What are the accepted sources for a news story, can they just be any old malcontent on the internet with a blog or a youtube or do they have to be official publications?

Good question. Does the Daily Mail and its ilk come under the heading of " Accepted sources"? As they are MSM, you could argue that they probably do. That makes it a grey area.

Maybe it's a good idea to have offical sources, as in from MSM and then alternative sources. Show two or more sides to the story and let peoplediscus and decide?

Anyone claiming to have info.

If it is credible or not...well that'd make an interesting discussion in Today's News Discussion.

I'd agree with that, what you highlight with the DM is that even within official sources and the readership there are conflicts of ideology. More often than not you can find an alternative to the DM in the Guardian, I, or Private Eye etc.

The choice between MSM and "Alternative" a false dichotomy imo; let the people decide what version of events is true, without ever actually knowing because they weren't there or involved, merely spectators of a third, fourth of fifth hand account?

There is choice within the MSM< we need never resort to Rense, or Judicial inc in the first place

I think it's fine to post anything as long as it's recent news. Even the Daily Mail prints good articles, although they do try to balance it out with their fair share of lousy ones. I tend to post things if I think they will be of interest and are verifiable, no matter what the source is.

My approach to any source whether it be mainstream or alternative is that there is usually a nugget of truth in any article - reading as many different sources as possible from as many viewpoints as possible can help to get a rounder picture -but ultimately unless I was there I can never know the 'truth' of any given situatiion as even primary sources have their bias.

Even the DM can be relevant, if only for the up-to-date propoganda. I'll go with thoreau. It's good to read as many sources as possible. There could be a lot of guess work involved in filling in the gaps, unless you happened to witness it yourself.

thoreau wrote: I don't know, I think sometimes the absence of a provable falsehood is often taken for a nugget of truth, this leads to imo alot of Alt media being opportunistic, and using generalizations, slogans and collective assumption as the standard.

Also I think it's relevant how these "nuggets of truth" are used in respects to marketing, disinformation, and so on, in the "alt" media, every major event now seemingly has a semi mainstream conspiracy narrative accompanying it, the last few shootings are great examples of the "alt" media's opportunism, how they turn these terrible events into an anti-Obama, anti-gun control political platform, again with the Jimmy Saville these opportunist reports from the "alt" leapt to attack all kinds of institutions, Israel vs Gaza recently the opportunists were at it again, New Orleans, the Bad Weather in general, the Japanese Nuclear disaster mwahaha, I wonder what Icke used to think of the CND, I think he was probably meant to be a plant in the Green movement but they deployed him in the Counter culture instead.

"alt" media as a subject itself in my opinion should be studied, so I will personally start reporting on the ideology in various "alt" media sites in this forum, I look forward to lot's of "alt" media being posted in the News forum for me to draw on.

LesleyPumpshaft wrote: I agree with that aswell, in a way it's better to read things like the FT, Economist, DM, Spectator etc than stuff I agree with, to learn the ways the ruling ideologies react to events.

"It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle."

I take the view that no-one presents a story without passing it through their own filter(s). Be that the BBC or a blogger.
Same when it comes to absorbing that content as a consumer.

'Truth' is mostly relative to your checklist/opinions/expectations matching theirs.

The quantity of 'facts' that vary from one press report to another elsewhere on the same topic often surprises me. Journalists seem really lackadaisical, like it doesn't matter what they get wrong, so long as they get the gist of a story out.

thoreau wrote:
Wise words.

feather wrote: