"Dumb and Dumber"- Are Americans hostile to knowledge?

[greg]

I agree with the article mostly because opinion and speculation are frequently intermingled with factual reporting when historically they would be kept separate.  If something is important it is worth checking that it is widely reported and accurately reported instead of hyperfocusing on that one article.

Critical thinking is needed to evaluate which sources are good.

There's truth to both of these statements.

Checking different sources is just a default good thing to do, but it can't end there.

First, do all of the sources that you are reading have the same opinion on something that is actually divisive (like politics)? Well then at that point, reading ten different sources doesn't amount to that much. You have to vary your types of sources at that point.

After that, you have to critically think.

As for checking "better" or more trustworthy sources, that is important to focus on them as a general rule of thumb (and deciding what is trustworthy in the first place is a whole other game to play), but also there are scenarios where unreputable sources can reveal some truth- less likely, of course, but it happens.

It's important to keep all perspectives, even extreme ones, left/right, up/down/whatever available at some place. If you really want to understand their unhealthy perspectives, you can't understand until you are reading from the primary sources- themselves. Not what some more "reputable" news source says about them.

So just from an idealistic standpoint, maximizing amount and variety of resources, and also maximizing critical thinking time directed towards all of those resources is the most ideal. Also, critically think your own assumptions and test in them in the real world, if you can.

This type of strategy actually has helped me learned mixing, and I'm seeing (or "hearing") results, instead of having to attend classes, so yeah, I'd recommend it.
(maybe not the best comparison in the world to news, but just comparing in a general sense, yeah)