what I actually do is, I browse news sources that don't appeal to me (Reddit and CNN are my primaries -- both bad). This is to counter my own selection-bias, which is what causes me to click on the things that interest me (for example I read more about regulatory overreach than I do about marriage equality). I don't do this every day, by any means, but periodically I go on these news-binges (with which I used to punish spam), and when that happens, I click on essentially every headline and at least browse. The goal is to take the temperature current events overall, not to become an expert -- that comes later. I'm just getting a broad-strokes idea of what's going on. So I look at everything.
Inevitably in the course of this binge, I'll stumble across *something* that feels like it's worth looking into more.
This distinction comes from the content of the article, not from the headline. Headlines are editorialized. Articles are, too, but they're longer, so they're more likely to contain *something* worth looking at. Then I follow that up with a specific sort of research -- no, not 'google it.' I look for 'primary sources.' That means if the news is a reaction to the Trayvon Martin case, I go find the transcript from the juror address and I read THAT.
Let's do an example. There is no setup here, I'm typing as I do. I'll just pull up the first headline on CNN's front page, which is in a
'Ukraine in Crisis' subsection, and it's titled
'Big talks going on behind our backs.' Now CNN does this thing where they name the hotlink one thing, and then they name the article something else; the primary reason is, they update their existing pages from time to time with new information, but it's also a nice way to 'spin the spin.' From the link, I'm meant to know that secret negotiations are ongoing, and I'm meant to feel as though I would object to these negotiations if they were taking place publicly. That's the game of the link, it's tricky. But, i'm clicking links today, so let's jump in.
The page containing the article is titled
'In Crimea: 'I feel unsure about what will be tomorrow'' Uncertainty is the emotion, 'in Crimea' is an implicit local (it's attributed to some Crimean residents). Title could also mean that the writer is on-site; I don't know whether she is or not, but I imagine I'll find out shortly. Read along with me now, I'm gonna do a few paragraphs..... when you get to 'I prayed to God,' stop.
Did you read it? You.... you didn't read it, did you, you're terrible at this game. Okay. Well, in what must be Elizabeth Landau's mind, a cryptically-telling scene just unfolded. 'Papa,' cried the child, confused, 'Russia is so big. Why do they need our small peninsula?' And since this is Ukraine I assume the kid said this while slamming back Solitchnya from the bottle like it was a juicebox. And Papa had a hard time hearing over the sound of wrestling polar bears back out into the ghetto, where cars are crashing into each other and filming it for youtube.
"PAPA," the child says. "WHY DO THEY NEED OUR SMALL PENINSULA?" He lights a cigarette on a burning toy, and he blows the smoke onto his pet cat. WHY PAPA WHYYYYY!!"
There, you've just experienced the first few lines of Landau's report, not as they SAID, but as they ARE. By which I mean, the summary is equally useless as the original, but a bit more fun.
Now! NUMBERS are about to enter the party.
Russian forces have surrounded 10 Ukrainian military bases -- 16,000 troops in the past week, according to Ukrainian officials. No fighting or loss of life has been reported, but Crimean citizens such as Krocha are nervous about what will happen next.
Many ethnic Russians live in Crimea, where support for Russia is strong. Part of Russia's navy -- the Russian Black Sea Fleet -- has a base in Crimea's city of Sevastopol that has been there for 230 years.
This, I can work with. We have 16,000 troops -- file that away, you'll need it later. TAG IT --- as reported by Ukranian officials. That's probably important (that means that it's definitely important). Work quickly now because the numbers are marching off to wherever numbers go. Here comes more sad baby:
cha is a Russian-speaking Ukrainian and his wife is Russian. This week their children are back in school, and the streets are open again. In that respect, life has returned to normal, but having Russian troops present is "not OK," Krocha said.
Not far from the parliament, soldiers are stationed in and outside of armored cars on one side of the street, Krocha said. He sees no reason for them and it's unclear to him what the troops are protecting.
Meanwhile, Krocha has noticed gas prices rise some 25% over the last 10 days, and many foods have become more expensive too. A local market was out of two kinds of rice, canned meat and other products yesterday, he said.
"There was panic and people tried to buy much more than they usually buy," he said.
In this quote I wanted to make sure all the useful data shone through, so I struckout everything that was pointless and designed (by Landau) to woo your senses into something
sinister. Well, enough of that. I am done with Sad Baby News. We can throw this article back to the sea now, IF -- did you remember to tag that data? You forgot. It's okay, you're new to this. Here we have data, saved from certain watery death as it drowned in all the tears cried for sad-baby-news-baby. Here's the line we took away from that:
Russian forces have surrounded 10 Ukrainian military bases -- 16,000 troops
Precious, precious numbers. They
sing to me. Now, what are we actually looking at here -- does this say that '16,000 russian forces have surrounded 10 Ukranian military bases?' Maybe. Or does it say '10 Ukranian bases, containing 16,000 troops, were surrounded by russian forces?" Or could it be that 10 bases were surrounded when Russians forced 16,000 Ukranian troops to do the hokey-pokey?' Ain't that a bitch, we can't tell! Okay. Now's the perfect time to use our powers for good. We have learned that a number happened, so now, let us use google to find out everything we can about that number.
Click hereRussian troops! Done. No need to click on anything else in that stack of rubbish, what we know is that the news will have us believe 16,000 Russian troops are surrounding Ukranian military bases -- or golfing nearby, or chicken-dancing, the point is, there are russian troops, 16,000 of them, Ukraine seems to be upset about what they're doing.
At this moment you know all the news will give you -- a little inelegant, perhaps, but you have specifically what the contention is right at this second. Russia has 16k army dudes in Ukraine (according to Ukraine) and Ukraine doesn't like it. Click a hundred news reports, that's what you'll read. I saved you the time, they are all garbage. Now, what do you suppose we could do to learn more? Obviously in an adversarial situation like this, we could always pick a side. Let's do that! Let's pick a side! For my part I'm going to pick whoever is legally in the right. Who's that? LET'S FIND OUT!
Checking for a variety of key words. What I want isn't a news article to tell me who's right -- I just want to find somebody who's citing one or more of these agreements, be they treaty, international law, UN resolution, what have you. This will require me to parse a few useless articles written by bimbos, but it's the quickest way to get what I want. It also gives me rabbit-holes, like the one that just explained to me with LOAC that soldiers aren't legally required to wear their nation's insignia (duh), so that aspect of the invasion was legal.Which I care nothing about, I want to know if the invasion was legal at all in the first place, I don't care if they were wearing funny hats.
Here we go. This is from The Blaze (Glenn Beck's news site), so appreciate what it is; but they'll call up a little-known treaty referred to here as the 'Budapest Memorandum.'
THIS.
THIS is what you're looking for in your news search. All that bullshit we just went through was to reach THIS!! Let's find out and
actually read the
actual text of the
actual treaty. Your search is almost complete -- you have to find one sourced on the web, which is sometimes hard to do. You can find the
wikipedia page easily enough, but that doesn't count for shit unless the herd of idiots and trolls and sheep that edit WikiPedia pages happened to leave you the source document as a reference. In this case, sure enough, they did.
you can read it here.No summarizations, please, read the document. News exists only to provide you with the motivation to reach this document, at which point your education can begin.
--read--
Now what I know is, Ukraine voluntarily disarmed its nuclear deterrent against invasion and occupation, upon the principle that the powers here named (Russia, Britain, US) will take no aggression against the Ukraine. Now I happen to have overheard earlier on talk radio that this treaty was reaffirmed as recently as 2009, in Washington, signed by then-and-now President Obama. (Had I not heard this on the radio, I would now be scanning the internet to determine whether or not this treaty still held any meaning, and upon concluding that it does, I would have sought out who and where and when it was last affirmed, and arrived at the same conclusion by a few more steps.
SO.
Reviewing: We started with 'babies are crying in Ukraine,' mysteriously linked under the furtive 'Big talks going on behind our backs.' Well, now we know what those talks are, because we know the legal situation which has necessitated them. We are now more informed than anyone who reads the news, and we did it while avoiding the news at every opportunity, and also by taking like two... okay like three hydrocodone tabs, and my ambien, but that wasn't until waaaaaaaaay after, so probably just the hydrocodone and the lyrica. Wait did I say Lyrica..... fuck it. POINT IS. News is not information. news does not contain information. When you're reading the news don't bother trying to parse out what's biased and what isn't. News is USELESS anyway, except as a shortcut towards reaching facts -- and the facts you find, the ones that matter, aren't reported, because they're too important to publish in some shitty homeless-guy-sleepingbag. Skip. The news. Find the sources, and when you've found them, don't stop at reading.
Learn them. And you will forever be right, because the news cycle is going to spin its wheels for weeks, and the people who follow the news are going to keep following every turn of the conversation.
"Well NOW they're saying that Ukrainian troops are standing down." '
actually their military is gutted by the non-proliferation treaties they signed with us and russia so 'standing down' is a little redundant, but okay, sure, they're standing down." 'NOW they're saying there's a treaty and we might have to go to war with Russia over it!" No, the treaty just says we'll be consulting the UN security council for immediate action, though technically that's only if Russia was bringing nukes to the fight, so.... "
HOLDY SHITS MDK SAYS RUSSIA'S GONNA NUKE UKRAINE!!" sit down, young one, and learn my ways.
