Considering that we live in the 'information age' it seems to be becoming more and more difficult to source reliable, unbiased outlooks. I once said to my old GP that people have, in general, stopped listening to health news on TV because of the conflicting advice we get and at that time I blamed the fairly new phenomenon of 24 hour news coverage that has to be filled. I went on to say that on a slow news day journalists must leaf through the BMJ and pick out any old stuff that would fill a three minute slot purely for the sake of it. And nary a chance of any follow up.
I think that the Information Age is creating many such problems.
My kids live on their smart phones, and the internet. When they visit me I am not able to watch any news programmes as one of them will take an opposing POV, and turn off the sound to have a 20 minute rant about what
their viewpoint is. When I query their source, they sjhow me endless youtube vloggers, or some comedian late night show, or a blogger they follow on the net that comments daily on the news, Nonw of their sources seem to be anything other than people spouting forth, and it seems that the more bad language they use, and the louder they shout, then the more believable it becomes to them. And they take it up vehemently as being more true than the fake news I read or view.
They do not query the possibility of bias or subversive funding, so a report on RTV is juat as valid as CNN. They may be right, but there seems to be an unquestioning acceptance of alternative views against the establishment. If it is contrary to the established system, then it has to be good and right eh?
Then they spread their POV thus picked up onto the social networks, looking for likes and brownie points to support their stance from other equally conditioned people. The more likes they score, the truer their POV it seems. This is Real Democracy in action innit?