During the most recent presidential race, my dad wondered this aloud after he'd received urgent updates from his Republican friends citing new evidence that "the world" (by which they meant the one they controlled) was ending. After forwarding them on to me (and other family members with a more liberal slant) and receiving back thorough refutations of each and every one, he was legitimately frustrated with his inability to find reliable and trustworthy sources of information.
He asks a great question... If you've got Faux News over here spouting fiction as fact (and I pick on them only because I think they're the most egregious, pointed and conscious of what they're doing of the major media, and not because I think any of the major networks - any media source, really? - are guileless.), traditional media reporters feeling the pressure of blog post immediacy and failing to do proper source and fact-checking of their "scoops", and "experts" showing up in interviews for respected news outlets who are less experts than they are the best-looking, "good tv" making individuals who can lay claim to any knowledge on a given topic (even if that claim is so cursory as to be "I've heard of this before!") is it any wonder the majority of us have become hugely skeptical of our information providers?
As a person who sees both sides to everything, I've grappled with the issue of what "truth" to believe most of my life. I've tried my dad's approach, which is informed by his engineering background and involves applying great scientific rigor to determining "the truth". However, having many times been dissatisfied with the results reached by following this philosophy, I've swung to the opposite extreme: basing my beliefs solely on what my gut "tells" me. Now, after years of experimentation has left me with a wealth of experience, I have begun to see that understanding is achieved through trial and error (whether conducted in a highly scientific manner or much more sloppily), either guided by or combined with (ideally both!) one's instinct and intuition. I.e. - follow your gut instinct to its logical conclusion, testing it scientifically or using some other methodology to determine if it holds up and - if it doesn't - inform your new belief by taking into account that newly found fallacy.
What a lot of yammering I'm doing, right? Another aspect of trust involves the ability of the authority figure/information source to communicate clearly, effectively and captivatingly and I'm afraid I'm failing in this miserably. So...don't trust me! Instead (and the real reason for this already long and tedious post) two FYF friends, Mac Folkes and Rich King, do know how to communicate effectively, clearly and precisely. They recognize the power of the (carefully chosen) word and - with years of experience in discernment between the two of them - they can be trusted to convey truth like few others.
Their recently launched collaborative project - theSLANT - began as a periodical broadsheet produced for friends, and their own amusement that is clever, quotable and vastly entertaining. They have since broadened their vision and the scope of the project to include a website, a blog, a Facebook page and a Kickstarter project that has already met its financial goal (they're looking for backing to fully launch the site, blog and brand.) twenty-five days prior to the end of the allotted fundraising time. If you can, I encourage you to give anyway, as what's great about the project are the incentives to backers starting at the $1 support level all the way up to however much you can afford to contribute. Did I say these men are clever? Well, they are.
In a society whose media are forever seeking the lowest common denominator, theSLANT seeks to take things up a notch. One truth I do know is "you get what you pay for" and these kids are earning it. Won't you pay them, too?
