Why Don't People Trust the Mainstream Media? If You Ask the Mainstream Media, It's Because They're Not Smart Enough

Some of the biggest purveyors of "misinformation" appear to be the same people that are constantly admonishing their readers to stop spreading misinformation.

Last Thursday night, October 19th was the much vaunted Trust Talks hosted by the CBC in Toronto. The purpose of this event was ostensibly to figure out what they in the media can do to stop the incessant hemorrhaging of trust that has come to typify the mainstream media in the western world.

The event included some of the big brass from several of our Canadian legacy media outlets. Sadly, the venue was only able to fill half of the seats - even though the tickets were free, the food was free, and they even started 15 minutes late to account for the slowpokes.

By the end of the evening we discovered that the reason no one trusts the mainstream media anymore is because of Big Tech, algorithms, Donald Trump, and the fact that some people say bad things about it. This last one may well be a reference to the leader of His Majesty’s Official Opposition.

So basically, it's someone else's fault.

Well, great. I'm sure that was well worth the price of admission.

This brings me to last week’s much-maligned New York Times article that was either too quick on the draw, or simply just fake news. In a matter of about three hours it went from Israeli Strike on Gaza Hospital, to Strike on Gaza Hospital, to Blast at Gaza Hospital.

All of these headlines were qualified with the phrase “Palestinians Say”. This is a neat little trick, because it implies that the fact that they were wrong at least twice is the Palestinians’ fault.

Matt Taibbi did a wonderful juxtaposition below:

Image courtesy of Racket News

Later on it was revised to this with a little bit of “both sidesism” thrown in for good measure:

And here's the latest iteration:

Okay, so maybe it wasn't quite 500 people killed there after all. But come on man, the Hamas terror cell still puts it at 500 and they're still blaming Israel for it so we gotta give ‘em equal airtime...

A few days later I came across this one:

Alright, so the Times may have screwed up, but so did Justin Trudeau, dammit!

I probably don't need to point out that if that's the bar they've set for themselves, you needn't expect an improvement any time soon.

Here's the money quote:

The aftermath of the Gaza explosion has been different in some important ways. Intelligence agencies released information much more quickly than usual, hoping to avoid what you might call the Trudeau problem. But they have not avoided it — because they did not release the kind of information, like satellite images or videos, likely to clear up confusion and sway undecided people who are open to empirical evidence.

First of all I have to agree that the Gaza explosion has indeed “been different in some important ways.” In fact, it's been different in almost every conceivable way so why they're even attempting this comparison is bizarre in itself. They talk about “Intelligence agencies” releasing information more quickly than usual, but evidently the Times was getting their info from “Palestinian officials”, aka Hamas, aka a known terrorist organization. Hardly surprising that the “intelligence” turned out to be questionable (or more accurately, “propaganda”). But they didn't question it, they just printed it.

Prime Minister Trudeau for his part had also spent those several days crowing about how "it's not acceptable to hit a hospital". Finally though, after everyone else in the developed world had finished saying that yes, the Israelis did in fact have nothing to do with it, Trudeau felt okay to say that he's now "taking the necessary time to look carefully at everything".

If only the necessary time could have been taken a bit earlier.

It's so tiresome hearing that continual scolding drip from this crowd about how we need to crack down on “misinformation” and “disinformation” only to find that exact thing in the pages and mouths of those doing the scolding.

Bottom line here is this: it doesn't matter what you read, or where you read it, you need to always have the bullshit detector turned on full blast. I find that even when I see headlines that might agree with my bias, sometimes something just seems off. I usually try to find it in two or three different places and see how they match up.

While we're on the topic of the New York Times, here's another classic:

It sounds so ridiculous and that really should be the first clue, but it’s the New York Times, for cryin’ out loud! And it fooled a lot of people because no one (not even actual reporters) bothered to check it out - at least not until later. Of course, this one was just plain false. It's still up though because why admit you were wrong when most of your readers aren't even aware there's a different answer?

Everyone has bias. And everyone is partial to one side of an argument - it's not wrong, it just is. Sometimes (often) people are simply ignorant of the views of the other side and so it's natural to not even realize there is another side to the story. The more polarized our society becomes, the more ignorant we are of opposing viewpoints. Perhaps this is because many of us simply refuse to associate with anyone whom we think thinks differently than we do. This has become known as the echo chamber because all we hear, day in and day out is our own opinions repeated back to us from our buddies after we regurgitated their opinions to them a bit earlier. It's a perfect recipe for developing your narcissistic side and for learning absolutely nothing.

As I said, bias is one thing - it's normal and understandable. As long as you know it's there, you can account for it and you can find other versions of the same story.

What's not okay as far as the news media is concerned (and I would go so far as to call it unforgivable) is when the purpose is deliberate deception. To be clear, I'm not saying the Times was deliberately trying to deceive anyone, but the general feel of this story aligns perfectly with the way they tend to portray western culture, so it's not surprising that they just went with it. Just like it's not surprising that they just went with the “Israel bombed a hospital” story. Having said that, the fact that this “Mass Graves” story is still available on their website under the same headline implies that maybe I should be saying that. Anyway, they were far from the only ones, so I guess that makes it okay, right?

The only way to read the news now is to read the same story in three different places (preferably with different points of view) and then fit them all together. It's a lot of work, but I think it's worth it and it's the only way to get some semblance of what the truth really is. Because let's face it - if you're not after that, what is it you're really after?

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By the way, Terry Glavin at The Real Story is a Canadian journalist who has proven to be exceptionally trustworthy in the midst of all this. Here's his take on some of this latest business:

This is war. Whose side is Canada on?