Here Be Dragons: Navigating The Media's Uncharted Waters
As a kid, I used to be obsessed with maps of old kinds: atlases, city maps, globes — of which I had a growing collection. But my favorite by far were those yellowing old-fashioned maps hung in the school library. Remember those? To me, those maps were both fascinating and terrifying – islands shaped like sea horses, sultry sirens, and in the corners, scary mythical creatures swimming in the unknown waters, captioned with a creepy warning: "Here be dragons."
In pre-GPS medieval times, those maps proved to be indispensable for mariners to avoid dangers and find safe passages through uncharted waters. These days, we're still navigating unknown territories, but our maps are not even real maps. Instead, we use the media and social media to chart our course through an endless, treacherous stream of headlines, hot takes, and hashtags. Yet unlike those medieval maps where the monsters were clearly labeled, today's media offers no real warning about our modern twin dragons: misinformation and disinformation.
Worse yet, the media tends to dress these monsters in respectable clothes. They’re packaged as "analysis," "breaking news," and "shocking revelations." Sometimes they're even wrapped in cozy blankets of humor, trite labels, or “expert” opinions, which makes them particularly hard to spot. In social media land, things look no different: these days, they can’t even be bothered with moderation or fact-checking.
Take the wave of UAP sightings that dominated headlines in the last year. What started as a few blurry videos on TikTok quickly turned into a 24/7 marathon of rating-boosting tactics: clickbait, dubious polls, and sensationalism. And as if things were not already bad enough, both media and social media honchos are now tripping over each other to kiss Draco Oranticus’ ring before he even takes office.
Is it any wonder that, at a time when we have the most access to information, we seem to be more lost than ever — or that public confidence in the media has reached historic lows? Have you seen the latest polls? Barely 32% of Americans have any trust in the media. And honestly, can you blame us? When media outlets shift their views based on their billionaire owners’ political agendas, or they go for "breaking news" versus balanced reporting, skepticism isn't just natural – it's healthy and necessary.
So what are we supposed to do now? Feel our way through the fog? Play Marco Polo with facts? Let democracy die in darkness? (Yes I went there, WaPo 😏) Look, we can't just shrug and say "well, everything's fake anyway" and throw our phones into the sea, right? Hell no! Our cherished democracy depends on an informed public. What we need is to get smarter about how we consume information, and from whom.
See, media literacy isn't just some academic buzzword. It's our own personal BS detector — a much-needed weapon as we start a year where the specter of hopefully-not-literal Armageddon looms on the horizon. So I know our first instinct is to shut it all down and unplug. But that’s what EXACTLY what they want us to do.
When we can’t tell facts from fiction, when we allow the “Br-Oligarchy” to control what the masses see and believe, or let the drunk uncles of the world flood the algorithms with fake outrage, it’s not just democracy that dies. Our hopes, our decency, our sanity… our collective sense of reality also die. And with it, part of our very essence dies too.
I don’t know about you but, to be honest, what really keeps me up at night these days is not so much the “dragons” anymore – it's that we get so used to them that we stop questioning why they're there. And I don’t know about you, but I'm not ready to let made-up monsters tell me how to think. Who’s ready to slay some dragons with me?✊✊✊
So how do we navigate these perilous media waters? Here are some tips that don't require a degree in journalism or communications — just a bit of common sense. Please share any you have in the comments:
Learn to spot the difference between reporting and speculation. Real reporting tells you the who, what, when, where and why — and shows you verifiable evidence. Watch for phrases like "some say," "could be," or "experts suggest." They’re basically today’s version of "here be dragons."
Treat headlines with polite skepticism. Headlines have one job: to grab your attention. So before you share it with everyone you know, ask yourself: Who's behind this story? Is there any real proof to this? Where can I check if it’s true? Remember, if it seems designed to make you angry or afraid, it probably is.
Follow the money. Who benefits from your emotional reaction to this? As I mentioned before, most major media outlets deliver carefully-crafted narratives designed to serve specific interests of companies or individuals with something to gain from our collective anxiety. In fact, a handful of billionaires or corporations, SIX to be exact, control about 90% of what Americans see, hear, and read. 😳Read that again. Now you get why certain stories get amplified while others get buried?
Instead of disengaging completely, get in the habit of comparing multiple sources. For every article that makes you nod in agreement, read one that makes you scratch your head. Try some international news sites too. They often see things differently than we do, and sometimes they're actually right (shocking, I know!) Some reliable national outlets (as per my BSky followers):
AP News (suggested by kymi1994.bsky.social)
Meidas Touch (suggested by craftwalker100.bsky.social, str8grandmother.bsky.social, jamesmajesty.bsky.social and eviiec.bsky.social)
Ground News (suggested by sushiegrrl.bsky.social)
ProPublica (suggested by jhalp2.bsky.social)
Popular Information (suggested by allybaba1.bsky.social)
The Guardian (suggested by annegolden.bsky.social)
Relatedly, support quality independent journalists. Research the authors and support their work. Remember, good reporting costs money. If we want our maps to be more accurate, we need to fund the brave souls who actually go out and chart the territory. Some of my favorites include:
Allison Gill of The Daily Beans
Amee Vanderpool of Shero
V Spehar of Under the Desk News
Support campaigns that actively fight media consolidation and net neutrality, such as:
~ER