NEWS YOU CAN USE . . . MAYBE also: http://worldtraining.net/News.htm

Students often do not question online information: Study examines students' ability to critically assess information from the Internet and from social media. Most people do not bother researching beyond the first page of their google search. You must realize it is easy to bury information, especially if controversial, by posting bogus web sites and using bots for fake hits to skew google algorithms. Google performs due diligence but its staff analysts and their algorithms can be overwhelmed by others.

You need to be more suspicious of media sources in general. Finance and accounting are popular choices at colleges like Baruch are smart career choices. My professional work with the related field of auditing — helping auditors revise their reports efficiently — helped me realize the need for more skepticism in evaluating information. Consider the following article: Why is being an auditor is a good career choice? The contents are interesting even if you choose another field of study.

Recall the Russian gag often cited by Russians during the Soviet-era regarding their two leading Soviet state-controlled newspapers, Pravda and Izvestia: “Facts are to be found somewhere between Truth (Pravda, in Russian) and News (Izvestia, the word in Russian for news), but news will never appear IN ‘Truth’ (Pravda) and truth never appears IN ‘The News’ (Izvestia).”

Reagan's skepticism toward the Soviet Union was summed up in the Russian proverb: “doveryai, no proveryai” -- “trust, but verify.” Although Gorbachev regarded Reagan’s usage as drivel, Reagan did provide a needed insight many naïve Americans lack. Millions of Russians were led to appropriate skepticism recalling Mark Twain’s insight that it is “easier to fool you than it is to persuade you that you have been tricked.” Chances are . . . you have been duped on numerous topics.


The listing of news sources below (Remember: trust, but verify) should be applied to all information you encounter especially if produced by the main-stream media (hereafter BigMedia; see chart at MSM ).

The following is not an endorsement for any of the sources cited below -- they are often contradictory, and sometimes none will prove accurate. If you think so, tell me so I can lower your grade for not paying attention.

https://explorable.com/falsifiability
You need to think critically about the validity of information whether you are doing research on your next research project or report, consumer purchase or even investing for your 401K. The need for maximizing certainty requires you to “prove” (in the original sense of “testing” a claim to be true or false - read falsifiability), what source is most accurate and why.

Critical thinking means you should 
test claims using concepts such as  correspondence and coherence.  For verifying topical issues reported in biased mainstream media, always go to a local source for comparison on issues that interest you.

For example, a news report from a web site  originating in Alaska on global climate change is likely to be more accurate because the local readers would presumably reject any false claims that could harm the credibility of other news reports on the web site.

The local source could be in error but the favorable or unfavorable reaction of locals responding to the issue should suggest accuracy. Most countries have news web sites with English versions.

You can also use the Chrome browser to translate or ask another student who may be a native speaker of the language used on a web site. Also, keep in mind one of the most problematic issues in translation as expressed in the Italian: Traduttore, traditore, in a sense, to “translate” is to betray.

Most media information consists of indeterminate amounts of truth, half-truths, and outright lies. Determining the efficacy of the various news accounts can be fun as you must assess the internal coherence of a news piece, as well as its correspondence to other sources you will encounter. Check their premises if statistics are involved here: World Statistics in real time : http://www.worldometers.info/ .

It certainly beats reading tea-leaves as a guide to market trends, etc. Remember, you are buying a product, information, that is an increasingly debased commodity every time you watch or read the news.

Failure to discriminate truth from “Truthiness,” a term introduced by Stephen Colbert on his debut episode of The Colbert Report, makes it easy to get you to act against your best interests as expressed in the figure of speech, “drinking the Kool-Aid.” Elderly supporters of Trump are literally risking their lives to express their misplaced trust in claims by Trump, whose behavior echoes the panic of the Mayor in the film, “Jaws.” [Watch clip.]

Truthiness is a quality characterizing a "truth" that a person making an argument or assertion claims to know intuitively “from the gut” or, confirmed by peer group pressure, to act because it “feels right.”

Most people tend to assume that they are good judges of character (For example, the Barry Goldwater slogan: “In your heart you know he’s right.”) without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts. In other words, they posit an appeal to ethos, not logos.

Similarly, failure to discriminate truth from bullshit ( read the treatise by Princeton Professor Frankfurt ) means you are also “buying into” assumptions that are rarely in your interest, but sentiments (“they (fill in the blank!) get better treatment than I do”) resonate by short-circuiting rational thought, hence the need for critical thinking and situational awareness on your part.

Just as with all purchases, intellectual or material, in the marketplace of ideas, remember “caveat emptor” - buyer beware or more precisely for researchers: caveat lector – reader beware !

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com one place to start fact-checking
... but never stop checking!

https://www.rawstory.com

http://www.alternet.org

https://www.theguardian.com

http://www.blacklistednews.com

https://patch.com : Submit your zip code for local news. (Not a great site, so suggest something better if you know of one.)

https://www.propublica.org a Not For Profit with minimal compromises on relevance

http://www.politicususa.com

http://fivethirtyeight.com The “Go-To” site for statistics on everything from politics to sports.

Top Censored News Stories of 2022, etc....
They go “dark” so often that it suggests credibility!

Veteran’s Today: a conservative site that has some credibility and insights for vets.

Think “Global Warming” is a myth? Go to a logical source to confirm or deny, for example: Alaska Dispatch News or http://icelandmonitor.mbl.is/news/, these are local news sources where dubious claims on effects of climate change could and would be disputed by the locals.

In Iceland Monitor archives you could have also read about how our modern day ‘Vikings” dealt with bank fraud and prospered !
Read about and then watch “Inside Job”.

SIDtoday is the internal newsletter for the NSA’s most important division,
the Signals Intelligence Directorate. After editorial review,
The Intercept is
releasing nine years’ worth of newsletters in batches, starting with 2003.
Related: https://www.cryptogon.com

The agency’s spies explain a surprising amount about what they were doing,
how they were doing it, and why.
https://theintercept.com

From the BBC Somewhat reliable, prescient even, but they are British and they still have an Empire or Commonwealth . Note this anomaly.

Educate-Yourself : Articles from outlier news sources:  caveat lector [reader beware!]

Example of “alt-right” site possibly funded by climate change deniers: http://www.whatreallyhappened.com

Example of purported “alt-left” popular news site: https://www.huffingtonpost.com

Zogby Poll Service : Note caveat and one possible reason.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/worst-pollster-in-world-strikes-again/

Alternative News

Link TV: Television Without Borders

Democracy Now : attend Goodman’s studio interviews (Few people want to get up early!) and you can meet topical, newsworthy celebrities and politicians


List of Conspiracy sites ? You be the judge, but again, caveat lector!
https://web.stanford.edu/~jonahw/PWR1/CT-Websites.htm

Mondo Times - a collection of media resources from around the world.

https://www.lifewire.com/top-most-popular-blogs-3486365:
Most popular news blogs ---FYI: not an endorsement – you decide!

Top 50 Blogs By Accounting Professors, Students and Professionals
http://onlineaccountingcolleges.com/2011/top-50-blogs-by-accounting-professors-students-and-professionals/


From People's Republic of China - Xinhuanet

From the Persian Gulf - Al-Jazeera

From Russia - Pravda - Still the standard for 'fair and balanced' NEWZ

From Israel - Haaretz news site considered to be liberal

From Israel - Jerusalem Post news site considered to be conservative

From Israel – Debka Files - you decide.

Surviving Future Shock by Ken Freed
An understanding of interactive communication reveals why deep literacy makes global sense. We are entering a bold new world of media wonders, and most of us feel scared silly by the prospects. The future looks dark and menacing. We beg for salvation.

The numbing sense of being overwhelmed by too much change happening way too fast to handle is called future shock, a associated with Alvin Toffler. The initially disabling effects of massive social change can endure for generations. Some parts of our world have not yet entered the industrial age, for instance, let alone the information age, and look at the social upheavals in these lands.

Once a change is naturalized, the new order of life is naturalized in us from birth. Stability by social balance works best, responsibility balancing freedom endures the longest, nurtures human creativity and prosperity.

Future shock is being induced, among other cultural forces, by the "information overload" from emerging media technologies that confound the mind. Given the billions being spent to build a global network of communication networks, by design or default, as Matt Taylor would say, we are betting the future of humanity and life on earth upon a global Internet of interactive media becoming a blessing instead of a curse.

2013 Happiest Nations of the World --- not too long ago...
http://247wallst.com/special-report/2013/11/07/the-happiest-countries-in-the-world-4/2/

2018 Happiest Nations of the World  https://www.forbes.com/sites/duncanmadden/2018/03/27/ranked-the-10-happiest-countries-in-the-world-in-2018/#452e5f8973e9

Countries With the Widest Gap Between the Rich and the Poor

Job Prospects for Journalists

Relief for your Imagination

Law, Humor, and News in One