Want Real News? Then Go Where It Is.

[MineralMan]

Then stop watching 24/7 cable coverage. It isn't news. It's commentary and editorial opinion. MSNBC doesn't have a news program. Neither does CNN or Fox News. It's all commentary and punditry. It's not news. You need actual news.

Instead, read a good major daily newspaper, after lining your birdcage with the Editorial section.

Watch the best local news half-hour in your community to get local news. Watch the evening or late news on CBS, NBC, or ABC for national and international coverage of events.

Those are sources of actual news. Reporters will tell you what happened that day. Legitimate news reporters take objective reporting of events seriously. They don't editorialize. Now, in some cases, reporters have abandoned that standard. If one you see does that, choose another network.

Follow the actual news, and make up your own mind about what it means. You're smart. You can figure out the meaning behind the news for yourself. You don't need an endless stream of commentary that is trying to tell you how to think about the news.

If you need more, use the Internet to look up more actual information about things. Read news on an international newspaper website. Not punditry. If a story mentions organizations, foreign governments, or things that are unfamiliar to you, go learn about those things for yourself. Look for sites that provide just facts, not opinions. Form your own opinions after learning what you need to know. Get information and background knowledge as needed.

Use your own brain and reason to decide what you think. Don't let others tell you what your opinion should be.

Follow the News, not random Punditry.

[asiliveandbreathe]

1. Totally agree MM....I do listen to Rachel Maddow - her investigative journalism -

I find more factual than not....anyway - another question.religion..in this post by the MAGAshooter ....

Three days ago, Robert Bowers, who also goes by the name Rob Bowers, wrote on the Gab account, “Daily Reminder: Diversity means chasing down the last white person.” His profile picture on Gab, where he’s had an account since January 2018, reads, “jews are the children of satan. (john 8:44) — —- the lord jesus christ is come in the flesh.”


I found this MOST unsettling..I am not all that religious..some teaching..but John 8:44...really? Is this some kind of twisted logic..what they are teaching in churches these days...who would believe it?? Why?? Call me cynical, aren't sermons based on the opinion and interpretation by the sermon giver..

Then I found this...

That is exactly not the point he is trying to make. He is trying to say that it's our actions that show whether God or Satan is "our father" in a very figurative sense. He is saying "You are not the righteous just because you descend of Abraham, if you not also behave like that". Reversing that to say Jews are "children of Satan" in general is basically the thing he tries to refute here, in reverse.

[MineralMan]

3. John 8:44 in that sense is way, way out of context.

I'm not going to explain that, but you can read the entire chapter 8 of John to learn who Jesus was supposed to have been talking to. He was not attacking Jews, but was written about as speaking to the current hierarchy of the Temple in that chapter.

As an atheist, I discount all of it as a man-made fiction, but I know that chapter of John. Go read it. It's yet another example of people using out-of-context verses of the Bible to support their bigotry. People do it all the time, and nobody bothers to fact-check them.

I don't believe any of the Bible, but I know it, because I have to deal with people who do believe it, or pretend to.

[asiliveandbreathe]

10. Thank you for responding...people using out-of-context verses of the Bible, for sure -

It seems I have retained some of my religious teachings to know hypocrisy when I hear it...swirling all around..my who, what, where, when, and why and inability to pretend gets me in trouble..so I say nothing...question less...

Trying to get an answer to the why, always trips them up..

Thanks again....

[MineralMan]

15. Probably the best site for looking up Bible references is:

https://www.biblegateway.com/

You can select the translation you prefer and search for whatever you wish. Words, books, chapters, individual verses. It's fast, easy, and always available. I use it often, instead of grabbing one of my Bibles.

[asiliveandbreathe]

17. Thank you for the link..when I researched just - John 8:44 -

so many sites to choose from...and not knowing who to believe....some down right scary - thank you again....

[MuseRider]

2. People still have local news that does not

just feature a long time pretty reader that giggles and squirms no matter what the story, the guy that holds the serious end of which children need adopting this week and the new McD's with no one that takes your order....Waaaaaay coooool! The weather guy that has a weather ducky to show you it is going to rain and has special galoshes to make sure the kids don't get their feet wet and his busty helper who bends over a lot. Then 25 minutes of sports. You mean there are places that have news?

For some of us news comes from anywhere but local. Even the paper, that is run and done in another state far away, is almost useless unless you want to go to an AMAZING sale and also that new McD's, man that place must be something. This is all from a state capital. We have no news.....except the Oak Ridge Boys are coming back to town. Of course they are, they are the only group that comes to town. At least 2-3 times a year, every year for at least the last 10.

Don't tell me to watch my news and get away from the 24/7 stations. If I had a local news that was anything but baby shit I would. I would guess I am not alone with this problem.

[MineralMan]

4. Sure. In the Twin Cities, the WCCO local TV news is pretty

straightforward. There's an hour of it in the morning and another hour in the afternoon. I'm not up at 10 PM, but they do it again then. The CBS News national news programs are on that station, too, and it's my favorite national news broadcast.

You can find the best local news in your area, if you're willing to look for it. One of the stations will be doing straight news, for the most part, in any major market. I haven't found local Fox stations to be of much use, but one of the other alphabet networks will have a decent local news broadcast in most markets.

I see you're in Kansas, but I don't know where in Kansas. You may be right about local news in your area. I don't know. I've driven through Kansas, but that's it, so I have no idea.

[MuseRider]

14. Believe me, I have been here my whole life and it

was not always like this. If it was anywhere that I could get I would know where that was. I read papers from other cities. I live outside Topeka, we do get decent political coverage in the newspaper but if you have to get it from the TV you will likely not get it or get it from someone who is clueless and smiley. It is sad and disgusting. JMO, I prefer news without boobs, giggles, fake male wisdom and duckies. I can wade through the stuff on cable and am capable of making my own mind up.

[MineralMan]

16. That's too bad. I'd hate that.

[ismnotwasm]

5. I agree

I dislike cable news and I won’t watch it—-I love reading though, so this is easy for me, I understand it’s not easy for everyone. What I used to like about DU, my favorite thing about it. is someone would post something an opinion on something topical, and it would drive me to go research.

My own personal favorite topics, social justice, feminism and healthcare I always look up or read a book or find articles with good data written by better minds than my own. Since I’m a nurse I have to get CEs anyway, but learning is more fun than knowing.

[MineralMan]

8. Absolutely. An opportunity to learn something new is exciting to me.

I'm forever going off to look up information about something I've just heard of or discover that I don't understand well.

It has never been easier to find information, and I love that about this period of time. Of course, you have to know where to go to find it. That's not too difficult, either. For most subjects, except politics, Wikipedia is generally a good starting point, and most Wikipedia articles have a long list of links one can follow to learn more. For the sciences, information about places, and historical information, it's generally accurate and condenses the essentials pretty well. Branching out from there, you can take an information quest almost as far as you wish.

[cwydro]

6. I read two local papers in hard copy.

NYT online.

Always watch my local news, and Lester Holt is my news guy on weeknights.

I enjoy the punditry too, but I don’t confuse it with news.

K and r.

[MineralMan]

9. Thanks!

[cwydro]

11. I think it likely that most of us older folks do so,

more than the younger ones.

I’m younger than you, but no spring chicken.

My first job was delivering newspapers. Walking with my dog at the crack of dawn, flinging them on doorsteps.

I loved the smell of newsprint in the morning!

[Skidmore]

7. Careful with media punishment.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/17/opinions/russian-bots-2018-midterm-elections-opinion-love/index.html

[UniteFightBack]

12. You can do both. To say that cable news "isn't news" ...just a blanket statement like that is

absurd.

[MineralMan]

13. OK. thanks for the reply.

[Hortensis]

18. +1000. I remember one study that found steady viewers

of Fox knew less about their world than people who watched no news at all. That was a bit less of a duh! before 2016. But more on point for us, people who watched MSNBC and CNN didn't do much better than people who watched no news at all. Those who scored highest were those who watched PBS evening news, or I think listened to NPR news, not sure.

Every now than then someone highly respected expresses worry about deluded views, resulting from watching "thoughtful people" push whatever groupthink gets them invited back, were doing to the nation. Just the other day it was one of our intelligence chiefs, worried not just about Fox viewers but about us.

So turn the boob tube off and read the news, or at least read it first to enlarge information and understanding, then enjoy favorite program.

[Alea]

19. Yep. Great post.

[harumph]

20. Reuters is OK

[ThoughtCriminal]

21. I subscribed to my local paper as a direct response

Small town, thin, twice a week paper. Not much that is interesting: craft clubs, sanitary district races, frothing RWNJ letters, high school sports, fishing reports...

But it also runs stories and editorials about our sorry school funding and which local politicians are responsible, our corrupt state Corporation Commission, transparency in government. They do research, they run articles about how climate change will impact our community. You know... JOURNALISM! Not always popular in this uber-rightwing corner of MAGAstan, but they take their role seriously.

It's worth the few dollars it cost to help support NEWS.

Oh, and I can check movie times without going online.

[mcar]

22. We watch CNN,

then put CBS news on at 6:30. The difference is huge.

[hunter]

23. Television news is worthless.

My exposure to it is very limited.

When I am exposed to it, against my will, usually in places like waiting rooms or hotel breakfast rooms, it's all noise and

My wife and I quit cable, satellite, and broadcast television years ago. It's possible I could determine when by looking through my DU posts. I may have posted in some threads about how to make an antenna to receive the new digital television broadcasts, and noted that we recieved most of the common networks. But we moved our television shortly after and I didn't bother hooking up any kind of antenna.

Our television is a movie player, DVDs and Netflix mostly, that's all it does. No commercials.

I read my news -- two dead tree local newspapers and many international web sites. Ah, and a plug for https://www.sciencenews.org

I feel better informed now than I ever did watching television news, an artificially flavored cheese-like substance "news." Best of all, I don't suffer television political advertising but for a few YouTube videos I choose to click posted here on DU.

It seems to me that once you quit "traditional" television, you never go back. We have an inexpensive medium speed DSL connection, a single stream of "standard" Netflix, a Redbox within walking distance. Our television is all good.

I haven't yelled at my TV since GWB was president.

CBS, NBC, or ABC... really???

Get off of my cloud.