The general public’s level of “critical thinking skills” has not decreased. It only seems to have because contemporary demands being put upon our critical thinking skills have become increasingly overwhelming, especially in the face of unrelenting fear. Fear of Covid, fear of global climate change, etcetera.
>In verifying whether a news item is factual or not, first do a search using the news source’s ‘name’ followed by the word ‘bias’.
>Too much of what passes for news is misinformation, exaggerated (sensationalism), not usually important, and promotes unnecessary fears. It’s best we avoid it as much as possible. Time spent feeding the mass media with our energy would be better spent on wholesome activities.
>The term ‘mainstream news’ is a narrower term than ‘mass media’. ‘Mass media’ includes social media and other venues that have access to a large audience and is generally more biased. For example, though my blog is not mainstream, it is part of the mass media.
Here are some sites that will help in weeding out unreliable mainstream news sources:
https://subjectguides.library.american.edu/News-Literacy
https://middlebury.libguides.com/internet/fact-checking
