Amid the COVID-19 crisis the world has been dealing with, I’ve been asking myself this question over and over: Why are you still reading the news?
Of course I’m not exercising self-reflection here. I stopped reading the news a long time ago! This looks much more like silently screaming at my social media feed!
But we live during an interesting time in history.
Much of what people say has been recorded, and oftentimes, intentionally
If you want to know President Trump’s ideas, thoughts, and opinions, you don’t have to hear it about it from Fox, CNN, or any other news outlet.
He will tell you what he thinks.
If you hear it from Fox, it’s coming from a politically conservative bent. If you hear it from CNN it’s coming from a politically liberal bent.
This means the information has been filtered.
In other words, by definition, these outlets are not helping you think well; they’re telling you what to think.
Some organizations just present the facts
Did you know that some organizations literally present only what is factually the case, steering entirely clear from the project of interpretation?
Disrn.com is such a source. Here’s the creator, Adam Ford, on the philosophy of the site:
Swimming daily in the news cycle for years has taught me a lot about how information is transmitted for consumption. It’s also alerted me to the shortage of trustworthy news outlets that deliver what people actually want to know about in a quick, straightforward, honest manner.
Thus, Disrn was born.
Our motto is “Brief, smart, faithful”:
Brief: We deliver the news to you in a short, concise format, including just the details you need to know about while letting the rest blow away in the breeze. You can check in, quickly learn what you need to know, and then get on with your day. We also include links to more long-winded reports in case you want to know even more.
Smart: We immerse ourselves in the hectic news cycle every day and pluck out just what you need to know, discerning the important and interesting from the superfluous and hopelessly spun. What you end up with is succinct, intelligent reporting on the issues you care about, minus all the noise.
Faithful: The issues that are important to you are important to us. We deliver them to you daily with intellectual honesty and integrity, and without the clickbait or rage headlines.
Sure, the site clearly hosts opinion pieces. But, let’s be real; most news outlets feature only opinion pieces, even if they claim not to.
Some of this seems so obvious to me I almost didn’t post it. I don’t understand what’s so complicated. It’s 2020—your information does not have to be filtered. You can see it for yourself in the vast majority of cases.
I’ll leave with this, then. Have you thought about it?
Why are you
