If your assumptions are faulty, your conclusions likely will be as well. You likely have heard that before, but now is the time for you to put it into practice. If your sources of information are flawed, no matter how diligent you are in analyzing them to come up with your own conclusions, they will be flawed as well. That said, some of my friends were wondering how to decide what sources are trustworthy, what sources are truthful.

First, you may wish to have a reputable newspaper as your source and to READ the news rather than WATCH the news (reading it online is easy on your smartphone or computer). This will give you time to actually think about what they are saying and ask yourself if they are writing opinions or commentary, or if they are relating facts to you. You can even pause to Google things that they are referring to! Everyone can have their own opinion, but we need truth to be our guide as to the facts.

With that in mind, I suggest that you read online news from newspapers with Pulitzer Prize winners on their staff. The Pulitzer Prize is a mark of excellence and a good sign that the newspaper has excellence in truthful factual reporting at it’s core. You can refer to who won the Pulitzer Prize for each of the past ten years below (I list the winners of Public Service Reporting, Breaking News, Investigative Reporting, Explanatory Reporting and National Reporting)

First the summary of the eight newspapers/news outlets that received 2 or more Pulitzer Awards in the past ten years (with a link to their website):

  1. New York Times (8 awards) [list of awards won]
    Washington Post     (8 awards) [list of awards won]
  2. Seattle Times (3 awards)
    ProPublica (3 awards)
    Los Angeles Times (3 awards)
  3. Associated Press (2 awards)
    Wall Street Journal (2 awards)
    Sarasota Herald Tribune (2 awards)

Next, a Year by Year list (with a link to the years list) :

  1. 2020 – Anchorage Daily News / Courier Journal (Louisville, KY) / New York Times / Washington Post / Seattle Times
  2. 2019 – South Florida Sun Sentinel / Pittsburgh Post Gazette / Los Angeles Times / New York Times / Wall Street Journal
  3. 2018 – New York Times (2) / New Yorker / Press Democrat (Santa Rosa, CA) / Washington Post (2) / Arizona Republic / USA Today 
  4. 2017 – New York Daily News / ProPublica / East Bay Times (Oakland, CA) / Charleston Gazette Mail / Miami Herald / Washington Post
  5. 2016 – Associated Press / Los Angeles Times / Tampa Bay Times / Sarasota Herald Tribune / ProPublica / Washington Post
  6. 2015 – Post and Courier (Charleston, SC) / Seattle Times / New York Times / Wall Street Journal / Bloomberg News / Washington Post
  7. 2014 – Guardian US / Washington Post (2) / Boston Globe / Gazette (Colorado Springs, CO) 
  8. 2013 – Sun Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, FL) / Denver Post / New York Times (2)
  9. 2012 – Philadelphia Inquirer / Tuscaloosa News / Associated Press / Seattle Times / New York Times / Huffington Post
  10. 2011 – Los Angeles Times / Sarasota Herald Tribune / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / ProPublica

FYI … you can see a fairly comprehensive list of all the newspapers that have won Pulitzer Prizes: Wikipedia Article: Pulitzer Prize Winning Newspapers

Side note: Over the years I have found the BBC to be a good news source. They seem to be one of the few remaining fairly neutral news reporting sources! You can find their news reporting articles online as well as video clips of their TV reporting in YouTube and Facebook.

However, if you wish to WATCH the news, my suggestion is to watch a news source that includes Pulitzer Prize winners, such as these from MSNBC (with a link to their online videos):

  1. Deadline: White House with Nicole Wallace (White House Communications Director during the presidency of George W. Bush and in his 2004 re-election campaign as well as a senior advisor for John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign) Weekdays 4-6pm ET
  2. The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell (an aide to U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Staff Director for the Senate Finance Committee and writer for The West Wing) Weekdays 10pm ET
  3. The Rachel Maddow Show (doctorate in political science from Oxford University) Weekdays 9pm ET

Special Note: Yes, it is true that MSNBC is left leaning in their reporting. That does NOT mean that they are making up their own facts or stories. Most news sources tend to lean to one side or the other, and it is my experience with news from both sides that the left leaning sources tend to be truthful and factual but often will ignore certain news stories that do not fit into their perspective. The right leaning news sources, however, tend to fabricate their own fact or state assumptions or opinion or commentary as if it were factual reporting. That is misleading and deceptive and can even be dangerous. So, I contemplated removing item 2 and 3 in my MSNBC list because they were left leaning – but chose to leave them on the list because they WERE FACTUAL and had high level reputable sources for their news including Pulitzer Prize winners!

Finally … remember that Fox News is not really news. True! There have been several court cases revolving around untruths being aired on Fox News and Fox News themselves admitted in those court cases that they are a commentary and opinion channel and that everyone knows this! (so, they expect YOU to know that they are not a factual news source too!). And, yes, you CAN verify this yourself. Just look at their online contract which in the beginning of the second paragraph specifies that Fox New is Entertainment and not news reporting:

FOX News furnishes the Site and the FOX News Services for your personal enjoyment and entertainment.

And then further in the contract:

FOX News makes no warranty that your use of the FOX News Services will be uninterrupted, timely, secure or error• free or that any information obtained by you on, through or in connection with the FOX News Services or Third Party Services (including but not limited to, through User Content or third party advertisements) will be accurate or reliable.

I personally wrote this and grant permission to copy or use any of this for your own articles or posts – Len Lindsay (God Is In Our Midst)

[photo used with permission from Digital Buggu]