My three main sources of information accrued throughout the day would be word-of -mouth (friends, family, co-workers, etc.), The Daily Show, and whatever news that we learn of in school (I guess this is technically still word of mouth). I try not to watch too much television, it's sort of mind rotting. I'm big on communication and information, but the telly provides too little impetus for imagination and cognitive reach. Plus, I feel pandered to medically every time I see an ad for big pharma. This to me is in extremely poor taste and want nothing to do with it. I find these monstrous jingly montages either elicit my flight or fight response, or on a rare occasion my hucksters guffaw. I read the Oregonian not because I think it's the most informed or the best, but because it comes to my front doorstep via my parents. But I must say I love touching its crinkly papers as I read the opinions and the comics and leave the important stuff to those that care about it.  I have media and societal burnout, and the current political climate is a big fat exacerbation on these themes. So, I hide my head in books that aren't relevant and dream of days when dreaming will again be considered an asset instead of being a character deficit. How reliable to I find my resources to be? Not very. We've all of us played the telephone game with our friends when we were little, didn't we? Humans are notorious spin doctors, and they don't even really do it on purpose. Most of them anyway. Usually if i smell something hot off the lip service and want to know if it's true or not I search google. Okay-there is my real source of all information. School info from teachers and staff I generally trust, I sort of trust the Oregonian but I also think they are biased. Google's facts I generally give weight to, but I'm not sure how I feel about underlying machinery of it all. Oh, but I rely heavily on their fast info.
I pass on all of my information along with a grain of salt and the caveat that its probably false. I'm not trying to play on fake information but sometimes a story is just too steeped in the bizarre and the fabulous not to tell it. In these cases i voice my disclaimer. In this media and political climate I often think of Orson Welles and his merry brand of prank he played on the US citizens in the '40's. I was always under the impression this fake news sent out mass hysteria across the US but I've researched an article that says otherwise. Newspaper revenues were taking a dive as radio was given all the advertisement money. So when Orson Welles shot off his fake news report, the newspapers sensationalized the countries anxiety panicked response falsely in order to discredit this emerging form of media. Interesting on so many levels.