Fake News. For weeks now, we’ve heard this term over and over again. And while our president enjoys using the term to describe media outlets with which he doesn’t agree, his coining of this term has brought up a very important topic of discussion: What exactly is fake news? And, in relation to that, what news is trustworthy?

The truth of the matter is, when dealing with major news sources like The Washington Post, Fox News, CNN, NBC, and the Wall Street Journal, all offer what would be deemed credible information. Now, credible is italicized, because it comes with a bit of a catch. All of these bigger news sources typically have an agenda based on whoever funds the newspaper. Because of this, stories from these sources will almost always have an ideology bias.

While they may be reporting credible information, they report it in a way that doesn’t necessarily tell the whole story in order to support their liberal or conservative ideology. An easy example of this is if a conservative news source were to claim that, since 49% of the victims in police killings were white people while black people only make up 24% of victims, there is no evidence of racial prejudice. The problem with this is that it doesn’t account for the fact that blacks only make up 13% of the American population, so the killings are hugely disproportionate. So, while yes, that news source technically did include factually correct evidence, they left out hugely important statistical aspects of that evidence, as it didn’t support their bias.

The problem with this is that these major news sources love to hide their biases. Take, for example, The Washington Post. In case some of you have not noticed, the Post recently added a sub-headline to their masthead that reads “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” This is a move, no doubt, to make them seem like the champion of righteousness and “true and honest” reporting. Notice the quotations around true and honest, which are placed there because more often than not, the Post is not true, or honest, a point that was made abundantly clear during the primary elections. At one point, it seemed the Post was running a flat-out smear campaign against Bernie Sanders, culminating in a 16-hour period in which they ran 16 different articles attacking Sanders.

This fact is not surprising as four years ago the newspaper was sold to billionaire entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon. With this in mind, it becomes clear why a newspaper like the Post holds a populist candidate in such disdain, especially when said candidate is actively seeking to tax the elite, which Bezos is undoubtedly a part of.

This, unfortunately, is evident in many major American media outlets. CNN is another outlet that did a shoddy job of hiding their Clinton-bias when it came to reporting the primaries, which is even less surprising as the company that owns CNN, Time Warner, just so happens to be one of the Clinton campaign’s top donors! You cannot make this stuff up. And, don’t even get me started on the albatross that is Fox News. My point is, maybe these outlets aren’t exactly fake news, but they are shoddy news at best. They are media outlets that are all too often riddled with bias based on the elites who fund them.
So, if one finds oneself in a conundrum of looking for “real” news rather than “fake news,” where, oh where, should one look? How is one supposed to find news that is not – one; skewed towards a particular ideology, or two; biased toward the elites running the news? The answer is actually quite simple: Get your news from sources not based in America.

I often turn to BBC News for my information. Admittedly, at times they can seem a tad partial but, for the most part, they remain pretty neutral when it comes to American news and politics, as they really don’t have the same level of vested interest as American publications do.
That is not to say that the reporting is less thorough; it is just that often there is more level-headed reporting as the decision or election they are reporting on does not, necessarily, have a direct effect on their country.