Read Several News Sources...

But throw away most of the commentary and read non-fiction books instead!

"Newspaper fire orange" by NS Newsflash is licensed under CC BY 2.0

As a working journalist, I am often surprised by the way people outside the media read the news. Many people choose one or maybe two news sources when they are young and then read them religiously for their whole lives. They often point-blank refuse to read any news articles from other sources, while treating their favourite publication as a one-stop shop for ideas about the world.

In order to understand why this is a misguided way of consuming the media, we need to drill down a little deeper into what the news is actually for. In previous posts, we have encouraged people to do their own research about the world, while developing a skeptical and probabilistic approach instead of one based on a sense of utter certainty. Respect for real-world results is the foundation of this methodology. If you have accepted my argument up to now, I would suggest that the whole point of the news industry is to answer one question and one question only: What has happened?

Your favourite publication offers news, which answers this question, alongside commentary, which tries to work out why it has happened. Non-journalists often only have a vague understanding of the difference, which is absolutely crucial for those of us who work in the media. If you are really interested in finding out what has happened, it makes sense to read a very wide range of news sources. Look for a consensus. If they all agree that something just happened, then it is a probably a fair bet that it did.

Commentary, however, is a different matter. We have seen that our first guess about anything complex is likely to be wrong. Kneejerk reactions to unexpected events from well-paid commentators are just as vulnerable to this tendency, particularly if they have a rigid ideology and the event has provoked cognitive dissonance. Commentators might not have all the information yet about a breaking news story. There are, of course, exceptions to this. The level of commentary in the financial press tends to be of a much higher quality than in the general press, simply because sloppiness will lose readers money.

As a rule of thumb, though, I would suggest mostly skipping the commentary in the general press most of the time. What should you do instead? News events often have complex sources that can be difficult to unravel. Reading thoughtful non-fiction books after the dust has settled is a much better way of trying to understand why events have happened.

If you want to dig deeper into the approach I am suggesting here, I go into much further detail in Chapter Ten of Sharpen Your Axe, my free book on critical-thinking skills. It includes an in-depth discussion of why public information is so important and the risks of listening to compulsive liars. If you missed the beginning, here are the links to Chapter One, Chapter Two, Chapter Three, Chapter Four, Chapter Five, Chapter Six, Chapter Seven, Chapter Eight and Chapter Nine. I have summarized each chapter in previous blog posts. You can find them in the links embedded in the text above.

As always, I would like to thank everyone who has shared previous blog posts on social media. It is greatly appreciated! I decided to make this project free so that the information could spread as widely as possible. Your help is absolulely essential in making that happen. If this is the first post you have seen, can I encourage you to subscribe to my mailing list? The next installment will come in a week’s time. It deals with an interesting topic and I’m sure you’ll enjoy it. See you then!

Update (25 April 2021)

The full beta version is available here

[Updated on 10 March 2022] Opinions expressed on Substack and Twitter are those of Rupert Cocke as an individual and do not reflect the opinions or views of the organization where he works or its subsidiaries.