This forum is rife with argument (and thats a good thing). An integral part of argument is backing up your claims with evidence. There has been a lot of shit slinging over this truth, and over what constitutes a reliable source of evidence. So I ask, out of curiosity, and from a desire to understand what is generally reviewed as a reliable source: What makes a news/evidence source trustworthy?
Here are a few criteria I would suggest using. There may be exceptions to this, but in general the following things should be considered in judging the merits of a news source. 1. The source should not be biased. While I don't mind political endorsements on the editorial pages, most reliable sources tend to keep personal politics to a minimum in actual news articles. For example, FOX News pundits tend to be very conservative...but that doesn't stop them from running news stories that may damage the Bush Administration. The New York Times may lean Democrat...but that doesn't stop them from running news stories that are likely to boost the President's approval ratings. Many online "news sources," in contrast, are really just partisan hacks that only post stories favorable to their point of view. 2. The source should admit when they've made an error. Mistakes happen in news stories, as they are written by humans. Reliable sources tend to acknowledge them and apologize for them, whereas unreliable sources tend to pretend they don't exist. 3. The source should reveal the identity of its contributors. I almost always become suspicious when a news article doesn't credit a writer, or credits "Anonymous." How can the credibility of these writers, or the accuracy of the information they claim to have personally obtained, be challenged if the reader has no idea who they are? 4. The source should be consistent. With credible sources, the reader is usually able to follow the stories from day to day. For example, if the source reports that Bush is in Latvia one day, and they report that Bush is in Russia the next day, most readers realize that Bush is probably on a European trip. If, on the other hand, the source reports that Bush is in Latvia one day, and they report that Bush has returned from a three-month trip to the International Space Station the next day, most readers would question the consistency of that source. 5. The source should avoid sensationalism. Even during a bombshell news story like Watergate or 9/11, the reliable sources generally kept their cool and reported the facts, rather than the latest rumors or theories based on hearsay. The reader should always employ Occam's Razor: in the face of two equally likely possibilities, the more simple (or more boring) one tends to be the correct one. This is where conspiracy websites usually fail, by adopting the more "interesting" explanation for every news event, regardless of whether or not that explanation has any evidence to stand on. 6. The source should welcome dissent, and independent confirmation of their facts. Websites (or people) who refer to anyone who disagrees with them as sheeple, or communists, or witches, usually feel threatened by an independent fact-check...which probably means they're lying or at least misrepresenting some information. I'm sure there are other good criteria for assessing the reliability of news sources. These are just the ones that came to mind.
