> At this point it's pretty much impossible to read such articles and figure out whether there is an actual institutional problem.
I have a similar feeling about all articles from all sources (that I’m aware of) in journalism.
Every time an article interests me enough to dig deeper into the subject, I find the original article was inaccurate and biased, and frequently misrepresents small but significant details to fit a narrative in a way that can’t have been a mistake.
The way I consume news these days isn’t the greatest, but it’s the best I can do: I only read headlines. If a claim in the headline would cause the source major legal issues if untrue, I mostly trust that the event occurred, but not necessarily how they say it did.
I ignore all other claims in headlines, and I don’t read the body of the article, because it’s usually just a thinly-veiled opinion piece by a non-expert, or worse, the dramatic prose of a journalist who seems to think their writing is the story.
If there’s an event in a headline that seems to have actually happened, and it’s relevant to my interests, I research it independently.
I have a similar feeling about all articles from all sources (that I’m aware of) in journalism.
Every time an article interests me enough to dig deeper into the subject, I find the original article was inaccurate and biased, and frequently misrepresents small but significant details to fit a narrative in a way that can’t have been a mistake.
The way I consume news these days isn’t the greatest, but it’s the best I can do: I only read headlines. If a claim in the headline would cause the source major legal issues if untrue, I mostly trust that the event occurred, but not necessarily how they say it did.
I ignore all other claims in headlines, and I don’t read the body of the article, because it’s usually just a thinly-veiled opinion piece by a non-expert, or worse, the dramatic prose of a journalist who seems to think their writing is the story.
If there’s an event in a headline that seems to have actually happened, and it’s relevant to my interests, I research it independently.