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Letter: Garbage News

Letters to the editor
By Letters to the editor
September 8th, 2020

To The Editor:

I am sorely perturbed with the amount of misinformation I have had to endure from friends, family and acquaintances. Particularly those with a penchant for using garbage news.

As a student I was shocked when an English teacher remarked that my arguments would have been much better if I had used the Encyclopedia Britannica as a source rather than Marvel Comics. It was as embarrassing as it was true.

That incident shaped my drive to continually check the source of information that fell in front of me. With the luxury of retirement, I now have 30 news sites that I can use. They range from One America News on the right to Huffington Post on the left and almost everything in between.

I confess that I do not check each one daily, but they all get a read over in the course time.

Oft times I have changed a point of view as I seek out the balance of truth in a situation.

My perturbation lies with those who will not make even a minimal effort to do the same. Decrying the regular media as ‘fake news’ they spout articles from ‘independent news’ sources as being truthful and credible.

While some are the ones, they expect me to accept I fact check for media bias and credibility. These tend to be fringe sites that have no integrity, credibility and have no hesitation in skewing information to mislead their readers. 

FB groups and Twitter users pass along this misinformation as ‘truth’ and ensnare the unwitting in their echo chambers.

To those in my circle engaging in this you are taking the path of least resistance, then through your unwillingness to have an open mind you are creating real confusion in the minds of those who need a balanced point of view. 

You are lazy, intellectually, spiritually and socially. 

As my English teacher pointed out, your arguments would be much better if you used Encyclopedia Britannica as a source rather than Marvel Comics.

Ryan Lengsfeld, Nelson BC

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