How to watch the news

A feeling of distrust has taken hold in the hearts of the citizens of our nation. Reports of false claims and news outlets have left us with a sense of untrustworthiness of the mainstream media. One of which, President Donald Trump has repeatedly called a “dishonest scum”, as well as many other names.

For a long time now, there has been a crisis in journalism at the expense of the American people. False and sometimes even fabricated stories of the supposed vast systemic problems in our country. Mainly on matters discussing Donald John Trump, the now 45th President of the United States. Trump is constantly in the news due to the vast amount of recent scandals and false statements involving him.

Whenever a damaging story about our notorious president is published, he takes it to his Twitter account and says something offensive and absurd. Thus, drawing more media attention and creating a smokescreen. Consider it like half-lies and half-truths, that is what our media has now become. They ask irrelevant questions and create bottom-line, even truthless, stories just to create mass attention, but disregard real issues affecting Americans.

Another problem that has now recently occurred is the absence of fact checking. At times, it has been the sole and main problem for the distrust people have now in media. It is fundamental for not only the reader, but most importantly the reporter and writer to make sure everything they are writing is 100 percent true. A majority of the time, reporters spend a minimal amount of time and level to critically judge what is right and wrong. This is in order to set a preferred storyline or plot. This storyline, again, will create mass media attention and yet, another flow of false information.  

The answer remains unknown as to whether the people will ever trust the news again. Despite this fact, recent events have shown that certain sources must be fact-checked.

The absence of fact checking, at times, has been the main problem. It is now the right time for us to become more diligent in recognizing hoaxes in contrast to realities.