognitive abilities of others by establishing falsehood and misleading facts to ensure their arguments are valid and airtight in any cross checking process as the system has been designed to reflect consistent parroting or digital echoing of the information already established to be labeled truthful.

So how do we know we are being misled? How do we find out if the author or journalist has an internal bias? The best way to find out if there is a bias is to test the author of the writings.

Step 1: Test primary source information – every story has a genesis of fact or fiction.

     Identify primary source information within the article. Has the primary source been reliable in the past? Do you understand the information or does it consistently refer to a third party (not related to the source) to back up parts of, or the entire story itself?

     Challenge the information. Keep focus on the fact the “source” is not the third party but rather the writer or journalist of the story posted. A common distraction is place trust on the writer or journalists, rather than the primary source the information came from. To balance this process, identifying any third party to confirm or back up any part of the story, or the entire version, is what makes the article written more legitimate than without it.

     Run your fact-checking sources to challenge the information. Snopes, Politifact, and others are excellent sources for a litany of links to challenge all information delivered or written. It must be mentioned, even using these sources is flawed and more depth may be required to find the facts consistent with the writings.

Steps 2: Identify the bias – every writer or journalist has a bias.

One of the best ways to identify an article’s or journalist’s bias it to run a crude test that consists of three (3) things:

     Does the title itself create a feeling for or against one subject of the story?

     Does the writer use a lot of sarcastic indicators, such as “quotes” around unspoken words?

     Does the writer paint a positive picture of one subject, and a negative picture of another?

Preconceived notions commonly referred to journalist’s biases are everywhere, and learning how to identify them will help you dodge their obvious, and sometimes not so obvious, attempts at manipulation. Ask yourself the following questions:

      Has the author written any articles for or against a subject of the article before?

      Does the author have a conflict of interest?

      Does the author have an announced political bias that fits the profile of someone who would take one side or the other on a subject?

      Are there political key words, codes or red flags that may be associated to political groups or other lobbyist or propaganda associations that may influence the writings? Is the writer known to have written or expressed opinions as conservative, libertarian or liberal?

When faced with multiple theories, always choose the answer that requires the least assumptions. If it’s different than your belief, find ways to eliminate assumptions by proving them. Follow the way of peeling the onion and remove the layers that hide the truth, and you’ll avoid the final manipulation trap used to damage your credibility.