If you are saying the MSM lies , that implies they intentionally and maliciously provide misinformation . They get it wrong sometimes , but they don ' t lie on purpose . Of course you should never trust just one source , and you should always read critically . But that ' s a far cry from saying the news actual journalism is generally untrustworthy . The medium does matter . Cable news is all about ratings , so they are prone to sensationalize no viewers , no ad revenues . And on the Internet , if you ' re getting something for free , you are much more likely to be the product than than the consumer all the fake news on Facebook , e . g . , generates ad revenue , so little lying shitheads are making gobs of money on deliberately misleading people . Sources that you have to pay for , say , the NY Times , are less dependent on flashy stories whose soul purpose is to increase clicks . And of course they want to sell papers , but this means they have to be accountable to readers and not just attract advertisers . Furthermore , not all sources are bound to the 24 hour news cycle . Some of the best journalism out there can be found in weekly magazines , e . g . So yes , medium matters a lot . No source is perfect , but to pretend there are no criteria for determining more and less reliable sources is foolish and , more importantly , dangerous .