Alternative News Sites - Improving Credability

Following from this thread

www.abovetopsecret.com...'

(as the topic was Bilderberg, not alternative news related) I'm wondering how alternative media sites, as the ones mentioned and ones like them, can improve credability.

I do not have any experience with MSM agencies, so therefore do not understand how one becomes a 'credible source'.

In my view, if these sites were to step up their game the mission of exposing media propaganda, government lies etc would become a lot easier.

Does anyone have suggestions on how we/they can advance the search for knowledge and create a bigger impact and hopfully long lasting change for the better?

Edit to include link

[edit on 25-5-2006 by SepticChords]

I thought maybe some staff would be able to answer this and offer advise for all those sites you disallow on your news.

After all, we are here for knowledge and sharing wisdom.

I'm not a Mod for ATSNN but this is how the voting process works.

Originally posted by SkepticOverlord
From this point forward, the only options available to members is a "yes" vote, or "alert". There are no other options as we desire to focus more on getting your analysis of breaking news up on ATSNN.com than we are with alternative viewpoints on why the news may not fit.

An increased number of ATSNN.com moderators and staff have access to a management tool that enables us to decide the priority of articles on the news home page, alter topics, and upgrade important submissions immediately.

Originally posted by jsobeckyAnd how many YES votes are now needed for a successful submission?

5

Uh... by not voting for it? That's my plan.

Submissions have 48 hours to become ATSNN stories, after that, it automatically move to current events if it wasn't voted up.

I hope that helps you out.

The problem with alternative sites is that they tend to shoot themselves in the foot by taking various claims of conspiracy at face value with no verification or investigation into the truth of such claims. While the mainstream media has a tendancy to cover-up, omit, or put a spin on news and events, you can generally be assured that if the mainstream media says " man arrested for some crime" that indeed a man was arrested. However, with alternative news sites, often, stories are not always so easy to verify, and often stories tend to turn out to be untrue and based only on the claims of one individual. Alternative news sites tend to be alot less picky about checking stuff before posting it.

Alternative sites are not totally worthless. After all, they do tend to report on things the media wont report, and will cover issues the mainstream media wont touch. Alternative sites do provide very valuable news stories and are very important in battling spin, bias, and finding out the truth.

But you have to discriminate and check the accuracy of alt sites alot more than main stream sites.

However, just because you cant post something on ATSNN does not mean it is banned or censored from the site. You can use alt news in every single other forum on the board.

Thanks to you both.

Now that you come to mention it Skadi_the_Evil_Elf, I recall an Alex Jones article recently (here), which claimed the Venezuelan Government would launch an international 9/11 investigation.

At first I couldn't find any other sources to really back it up and dismissed it. As it turns out the article was true and Jones was one of the first people to break the story. I think sometimes the alternative media have ears closer to the ground than MSM.

However, the more I think about the actions of sites (alex jones and myspace as an example) maybe the more caution we should take.

Perhaps time is all that is needed for these kind of sites, I suppose even the NY Times had to start somewhere.