‘Headline’ clicks or ‘rage baiting’ for clicks???

BL:UF

If you’re NOT sure, do your research before you react!

Beware of what you do with either one…

Things like the one HERE could be assumed to be either. But this one is more about ‘breaking news’ than rage baiting, IMHO.

We had a discussion about various things on the livestream yesterday, but Cedar made a key point.

ALWAYS check the references before you go down the rathole! Especially with Wiki…

I’ll be the first to admit ‘I’ am not perfect. I’ve posted things that I thought were right, but were, in fact. wrong. And when I found out, I posted the correction, because I ‘try’ to be right… sigh…

Cedar had actually done a couple of deep dives on things, and found that either-

1. The reference/link didn’t exist.
2. The reference/link linked to another link.
3. All of the references/links linked back to a SINGLE source without correlation.
4. There were no sources that correlated or corroborated the premise in the article.

Of course one of the ‘issues’ with the article above is that it comes from a Pub, not a Dem, so it will immediately be ‘suspect’. Some will say it is rage baiting, and you can bet the MSM will be doing everything they can to cover up/deflect from the issues, if they cover it at all.

There is also the whole what the word ‘means’ now… Merriam-Webster and AP have both changed meanings to words to ‘reflect’ current usage, as we’ve all found out.

Money is another factor. Money buys ‘ad’ time, journalists, and lawyers…

Note that I haven’t talked about AIs/LLMs at all. That is because ‘I’ don’t believe they are a factor yet…

Not that they won’t be in the future, but not yet.

So do your research. And learn who your ‘trusted’ sources are. When in doubt, refer to the old printed encyclopedias, not the new online versions, as they are all suspect, IMHO.

What say you???