With so much news available, sorting fact from fiction is a real challenge.
The term fake news’ despite it often being overused and misused by some well-recognsied people, does have a place in our information filtering and prioritisation. I would always recommend keeping a level of deeper curiosity in the front of your mind when consuming any information.
What can be more challenging is the oversimplification of the facts to the point that the real meaning often gets lost.
I recently had first-hand experience on this when trying to unpack the ‘facts’ behind the Job Keeper Payment being promoted and offered in Australia. The differences between what many of the news media outlets reported in summary form and the information contained on the appropriate Australian Government web site were quite stark. Making decisions based on incorrect or misunderstood information can be emotionally dangerous.
My advice to anyone about to make key decisions is to go to the original source of the information. Don’t rely on third-party web sites, media outlets, despite their size and stature. Beware, that even adopting this approach can be challenging given the speed with which the Government and others are creating policy and announcements. These are likely to evolve and become clearer over time, so exercise judgmental caution before making final decisions.
In Australia, the Government have established a number of key ways of accessing data across a wide range of areas relating to Covid-19.
I encourage you to use them.
