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Comment by outside1234 | Hacker News Reader

What amazes me is how easy it is for people to be radicalized by watching a single news source.

My parents have literally been radicalized from normal moderate folks to "crazy conspiracy people" by watching Fox News and, I suspect, this is a broadly true statement amongst a very large swath of the elderly population.

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Older Americans come from a time when the Man on the TV or Radio spoke the truth, with honor and integrity and did so citing facts and experts. They still hold onto this ethos and therefore believe - like they believe a preacher, that the words and opinions are real and factual and worthy of regard... This is why FOXNews and talk radio skews so heavily to people over 60 and is also why its so effective.

That's not exactly what we're seeing with right-wing people. They will happily tell you that NYT, WaPo, CNN, AP, Reuters, etc. are all "fake news" because their far-right "news" sources tell them so.

If you don't think all big media news outlets have an agenda to push, you might need to take a closer look. That includes CNN, WaPo, Fox, etc. As an example, Bloomberg effectively told his news outlets they weren't allowed to investigate Democrats during the primary.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/24/bloomberg-news-will-not-inve...

Perhaps, but according to the Trump fans, the right-wing outlets are completely unbiased and trustworthy and don't have an agenda to push, and all the other ones are just completely making stuff up out of whole cloth.

It is exactly what we're seeing. They have been trusting the Man on the TV/Radio for so long, they trust him when he tells them that THE OTHER guys are lying to you... Funny how that works.

> Older Americans come from a time when the Man on the TV or Radio spoke the truth, with honor and integrity and did so citing facts and experts.

There's definitely information asymmetry involved, but a history or US in wars makes this nostalgia bias at best.

Examples;

- US Involvement in Vietnam

- Remember the Lusitania, The Zimmerman Telegram WWII

- USS Maine

- US annexation of Mexico

Yes, seriously don't rely on any single news source. It will distort your worldview and put you in a bubble, whether it's Fox News or MSNBC or CNN. Though you can inoculate yourself a bit and get a more holistic view by watching both sides, as you'll see the cherry picking each does to support their narratives. And if they report the same thing it has a better chance of actually being true.

Though better yet is to not watch the news at all. Really, it's just entertainment and a major source of stress with little upside. They're not informing so much as misinforming.

If you don't believe that, well... neither does the side you think is wrong. If you think you're more intelligent than they are, well, again, they think the same of you.

Try going without the news for a couple weeks and see how you feel. Take note of your stress levels and day to day life. Another experiment you can do is to watch the news (objectively as possible) from 2 months or 2 years ago and see how much actually ended up being relevant.

On the other hand, I have family members who have been radicalized into crazy conspiracy people who think white men are the root of all evil (can’t remember the direct quote but it was pretty close to that) by watching every news source except Fox News. And I suspect this is true amongst a very large swathe of the millennial population.

it is entirely possible that you have been radicalized from a normal moderate folk to a "crazy libtard" by watching whatever channels you watch, and, i suspect, this is a broadly true statement amongst a very large swatch of the millenial generation.

(note: using "crazy libtard" here not as a personal insult, but because it is the right's version of "crazy consipiracy people").

anyways, take the speck out of your own eye before complaining about the beams in your parents eyes.

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