Media Savvy

Blanket bans on the use of Wikipedia are ridiculous, yes, if you are looking up contentious subjects of controversial people you need to be careful, but many of their articles are written by respected academics and are carefully checked. If you scroll to the bottom of a Wikipedia page you will find a list of academic and other sources from which the information in the article was drawn. Where articles lack proper sources, there is often a request at the top of the page for further information and corroboration.

I spent the whole of my working life providing background research for senior managers and that included being able to judge the validity of the information I retrieved and disseminated. Since retiring I have taken these skills into several other fields of work and research.

One of the things I learnt very early on, is never to make sweeping statements about the trustworthiness or otherwise of large collections of information.

If studen

I keep finding posts posting them selves Grrr.

If students are told not to use Wikipedia it is because they need to learn how to search and find out information for themselves. I have seen wikipedia quoted as a source in academic journals.

Tbh I understood the issue was more about students not acknowledging the source and quoting Wiki as if it was their work: plagerism. Bans are rarely the best solution to an issue!

I try to look at Morning Star, Daily Mail & The Times on line to get a range of perspective when I am finding out more about some issues. I have a paper copy of The Grauniad every day.

Much of the problem is a lack of factual reporting plus the loss of much of the press. Now we have to do the digging to get the news we should be getting and there is a lot out there that we can miss. With a smaller number of offerings we can easily fail to see the more important news. Relying on a small base is not good.

Several of you have made points that I agree with. It is sad how many voted in the referendum on false information and how wrong the idea is of our relationship with the EU. I agree though that false information has always sways large numbers of people. And it isn't just a matter of intelligence that helps us spot when we are being manipulated. Good English and History teachers in schools teach how to evaluate data and spot what words are designed to persuade and sway.

I remember grandson in primary school for homework having to find examples of advertisements that persuade and to think and explain how they do it.

I cannot understand why certain people think others have no sense and, "do not understand anything", like they do of course!

If you were taught to "read between the lines" as I was in school. We knew what we wanted. Of course, there is always the odd person who believes everything they hear or read, unfortunately I find it mostly the young.

Please do not tie all of us with the same brush. By the way I voted leave. Why, I did not want a European state of unelected leaders.

Marieleeze Which European leaders are unelected?
Also..I made it clear I was not excluding myself.

We seem to know more about what goes on in Trump Land than we do about what is happening on our own doorstep. Is this a ploy to take our eye off the ball?

I think I'll follow Gyles Brandreth's example and stop listening to or reading anything about politics, especially Brexit. He maintains he's a lot happier living in ignorance ?

I worked for a local evening paper when I was young (ie. 60 plus years ago). There were at least a dozen reporters in the newsroom and every day they went to all the council meetings, the law courts, the police station etc. and reported on what was going on.

Today our local paper has few reporters and they sit in the offices and polish up the hand outs that local societies, the police and the three layers of local government send out to them - and that is virtually all that gets published. Everything is P.R. We have no idea what is really going on even locally - where we might be able to make a difference. As narrowboatnan says, there is more examination of what is going in in the U.S.

I wonder how many of us understood the meaning of Maastricht and all it entailed?
We are but flotsam on the river of politics with all it's undercurrents.
Personally, although 'they' in power who seek to impose their views would say otherwise, I think that the views of Joe Public are massively disregarded as having any validity.
Mind you, the DM, which is sinking ever lower, has, to their credit, waged war on some issues by starting public petitions, most of which have been successful.

I get really annoyed when people share scurrilous posts on Facebook without bothering to check if they are true. Just today I have been sent two which are blatant lies, and designed to stir up racial hatred. One which states that schools are going to stop teaching children about the holocaust, and another saying that there are 'no-go' areas for selling poppies in case they upset Muslims. Both are untrue. Some of these stories have been going around for years. Like Pandora's box, the evils they dispel can not be recalled once published.
A simple search on Snopes.com, or simply Googling quickly and easily provides the information needed to verify or disprove these posts.
People are either too lazy to take the trouble, or prefer to believe and share whatever is put on social media.

GreenGran yes like all the myths about not being allowed to sing certain nursery rhymes, banning teaching times tables etc. etc.
There are some who are too ready to feed their prejudices by believing the propaganda put out there by people happy to stir the sh8t .

I think I'll follow Gyles Brandreth's example and stop listening to or reading anything about politics,

I think that sort of statement is all very well when said jokingly (which, I suspect is the spirit in which Brandreth said it) but seriously? If you weren't informed at all about politics how could you responsibly vote in local and general elections?

We are bombarded from a lot more sources nowadays compared to 40/50 years ago with news and advertising being communicated almost instantly. Our wants and expectations in life are also different from then so if we are told anything that could threaten or improve these we absorb it until something else comes along to tell us different. All the media is out to impose their own views of the world on anyone who will listen. Always been that way and probably always will be.

It’s only in fairly recent times, historically speaking, that people received any news at all, except snippets from passing travellers. They just got on with their lives. I’m not sure if I would find that peaceful or boring. I suppose that the occasional army passing through, raping and pillaging, brought a little excitement into their dull existence.

PECS, I think perhaps Marieleee was referring to the fact that the election system within the EU bodies is just that: within the commision, council, , is all rather incestuous:
Europe's political parties put forward a candidate for the presidency of the European Commission. The European Council then votes on a nominee for the post of president — the Lisbon Treaty stipulates that the Council must take into account the European elections — who becomes the Commission's new president after obtaining approval in the new Parliament.
So just those in power voting for those in power.

The nearest ordinary citizens get to voting is in voting for MEPs.
There are 751 members in the European Parliament, 73 of them represent the United Kingdom. MEPs are elected every five years, when the general public of each member state votes on who they want to represent them in Europe. Once elected, MEPs from across the continent form political groups with MEPs who have similar ideologies, regardless of their nationalities.
MEPs vote for a president in the beginning and the middle of each parliamentary term. They elect a president, 14 vice-presidents, and five quaestors who all form the Parliament's bureau.

So apart from voting for someone most folk have never heard of to be an MEP, ( How many can you name at moments notice?) we the people do not have any say in who does what and in what capacity in the EU power blocs, they just select and elect themselves.............

As for asking a simple thing like just one set of audited accounts.........well seems no-one has yet been elected to see to that. Makes you wonder why people are chomping at the bit to be subject to them.

The President of the EU has v limited power. It is the elected MEPs who vote on the decisions made and the proposals are put forward by the Heads of Government of the various countries involved. In fact, the UK has been a driving force behind many of the EU directives.

There are respects in which the EU is MORE democratic than the system we have in the UK.

Not knowing the MEPs' names is really our own fault isn't it?

It's not only the skewing of stories I object to, the choice of stories which reach the national news and dominate the headlines concerns me. For example the story of the girl who died after eating a Pret sandwich was constanty headlined recently. At about the same time there was another shooting in London. In fact the number of violent deaths (particularly of teenagers) in London is horrifying. Sad as it may be I do not understand why the girl's death was so featured whilst the deaths in London are consigned to the inside pages. Because. they are poor and black and she was rich and white perhaps? Anyway it is concerning. www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/london-cemetery-shooting-death-tottenham-met-police-a8521051.html

Many people are just believing what they want to regrdless of facts! One current example is the case in America where a woman makes an allegation against a man and millions believe her despite the fact that the two people who were allegedly there, one of whom was her best friend, failed to substantiate her story! Then we come to Brexit! People just ignored facts that didn't go along with their way of thinking and believed the lies because they do! I'm far from convinced that Democracy works rather than just stumbles through!

As for asking a simple thing like just one set of audited accounts....

If you're talking about the EU accounts they're audited every year.

And have been signed off every year since 2007

fullfact.org/europe/did-auditors-sign-eu-budget/

we the people do not have any say in who does what and in what capacity in the EU power blocs, they just select and elect themselves.............

I'm not aware that 'we the people' have any say in who is appointed as a UK government minister either. What's the difference?

I think a lot of people voted out because our schools, hospitals, and social housing are all overstretched to the limit and beyond due to the sheer volume of immigrants from EU countries. Also many benefits were being paid at one point to some of those economic migrants which our country could not afford. Pretty sure this is the reason behind the vast cutbacks in funding for police hospitals schools etc. Resulting in many being made homeless and increased usage of food banks. Most papers have touched on these issues but just as sensational headlines.

Yes PECS I do beleive this to be the case, we are treated like mushrooms -kept in the dark & fed on S- -t . I no longer take anything at face value, I question what I read & hear, usually there is no substance at all to verify any truth of the attention grabbing headlines. And what Fake news all about!!

sazzl: I think a lot of people voted out because our schools, hospitals, and social housing are all overstretched to the limit and beyond due to the sheer volume of immigrants from EU countries. Also many benefits were being paid at one point to some of those economic migrants which our country could not afford. Pretty sure this is the reason behind the vast cutbacks in funding for police hospitals schools etc.

I think you have missed something here. EU law says if you move to another EU country, you have to have a job or sufficient funds to live. If you can't find a job within 3 months, you have to go back home.
The indefinite leave and offer of benefits is down to UK Government legislation, nothing to do with the EU.
So if it is the reason for the lack of government funding, why blame the EU. Leaving it to the government can only make things worse.