The Maze of Media Spin

I got this image from Google. It's not mine, but it was so hard to track down its original source that I thought it was especially illustrative of the coming point.

Hey there.
Today I'd like to talk about how hard it is to get news that's worth a damn.

Sure, there are news sources everywhere, but these days it takes approximately 76% longer than it should to find the actual truth behind anything one might read on them. It's hard enough to get a person to read something as long as a blog entry, or the whole of a news story to begin with. One out of every three Americans has an attention span that only lasts for a paragraph or two, before they reflexively click on one of the shiny other articles being suggested on the side of the screen.

You'll notice I just hit you with three facts, and I made all of them up. Or did I? Maybe some are true. Maybe some are mostly true...but hey, I probably did my research, so what the hell, just go ahead and share it on Facebook.

See, what you should do is go and check, compare the numbers against other news sources, and find out before lending your voice to the cause.

No? Is that a pain in the ass? Oh, not yet it's not. Because the sources you go to to check those facts may in fact have a spin of their own.
The only responsible thing to do is pursue those sources as well. Find out who the major contributing parties are to that publication's budget. Who advertises with them, and what do those parties endorse? Maybe by this afternoon, you'll have enough facts to really know whether the article you read about the heart-healthy effects of sea salt was playing it straight, or if it was just an ad in disguise paid for by the International Sea Salt Consortium.
If you don't plan on getting anything done today, you may have time to read a second article.

If you want to see how ridiculous this can become, check out this little war between Media Bias Fact Check and Just Facts, two sites that are generally pretty awesome for unbiased verification.
I use MBFC regularly to check the political leanings (read: agendas) of various sources, and I've been impressed, but as you can see, no one is immune to criticism.

The link above is a good example, because from the headline you get the impression that MBFC is not living up to their name, and only if you take the time to read down to (and all the way through) the back-and-forth of emails at the end do you realize what eventually happened, and how both publications were able to shake hands.

And if you can do that, you're probably part of the 3.228%* of Americans who care enough to do so. (*of those surveyed)

I get it. I do. Most of us see a thing on Facebook with a headline like "Trump Threatens To Kill Fifteen Apes With Golf Club", immediately click on it, only discover the article is about some government entity's choice to grant land to a country club instead of to a zoo, endangering the lives of several displaced animals from a failed zoo the next city over.
A more common example are articles based on slanted facts. Statistics are notorious for muddling the truth.

This is technically true.

If I created a poll, and I wanted to use it in a biased article to slam someone, all I'd have to do would be to slant the questions. Watch this.

Which of these things do you support? Choose one.

- Donald Trump should have more executive power to execute his office.

- Donald Trump has enough executive power already.

- Donald Trump should have less executive power.

- Donald Trump should have more executive power, but with more oversight.

- Donald Trump's executive power should remain unchanged, but with more oversight.

- Donald Trump's executive power should be decreased, as well as applying more oversight.

Now. Let us exist in a world where each of the six options got the same amount of votes. I could pick any of the following headlines:
- New study shows that only 17% of Americans approve Trump's degree of power without additional oversight.

- Survey reveals 33% of Americans want to give Trump more executive power.

- Survey bashes Trump WH; 83% of Americans displeased with existing levels of executive power and oversight.

And then I'd just write an opinion piece about whatever I wanted, using that data as backing (but never showing the questions I actually asked on the survey), throw it up on Facebook, and let the internet do its thing.

Be honest. If one of your friends shared a story with one of those headlines, and the first couple of paragraphs matched up with your particular political leanings, would you re-share it?
If you read the whole article, and it expressed sentiments you agreed with, would you fact-check the data before re-sharing?
If you did fact-check the data, would you know if the publication that originally put up the article had a general agenda?

The truth is that we live on a media battlefield, where almost everything is spin. If you share a thing online, you endorse another person's words as your own, and give up your opportunity to speak for yourself. The least you can do, for yourself and for the people you may influence, is find out if you're falling for spin or hollow claims.

With all that said, I don't want to be the guy who says "Hey, there's a problem." then just points at it with no attempt to fix it, so let me show you what I've found so far, by way of duct tape.

No one should take any one source of info as gospel, but some sites do give a lot of extra effort towards clearing up the bias. Personally, I like to use this site as my first step towards verifying stuff that looks spinny. From what I can tell in reading through their methodology, their efforts are genuine and their backers have the same agenda they do: to expose bias and provide a neutral report of events, as well as give fair ratings to other publications one may read, to the best of their ability, and stay open to corrections.
Check out their method for yourself, and decide if you agree. It may not be the exact site for you, but it's a place to start looking.

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TL;DR - Completely fabricated statements sound 62.35% more plausible if you include a reasonable statistic.