Nowadays, If you want to stay informed then you must investigate on your own and come to a conclusion. Otherwise, if someone wants to be manipulated and misinformed then just will keep saying yes with the head in front of a screen or read the headlines of its favorites newspapers.
It was more than ten years ago when I decided to not watch TV anymore, but don’t get me wrong, I still watch series and movies. Is because there were a lot of stupid shows for stupid people. I was tired of hearing always the same jokes about the same groups and a bunch of people talking about the economy without being economists.
Also, it was almost one year since I changed the most read digital newspapers for other most neutral. When you read these newspapers, in the long term you realize the manipulation in it. They know that most people don’t read the articles but just the headlines. Once you open and read the article is easy to spot a lot of contradictions and hidden information.
The journalist should seek and investigate the truth but they just give the reason to their beloved politicians or political party. All you read in the newspaper and all you watch in the news is pure bullshit.
What are their interests?
The interest behind mass media is always the same, money. After opening their webpage in the case of digital newspaper, you will see a lot of ads and most of them are about oligopolies like banks, electric companies, and also government campaigns. So, if the newspaper or TV show received a lot of money from them, what are the incentives to criticize? That's how you shut up the public opinion.
Also, is not strange to see articles written or signed by those politicians or big companies' CEO. Normally, they talk about how awesome they are doing their job and how everyone will benefit. Another one, we have 'green' oil companies talking about how to fight climate change, this is my favorite.
What can we do?
Our duty as citizens is to find the truth, therefore we should start changing our channels of information. The internet is the best place for it but you need to deal with the excess of information or what I say, to separate the wheat from the chaff. Always make sure that they are independent and where their source of income doesn't come from big companies directly but from the users or third-party ads.
If you are going to participate in a community, then make sure is not a circlejerk like Reddit, Medium, or Twitter. The popular and most voted/downvoted comments are always an indicator of how healthy is the community. If well-argumented comments are downvoted in favor of more generic and popular opinions without any proof, argument, or logic behind then is a symptom of toxicity and should be avoided.
The most important thing we can do is to research the topic, check the sources and form our own conclusions. We should not let other people influence our opinion. After many years of doing this, what is clear at least for me, is that talking about politics should be avoided at all and don't lose time discussing it.
In resume, mass media like TVs and newspapers are going to manipulate, lie or distort reality. They receive money from big companies, lobbies, and the government in form of advertisements. Also, social media could be an echo chamber for its users where free or contrarian opinion is some kind of crime. Always investigate by yourself, seeking the truth and proofs, and form your own opinion, not the others.
