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Comment by rschoultz | Hacker News Reader

Even credible news sources are bound to have an implicit bias, to a certain degree. There is, however, quite a few other types of media sources ranging from media bias, to fake news, misinformation, disinformation etc. I recommend reading the Cornell university library guides to learn about how to distinguish one from the other.

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As a useful rule of thumb, the New York Times prints retractions.

If your news source never prints retractions, it's not to be trusted.

NYT prints some retractions and corrections and also changes stories they have published without any notice.

Times editors have thus far rejected appeals to flag readers when stories are reworked, unless it’s a correction. They argue that making such edits are a routine part of digital publishing — you edit a piece, publish it, then report more or add more context, then republish it again, on through the news cycle.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/25/public-editor/liz-spayd-n...

Version control on digital news stories would be nice to have, but I can't disagree with their thinking on the topic. Putting the most up-to-date version forward is standard digital publishing protocol.

Clearly "standard digital publishing protocol" isn't something that can be trusted.

As a rule of thumb, no reporting is to be trusted. The only way out is to read widely and read well and come up with your own opinions.

Yes and:

Sign your name, cite your sources, share your data. aka authenticity.

Extra credit for verification, fact checking, vetting sources. aka journalism.

And as you say, earn merit badge for intellectual honesty. Including retractions, updates, followups, listing assumptions, etc.

> As a useful rule of thumb, the New York Times prints retractions.

And, yet, a lot of the US public opinion is shaped by Fox News...

Do other tv/cable news networks print retractions? I can't remember any, but maybe they have a specific webpage you have to go to in order to see it? I doubt any of the non-news programs on those networks do, and those comprise the majority of the programming. So maybe it's just hard to find for the little bit of actual news.

> I doubt any of the non-news programs on those networks do

My impression is they only have opinion programs and no news reporting whatsoever.

I'm not sure since I get most of my news online. I thought they had like 2 hours per day that were non-opinion news.

The HN crowd is not the typical Fox News audience.

In this very thread they are regurgitating talking points from fox punditry.

I don't just mean Fox. MSNBC, etc seems to mostly be talk shows too.

This is exactly correct.

Stories online, when altered, are labeled as such with corrections.

Several outlets have been caught scrubbing past headlines that were proven false, but that's more an indictment on them.

"Stories online, when altered, are labeled as such with corrections."

I get that. But how do the TV news programs do it? I don't remember them starting with, or including at all, a corrections segment.

Rarely. Most news isn't "breaking" on TV, even if they do they refer to the online story. So that's where stories are corrected, because that's the official record.

Do they actually refer people to the online story, or do you just mean they are using that story to regurgitate to the viewers? I highly doubt most of the viewers are recieving the corrections if they're only given online.

Yeah, when there is breaking news it seems there's a ton of speculation and bad information given.

Generally, I wouldn't rely on any one method - critical thinking and critical reading are skills that each person must develop. It seems a little trite to just recommend the one Cornell guide, even if it is of high quality...

Can you recommend any methods to improve critical thinking and critical reading skills? This seems an era where they are more important than ever.

This is an excellent question, and one I hope others answer. Here's my personal take.

First, prune out really low quality sources of information, as they perpetuate uncritical thinking. The worst in my life are the Twitter trending tab (I did the "Indian Ocean" hack) and cable "news," especially the opinion section (and there's a lot more opinion stuff on even the "straight" news these days).

Second, spend some time editing Wikipedia articles, and become familiar with their guidelines. They are a digital community that has managed not to become a trash fire. My take is that being a decent WP editor requires a fairly low level of critical thinking - it can be defined as making good tertiary content (encyclopedia articles) from secondary sources, where the goal is simply verifiability rather than of truth. "Real" critical thinking might be defined as making good secondary content from primary sources. But I think the former is an important foundation. Did person X really say Y? If you get this wrong (which is super-common), there's no hope to answer deeper questions.

Generally, there is no "all in one" way of doing it. Generally active reading and checking the facts and primary sources will get you far. I don't think there is any substitute for reading lots and from diverse sources.

Four books that helped me along the way are:

How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler

The Book of Fallacies by Jeremy Bentham (alternatively, I enjoyed Logically Fallacious by Bo Bennet, and it fills the same niche)

Trust Me - I'm Lying by Ryan Holiday

Asking the Right Questions by Browne, Keil

I hope that was helpful! Enjoy

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