Comment by irrational
10 years ago
It's funny to me the quote mentions Palestine. I once spent six months in Israel on study-abroad (I was a near eastern studies major). While there I saw certain things firsthand. When I came back I noticed that all the US newspapers I could find in the University library all reported falsehoods regarding the events. I actually found that the BBCs coverage was the most honest and accurate. This experience has always left me wondering, "If an event that I have personal knowledge of was not reported accurately in the newspapers, how do I know that other events that I do not have personal knowledge of are reported accurately?" It doesn't seem to be enough to use multiple sources since all of the US sources I could find were inaccurate and how would I know if the BBC was always accurate?
The main way I've found is to just read something from multiple countries. For a given article I care about or feel dubious about I always try to get at 3 or more country's take of it. While it doesn't help you find the 'truth' writers tend to misinterpret the same things different ways while things that are actually reported figures will lean more consistent.
Also for lots of things there is generally the direct source available if it is economic/legal/statistically relevant and a quick skim of that is a good get you up to speed thing. The writer made mention of something as 'interesting' so that's just a key to me to go looking for information in that direction where otherwise I would not.
One thing I should point out is that my story took place more than 2 decades ago in the pre-WWW days. It was a lot harder back then to check sources in multiple countries.