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NAS, Autism and News Online

ArchaeC



The NAS firmly rebutted the MailOnline’s portrayal of autism as a disease in a Tweet today. A search online can easily bring up headlines claiming autism reversal has happened or has the potential to happen in the near future.

Do newspapers and online sites provide a reliable source of news, given that partial truths, misinformation or lies perpetuate all sides of the political debate?

I find myself scanning increasing numbers of newspapers and online sites to satisfy my need of a reasonable assessment of a situation or claim reported. It is frustrating and time consuming, but I can’t easily stop, and I’m not sure I want to be unaware of what’s going on in the world.

 

  • in reply to Tears_before_bedtime

    It’s interesting that you were in a similar situation to me. I read the newspapers online through the library. I agree that the MailOnline is sensationalist, but the paper isn’t any better. The foreign papers often have a very different perspective to the British papers. I think I will always struggle with limiting myself in anything to do with facts/half truths/fiction, but clearly I need to limit my intake because my mental health is suffering. 

  • in reply to Iain

    I agree that it is important to strike a healthy balance with newspapers and online sites. I struggle with that, and it’s compounded with fact finding information on all sorts of things that aren’t necessarily one of my long term specific interests. These can be anything from something somebody said, a character in a novel referring to a real historic event or reading about mountain gorilla communication. I can get fixated on a particular topic, but that lasts only until I find everything possible about the topic, and then something else comes along … The news is the one interest (not counting my special interests) that is long term but I need to reduce reading time. 

  • I too went down a rabbit hole of spending hours reading multiple News sites trying to piece together what was "fact" versus "bias" or just "lies". It was very bad for me and contributed to a serious mental health episode.

    I still want to stay reasonably well informed, so didn't ditch The News altogether. My solution was:

    1) read a roundup of the UK newspaper front pages each morning - and zoom in to read the front pages too if the image quality is good enough. These are available on various sites and give a high-level roundup of what the UK press considers the "issues of the day" are.

    2) focus on a very limited number of stories you're actually interested in, rather than trying to cover everything. If nothing really interests you then don't bother reading more. The News isn't adult homework, there won't be a test, so it doesn't matter if you only know the headlines.

    3) have a smallish selection of sites to read up on the stories of interest - e.g. BBC, Sky News, Reuters, Financial Times, Guardian, Times etc take you pick, and don't go looking for more and more sources to read the same story. I have a Financial Times subscription mainly for work purposes, but it's good for other News too so that's one of mine.

    4) set aside a fixed time to read The News and don't follow 24 hr feeds throughout the day.

    5) remember that the truth isn't out there, only multiple sources all with their own biases. You'll never read all of it, and you won't find one "golden source". Try to be satisfied with having "a fairly good picture" not forever chasing a perfect one.

    ...also, my personal advice is to 100% avoid the MailOnline which seems to have a "publish first, fact check later" approach (if they ever do fact check).

    Good luck!

  • ArchaeC said:
    I’m not sure I want to be unaware of what’s going on in the world.

    Consider the price in your time, effort and anxiety to achieve this - do you think it is good value. Does it make you feel good, does it enrich you and does it make any sort of meaningful difference in the end.

    I would use these high level assessments before making a concerted effort to wean yourself off the sensationalist news feeds - I personally find them mostly unhealthy and largely useless so limit my time on any news feed because they purposefully try to generate anxiety to pull you into reading more and consuming their content.

    I don't believe any of the news source is truly impartial and accurate any more - you have to patch together the information, find any unbiassed sources (if they exist) and draw your own conclusions, realising they will be affected by your own bias and try to see the closest approximation of the truth you can.

    In the article above NAS provide scientific fact to support their arguement while the newspaper passes on drug companies claim about how great their dugs are. Draw your own conclusions on where the truth probably lies there.

    My advice - wean yourself off the news.