You simply have to find other sources which, over a period of time, show themsleves to be more trustworthy. The referendum campaign was a very good case in point, although by no means the only example of the MSM taking a very one-eyed view. To illustrate what I mean, let's just examine how the print and some of the TV news media approached the referendum. The reporting of all but one Scottish, and all the UK national papers was 'SNP bad'. The SNP government, duly elected, fulfilled its election commitment to an independence referendum. Having signed the Edinburgh Agreement, they set about arranging the details. Meanwhile, a broad coalition of different political, business and other interests formed the Yes! campaign. From day one, the media simply ignored the cross-party, cross-interest nature of the Yes! campaign and labelled every one of its actions as being SNP driven. They repeatedly referred to the 'utopia' promised by the SNP (not Yes!), a word never once used by anyone in the Yes! group. They constantly referred to oil revenues, again, a factor never relied on by the campaign. In fact, they sudiously avoided talking about oil revenues as a reason for independence, although they were quite rightly critical of the way that those revenues had been squandered by successive UK governments. They raised non-issue after non-issue, mostly because Better Together couldn't come up with very much in the way of argument, other than naked flag waving. The Scottish Daily Record, followed blindly by the Mail et al. excelled itself by front paging The Vow, that utterly meaningless promise issued by the mainstream parties via Gordon Brown. The major UK politicians, having shown no desire to get involved, suddenly appeared en masse in Glasgow and Edinburgh. Cameron, having backed away constantly from an open debate with Nicola Sturgeon, suddenly caved and then wished he hadn't. He, at least according to even the anti-independence press, had his clock cleaned. Despite all of this, the media continued relentlessly.
Since the referendum, the onslaught hasn't let up. The Forth Road Bridge is an excellent example. The SNP were blamed for stopping a maintenance regime they didin't stop. The Bitter Together mob accused them of using Chinese steel and causing the demise of TaTa Steel plants in Scotland and England. Facts didn't matter. TaTa had the opportunity to tender and chose not to. But hey, why let that fact get in the way of a good 'SNP Bad' story?
Now, if you need to ask questions like the one you've just asked, frankly you're not paying much attention to how the media in this country behave. News is no longer sought, it's bought. So, I tend to check with alternative news sources. Over a period of time, as truth emerges, I'm able to gauge the trustworthiness of a particular source. Of the major sources, I've found that, often, you could do worse tha Al-Jazeera. Of the UK's TV news sources, I guess you could say Channel 4 News isn't terrible. For the rest, spend ten minutes watching BBC Breakfast and you'll see what's wrong with news programming. We're treated to a couple of mindless twits waffling about Yoga for Dogs. It's all part of the dumbinf down process so beloved of our political masters. If we don't question anything, we don't question them. Their receivedwisdom becomes ours. Yesterday, on Facebook, I shared a Newsthump story about Carol Kirkwood having slipped and described the weather as 'cold as f***'. Never midn that Newsthump is a known satirical site, the story seemed obvious enough a hoax that everybody would see through it. Boy, was I ever wrong. The biggest reaction came from the moral brigade. You know, swearing is a sign of a lack of vocabulary, that kind of cliche. We often use, "It's in the paper, so it must be true", but it's actually turning out to be true.
