Don’t believe all you read in newspapers………..
This old saying was once worth bearing in mind but few people read newspapers these days. Of the people I know well only two still ‘get a paper’ pretty much every day.
Interestingly, they are both of an age where ‘going for the paper’ is engrained. One has a very enquiring mind and is analytical of nature, the other is very much of the working class right but who has taken to voting Labour these days having been a Thatcherite Tory back in the 1980s! I often remind him of his political past to give him a reason to try to play it down.
As an aside, I have a regular stopping place on my all but daily cycling route. I get a coffee but the shop also sells newspapers. I don’t think I can recall a person looking to be under 60 picking up a newspaper in a very long time
Of course, many a Labour supporter is of the right politically so shifting political allegiance between the Tory and Labour (not forgetting Reform) parties is no big deal but when my chum moved from Tory to Labour I started to rib him about his still buying the Express newspaper and after a while he switched to the Mirror. He delights in telling me about what he’s read in the Mirror just as he did when he read the Express. In turn I tell him not to believe all he reads in his paper and that, in my view, he’s still of the right politically; which he, of course, denies.
‘Don’t believe all you read online’
But beyond the small mature minority who still ‘go for a paper’ each day how do others get their news? TV or radio news programmes, 24 hour TV news, free or paid for on-line newspapers, Facebook, X etc. On that basis the old adage should now read ‘Don’t believe all you read online’ but of course those who need reminding of the old or new version will be the ones who do believe pretty much everything they read from their chosen media outlets.
Like with newspapers people gravitate towards the on-line media outlet which confirms their own often long-held prejudices but unlike newspapers some of the new sources of ‘news’ can often be all but completely unregulated and will be pedalling misinformation and sadly outright lies.
We live in dangerous times news wise, where some politicians with extreme axes to grind are fronting what look and seemingly are made to feel like TV news programs and where stories are invented and sent around on social media by people with appalling agendas.
Dangerous times indeed…….
