Ask HN: How to avoid being psychologically manipulated by the media? - febin
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alva
Number 1 is to stop reading opinion sections altogether. Another is to get
your main news from wire services like Reuters. This will keep you up to date
with the main events. I tend to gravitate towards financial news services as
well now, they have an incentive to present things in a factual and unbiased
way.

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Jugurtha
Avoiding reading the news does not address a deeper problem: the way we think
can be hijacked by people who know how.

I am reminded of Blaise Pascal's "Pensées" from which I'll try to translate a
passage:

 _" Man is but a reed, the most feeble in nature; but he is a thinking reed.
The universe need not entirely arm itself to crush him: a vapor, a drop of
water suffices to kill him. But when the universe would crush him, Man would
be even more noble than what kills him, because he knows he's dying, and the
advantage the universe has on him, the universe knows none of it. Our dignity
consists, then, in thought. It is from this that we must elevate ourselves and
not from space or time, which we cannot fill. Let us work, then, to think
well; this is the principle of morality."_

Maybe we could look at it from this perspective. That avoiding the news is
avoiding a channel we are aware of but not tackling the way we think makes us
vulnerable to the channels we're unaware of that use the same mechanics.

The intelligence community has a body of knowledge on this subject. Richard
Heuer and Randolph Pherson's work might interest HN members: "Structured
Analytic Techniques for Intelligence Analysis". "Thinking Fast and Slow" has
been mentioned here quite often.

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rapnie
i would say: consume media from many sources; don't focus only on media you
agree with, that are aligned with your opinion; get out of your echo chamber;
discuss with others; think, reflect, be aware of possible manipulation; don't
avoid the long reads; catch up on background material

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rajeshpant
Stop getting the news. I don't know how our generation turned to be so news
hungry. 99% of the news is junk and you will do fine without it.

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Distant_horizon
I like to remember that there's no arrangement of facts that is objective. The
process of _selecting_ facts is subjective.

I read AP Press Guide to News Writing to see how stories are manufactured. It
was illuminating.

"Breaking news" has its place, but when information is sparse, we seem to be
subject to the most fabrication.

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buvanshak
1\. Read news once a day.

2\. Never trust head lines. Use head lines only as an indicator that a certain
event has happened. Always do your on research on topics that are important to
you.

3\. Never gauge the importance of a news item by the size of the font it is
printed (or the number of up votes it has if it is on a forum).

4\. Always follow up on important stuff. For example, if there is a news about
a politician doing something bad, the media ll forget it after a couple of
days. But follow up it regularly, and know how the story ends..

5\. When statistics is involved, be _extremely_ skeptical.

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hkiely
Always make sure you are on the same page as those who you are following or
getting information from. For instance, if you are friends with a journalist,
make sure they don’t and up with bits and pieces of your story before it goes
on to spread to become nationally syndicated news. You may end up reading
another story that contains parts of those facts where all of it isn’t fully
correct as it has dysiminated from other sources. When you are constantly
exposed you may be imprinted to believe something else.

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kypro
Believe it or not if you want to know what important things are happening
around you you can just talk to people. They tend to not have any bias to push
and can often give you a view that might not be the one held by the typical
university educated upper-middle class metropolitan media journalist.

I think it would be so much better if we just talked to each other about
things we care about rather than be told what other people care about by
companies look to push agendas and make money.

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jeffrese
boycott it, don't pay attention to it. Don't watch it, read it, delete
facebook and even twitter. There is zero need for it. The important stuff will
bubble up and be more prominent. I haven't looked at a news site in over two
years and I've never been more informed about real issues.

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rajacombinator
1) ignore, 2) read between the lines and beyond the headlines, 3) question
everything.

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imauld
As always "Simpsons did it"

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlKao_Pox5A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlKao_Pox5A)

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tugberkk
I really think there is no way. If you use media, in whatever form you do,
they will effect you. Even how they talk during news and interviews can effect
how you feel about the subject.

