Don’t trust mainstream media. Look it up yourself!

NOTE: At some point, before bed, I read through 50+ news sources and share my findings here. If you like it, share it. If you don’t, share it. Follow my blog now to support my work or to find new reasons to complain about it. My opinions are my own. All tips are welcome as well as comments on my video series - The Jim Stroud Show.

For the past few years, I have been ranting about my distrust of the media.

I made a video about it.

I podcasted about it.

I followed up that podcast with an update on why I still don’t trust the media.

And I am not the only one. Here are a few recent headlines.

And if that isn’t enough to persuade you that media bias exists, check out these 3 articles. (I could have shared much more than these.)

So, what is the public to do? How can we discern what is truth and what is propaganda? One sure fire way is to look at how the same story is viewed from different perspectives, notice where they intersect and believe that. For example, if Newsmax and CNN both agree that the sky is blue then, likely the sky is blue. Another way is to seek out alternative news that is not controlled by the mainstream media giants who control 90% of what you read, watch or listen to. You do this by searching for that news on search engines that are unbiased. Unfortunately, that does not include Google. My favorite search engine is DuckDuckGo but there are others out there, lots of others. Click here for a surprisingly long list of search engines by country. But, I digress.

If you take a moment to search “media blackout” 2021 you may be surprised by what you find. At this writing, I discover the surprising headline of ” MEDIA BLACKOUT: Antifa Terrorists Armed with Hatchets Take Over Red Lion Hotel in Olympia, WA – Occupy 17 Rooms, Demand Shelter For Homeless (VIDEO)“

Wow! I would think that’s newsworthy. However, not a peep on mainstream media; for whatever reason. Hmm…

I also notice the headline “Rapper Tom MacDonald’s “Fake Woke” Which SLAMS Cancel Culture Reaches #1 – Media Blackout.”

If you notice on the screenshot, to the right, DuckDuckGo suggests other searches you can try. (Click here to see for yourself.) If you are intrigued by this, consider more searches using my list below. You may be surprised by what you find. (Words in bold can be changed to whatever else has your interest. )

  • unreported impeachment
  • internet blackout
  • social media blackout
  • media lying
  • media ignoring
  • media narrative
  • media censorship
  • “controlling the narrative” BLM
  • misinformation Biden
  • “breaking news” CDC
  • “new research suggests” mask
  • “according to conservative” Biden
  • “according to liberal” Biden
  • “left wing” Biden jobs
  • “right wing” Biden jobs
  • (“extreme left” OR “extreme right”) protests DC

Another thing I notice is that once news breaks and a story develops, information that disproves a narrative is often ignored and/or erased from the web. (You see a lot of that on Twitter. Fortunately, there are ways to recover deleted Tweets.) One way to gather info about a hot news story is to grab it as soon as its online. How do you that? Talkwalker Alerts.

Talkwalker is the best free and easy alternative to Google Alerts. Both resources scan the web for information you want to monitor and email those results to you. Since Google can be biased on political and cultural news (despite arguments to the contrary), I lean towards using Talkwalker. Although, I do use Google Alerts for searches unrelated to news and culture.

But back to the super-easy to use Talkwalker Alerts.

  1. Add in the keyword or phrase you want to monitor.
  2. Add your email address.
  3. Choose “Result Type” (By default, it chooses News, Twitter, Blogs and Discussions)
  4. Under “How Often” I go with “As it happens,” especially on breaking news
  5. Under “How Many” I choose “All results,” again, if it is for breaking news.
  6. Click the “Preview” button to see what you will be getting. If you like what you see, click the “Create Alert” button and further instructions about setting up a free account will arrive via email.


The good thing about using Talkwalker Alerts is that you do a search once and forget it. You can always unsubscribe from your alerts once you have all you need.

All that to say, don’t trust the mainstream media. Use their reporting as a starting point. Seek the truth out for yourself.

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Thanks for reading this much. I appreciate you. More tomorrow.

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