Why you know what's going on across the world but not across town.

I often wonder why it's harder to find news from across town rather than what's going on half way around the world. Most news seems to concern people and places that most of us don't particularly care about. It's as if the media exists more to distract than to inform.

When it comes to finding the truth in media, it's sometimes like, in the words of Will Farrel, "taking crazy pill shit." The duplication of messages is creepy. As an example, the Conan Obrien show demonstrated how seemingly different media centers reported exactly the the same story in the same way.

So, how is it possible to sort the real news from manufactured falsehoods? How can we tell the difference between some lazy reporters just grabbing an AP news feed on a slow news day versus active manipulation of the media? Well, there is no way of knowing.

Even if we can't tell truth from fiction, we can still put out a hypothesis then look at the facts. Then ask, do the facts fit the hypothesis? If so, the model may be good enough for rough predictions. For example, if most news sources say the weather will be sunny and you happen to live in Arizona, absent other sources, that prediction is probably true. Still, it's sometimes wise to have a bit of doubt and pack an umbrella if other sources disagree!

Another technique is to use media that can't be revoked easily. Physical books have this property along with newspapers, photographs and even old video tapes. The whole premise of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit_451 was based on the idea that the people who want to control society rely on people forgetting about past events. To solve this problem, they relied on a massive program of book burning. In George Orwell's book, 1984, that fictional world was also without books. Rather, people relied on flat screens for all of their communication and entertainment needs. Hmmm. Sound familiar? When people needed access to past information, they could look up archives. And this is where the character Winston Smith came in. In the story there is a description of Winston Smith's job. At work, Winston describes, the archives would be edited, facts changed, then filed again. The old media would then be thrown down a "memory hole". The function is opposite what it's name would suggest. It was a hole in the wall with a chute connected to an incinerator in the basement.

However, revisions of history regularly happen in the real world too. Rather large stories are forgotten like this one. Physical media insures stories are remembered or at least forgotten more slowly. Even if the stories are inaccurate, having them in physical form at least prevents quick manipulation of stories one way or another. That means critical thought at critical moments can have a chance of happening.

The last and most important thing is to not rely on mass media. Take notice of what's going on around your town and city. Talk with your neighbors to get verbal history. Perhaps do a bit of gossip. Talk with older people and learn the oral history of your city or town from the perspective of the ones who lived it. Sometimes a change in the seemingly trivial is just as news worthy as what you'll see on a TV. The difference is, the changes happening in your neighborhood will more likely affect you than anything happening overseas.