A few years ago, I thought Natural News was a legit but unorthodox news site that brought to light scientific studies hidden by Big Pharma. I have since spat out the Kool-Aid. While they may occasionally have some truthful reports, the amount of misinformation has ruined any and all credibility.
For example, this is the top headline today (not hyperlinking this BS because pingbacks and sanity):
“Muslim ban” media lie leads to enraged mob of mindless left-wing zombies physically attacking Trump supporter in broad daylight
My issue with this is it is labelled under “News” and not “Blog” or “Opinion”. If this was categorized as an editorial, then you could get away with the highly partisan language. But it’s not. Because it’s written by the founder, therefore it is “true” and posted front and center on the “News” section.
Side note, I would like to point out that the first pop up I encountered from Natural News was an ad for the founder’s health store. This is something I see a LOT. Don’t trust corporate entities, trust me and my recommendations, which give me money. I totally understand getting paid for your work, and doing affiliate marketing, but it’s hypocritical to damn mainstream media for corporate advertising when you’re doing it at the smaller and more obvious scale.
Now there’s a website called “Censored News” that aggregates headlines from Natural News, Breitbart, Govt Slaves, The Daily Sheeple, The Federalist, and more websites that sully credibility of journalists everywhere. No, I am not linking to any of this BS.
I have a degree in Journalism, and I got it in the age of when physical newspapers died and online news sources thrived. I was a reporter for several years. I don’t recall getting a lesson on how to bow to your corporate overlords and government censors. In fact, our lessons we were: question everyone, source everything, and don’t freaking lie. I live near Hearst Castle, aka the home of one of the guys responsible for yellow journalism, so we got a nice heaping of “don’t do that” from our professors.
Is mainstream media perfect? No. Are there issues with the current media business model that affects their coverage? Yes. Should you not trust mainstream media? Not necessarily. Should people realize pundits and journalists aren’t the same thing? HELL YES.
Take everything you read with a grain of salt, do your own research, find the primary source, but for the love of Lacuna, don’t take the “Censored News” as the uncovered truth.
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Katelyn Sweigart is a recovering woonatic and This Week In Tomorrow’s new regular correspondent for your weekly dose of Monday woo.
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