“If you don’t read the newspaper, you are uninformed. If you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed.”

“I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.”
"...A commenter here on HVAC and the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect wrote that he tries to interpret news stories using a simple procedure: determine the bias, and then assume the opposite of what the story claims...

• How do we figure out what’s real?

“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.” (Feynman)
I can go to trusted sources and believe them–just like everybody else does. 

They listen to their sources because they trust them, and they trust them because they’re just like what they’ve always listened to....

• We’ve lots of news sources. Sometimes they tell the truth. How do I know when?

Truth is generally binary, but unfortunately the probability that I trust a story has to be on a spectrum. 

If I have seen the scene myself, I consider it very true. 

OTOH, I don’t always know the context,…
...If the story is from a known liar on a topic which he has lied about in the past and has an interest in lying about again, I judge the probability small. 

But not zero—as Twain noted, you can lie telling the truth—just leave out important context.
...I can assume that if CNN reports on controversial politics or social mores the report is false; either false in its facts or false in its framing. 

But what if they report on a storm, or a revolution in Chad, or a new business? 

They have no obvious reason to lie, except of course the reporter’s need to have an interesting story on a deadline. 

NYT and Daily News reporters have been known to make stuff up—not that long ago, either...

• I can cross-check. Do I hear the same report elsewhere?...Read all.