You’ve probably heard of the dastardly term “fake news.” You can’t escape it, it’s everywhere: Facebook, news and day-to-day conversations.You’re likely to hear someone spout off the two words that have taken off in popularity since the 2016 presidential election.
This isn’t going to be some overzealous rant telling you how only Fox News is fake news or how CNN’s left-leaning bias makes it uncredible. No, this is just a quick bit to fill up the page space, talking about the importance of having more than one go-to for your information. It’s true, you’re likely only to seek information from sources that align with your scope of the world — the person writing this is very guilty of that far too often.
There’s just so much fantastic reporting that goes over our heads in the slew of information being thrown at us. Publications with relatively phenomenal objective reporting, like Roll Call and FiveThirtyEight are often overlooked because they have a tendency to make the news less sexy than other outlets make it seem. If you’re reading two articles about the same topic and one is far less exciting than the other, the more boring one may hold more factual stake in regard for the lack of glamour it has.
Sometimes boring news is good news. Which, yes, isn’t exciting, but you may remember Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury — a scathing commentary from inside President Trump’s White House — lit up social media when it was released. You may recall an excerpt from that book about a TV channel in the White House that exclusively plays the best “gorilla content.” It’s fake, but Wolff went on and wrote it. Why? Hard to say, but the oversensationalism in the book makes it complete hogwash compared to the sort of objective reporting Wolff could have done. Yet he went along with what would sell more copies, and you can’t knock him for knowing what would sell.
As fun as the Gorilla Channel sounds, take a step back when you are taking in the news these days. The news never sleeps, and it feels like we don’t either. But if it feels like the news is hopped up on something, make sure you find a source that feels a bit more subdued than the one that feels like a 10-year-old on his eighth bottle of Mountain Dew — because you really don’t ever believe a 10-year-old on a sugar high.
Please note that the views and opinions of the columnists do not reflect those of The Post. What do you think of “boring” news sources? Let Chuck know by tweeting him @chuck_greenlee.
