How to read the MSM.

The main stream media have a lot of fake news, and a lot of news slanted so heavily as to reverse the true meaning of the story.  So how does one find out what is really going on in the world?  Maybe George Soros can hire a small crew to sort thru the news and give him a short summary of what is really going on, but few of us have George Soros’ money.

The first thing to do is identify the really untrustworthy sources and just don’t bother the read them.  For instance, I don’t believe anything coming from the New York Times.  They have been passing out falsehoods since the 1930s when they sent Walther Duranty to Soviet Russia.  The Russians were just getting things organized and were making wondrous claims about the goodness of Communism.  Duranty took in the Russian propaganda, including all the good things the Russians were saying about Joseph Stalin.  Duranty wrote up stories in English and sent them back to New York, where the Times printed them all just as Duranty wrote them.  The Russians got a lot of good publicity out of the Times.  Years later the Times fell in love with Fidel Castro when Fidel was trying to overthrow Batista and take over Cuba.  Castro got a whole bunch of American help just because the Times made him seem like a romantic reformer.  Then later in 1967 or 1968 the Times sent a top editor, Harrison Salisbury, to North Viet Nam.   Harrison got together with some North Viet Namese village chief who told heart breaking stories about Yankee air pirates who had bombed his village repeatedly and killed four civilians thru wanton bombing of a purely civilian target.

   I just happened to be in the Air Force and assigned to the 366 Tactical Fighter Wing based in Thailand that year.  I did a little checking.  Yes indeed we had bombed that village repeatedly.  It had the biggest railroad yard you ever did see, running right thru the middle of it.  I figured if we had only killed four civilians for all those bombing missions we had been very careful. 

   Anyhow I stopped reading the Times and have not looked at it for 50 years.  For that matter I don’t read the Washington Post for the same kind of reasons.  I don’t bother to watch CNN, CBS, MSNBC, or ABC.  I do watch Fox News and have found it fairly reliable.  The Wall St Journal is still good.  Anyhow the point is you ought to have a list of sources you don’t bother to read because they are passing out BS.

   When reading or watching the MSM look to see if the article has any numbers in it.  In the real world numbers tell us how many things they are talking about, the length or width or height of something, how old something is, lots of things.  Most newsies are innumerate, they cannot under stand numbers and they cannot write them out properly.  I usually dismiss stories that lack numbers as the product of poorly educated and not very smart newsies.

   Much of the verbiage coming out of the MSM is  pure opinion, and lacks any facts to support the opinion.  Some times I agree with the opinion and sometimes I disagree.  In either case there ought to be some facts in the story.