The Secret of the News

Recently, my medical friend Raymond Yip asked me what I think about the news. I shared my thoughts with him and discussed them with other friends, and I'd like to share them with you as well.

Ideally,

the news is an objective report of current events.

Its purpose is to inform the public about what is happening worldwide, allowing them to make more informed decisions.

Realistically,

the news is a subjective report of current events.

Its purpose is for small interest groups to manipulate the public's minds.

In authoritarian nations, these interest groups are formed by individuals with loads of political power that directly control the news media platforms, suppressing the stories that may be damaging to the interests of these groups as well as censoring and manipulating information to maintain their grip on power.

In democratic nations, these interest groups are formed by individuals with loads of capital that can own news media outlets, decide which content can be intentionally leaked to society and which ones can't, and fund campaigns. The democratic context here is slightly more complicated than the authoritarian one because here individuals are allowed, or even encouraged, to express different political preferences. Therefore, different powerful individuals, with their almost-unlimited resources, form different groups to influence public views by supporting different policies, ideologies, and beliefs.

Either way, this leads to a narrow range of viewpoints being presented in the news, which limits the public's ability to think critically and make informed decisions in whichever regime individual lives in.

If all news is flawed, then what's the alternative? KJ asked me this question.

I paused for a moment, as I couldn't think of a good answer. Then I realized it's impossible to completely replace news media outlets for knowing what's going on around the globe 24/7. So the point I'm trying to make here is not to discourage people from reading the news or merely complaining about the flaws of different political regimes. Instead, I want to emphasize the importance of actively filtering through the biased information you receive from various sources every time you come across a piece of information.

One has to realize the real danger of not being able to actively filter through information, whether it's complete garbage or strongly biased, that is received from Instagram posts, TikTok clips, Quora discussions, Twitter threads, TV channels, or even in-person chats with people around you. Directly taking in and blindly believing all this information without analyzing and filtering it is like drinking water directly from a polluted river without first purifying it - it may help you feel less thirsty, but it contains harmful toxins that can poison your understanding of the world. And it gets worse as your brain accumulates these toxins every day.

Active information filtration is a necessary skill for every critical thinker in the 21st century. We all need to be aware of the potential biases and manipulation in the news and take steps to filter out misinformation. Only then can we truly make informed decisions.

Thanks to Jan-Michael Marshall, Raymond Yip, Courtney Qi, Kelvin Mo, Jonron Kogawa (KJ), and Daphne Chao for reading drafts of this.