Wonder if your News is a Lie? Here’s Why.

News reporting has taken a long, winding downward trajectory over the past two decades. Identifying what you’re reading or seeing is the first step towards improving critical thinking.

CORRECTION: In an earlier version of this article, in the photograph of the White House Press Briefing Room below, I included a photo from the Obama administration but labeled it as a current one. (I had two images in the same folder named almost identically, and I erroneously grabbed the wrong one.) My apologies to my readers for this error. My thanks to those who caught it and let me know. The karmic irony of the error in an article questioning the truthfulness of news was not lost on me!

I’m frankly a bit fed up with Mainstream Media, and to some extent, sources that call themselves “Independent” news sources. It’s a giant competition for our attention, and we’re the pawns on the chessboard, having our emotions toyed with while trying to make sense of an avalanche of information bearing down on us.

White House Press Briefing Room - CORRECTED - Karoline Leavitt, 2025

News Devolution 2025

Yesterday, I watched a horrific piece of reporting on the state of the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” in the Senate on ABC News. Not that my expectations were high, because they weren’t. What horrified me was how ABC’s report emphasized the Senate’s actions, specifically as they related to the debate over how much debt would be added to our bottom line. They said virtually nothing about the changes to Medicaid, SNAP, or other safety-net programs.

I consider this to be a journalistic crime, regardless of the news organization. If your stated job is to report the news, rather than simply capturing our attention, then do the job you’re given and report fairly on all major aspects of a topic. Don’t cherry-pick what you know so people get only part of the story.

That got me thinking. Lately, on Substack, a ton of new content creators are appearing (a new wave), and it’s concerning what’s coming with them. I’ll lay out the big things I notice. Please leave your observations in the comments as well.

The New Wave on Substack

First, TikTok 2: The number of reposted TikTok videos here is starting to overwhelm my feed. Substack used to be a place where actual writers could write and be read. If it was intended to be an alternative source for my TikTok feed, it should clearly state so upfront.

Second, Overrun with Corporate Media: There are numerous sources of “news” emerging that, upon closer examination, reveal shady connections to corporate interests. The idea of “independence” is dying here, quickly. It’s not that I expected it to last forever on Substack; it’s that we’re about ~160 days into an autocratic takeover of our government, seizing news sources and sanewashing King Trump’s insanity. There’s no place safe from social engineering the masses, including Substack.

I thought about it and decided to lay out for my readers a fair and transparent analysis of what good and bad looks like in social media and corporate journalism. Adverse Action has been committed, from day one, to gathering news from the most reputable sources, cross-checking and fact-checking them, and providing you with information based entirely on verifiable facts. That’s why I almost always give you sources at the end of each article. I editorialize on clear and consistent subjects, like Trump’s regime, so the number of random editorial comments is kept to a minimum.

You should be able to recognize her. If not, she’s the White House Press Secretary

What follows is a glimpse into the world of journalism in 2025. Understand that Adverse Action, if you browse past articles, will prove out to be, within almost every article, a mix of verified facts, supplemented with consistent satire and cynicism on a single topic: Trump and his regime’s actions. If I extend snarkiness to any other area, I identify it as such with clear messaging.

The Journalism Machine, America circa 2025

Access Journalism: When news outlets prioritize maintaining access to a source (e.g., the Trump press briefing room) over reporting accurate information. Rigorous fact-checking is not done, and reports official statements at face value without adequate verification or context.

Euphemistic Framing uses deliberately vague or softened language that obscures concrete impacts. It can mean anything from small changes to something, or it could mean large, detrimental changes – it is up to the reader to determine if, for example, what impacts proposed tax breaks will have on someone’s daily life (say, impact on your paycheck).

Now, several areas warrant closer examination. I’m resorting to my least favorite form of formatting, which is bullet-point listing, because it allows for almost no context. My reason is that there are straightforward concepts that are best described this way to retain them in your memory for future use.

Problematic areas of reporting:

1. Sanewashing

a. Sanitizing extreme or harmful content into normalized language

b. Found across institutional and corporate media types

2. Commentary masquerading as reporting

a. What is often known as “independent media”

b. This is better called parajournalism or Hybrid Commentary

c. Takes existing reporting and adds skepticism, cynicism, and a snarky tone, presenting news as analysis.

3. Undisclosed Editorializing

a. “Embedded Opinion” – opinion mixed into factual reporting without clear delineation,

b. Violates basic journalism ethics of separating news from opinion

c. One example of NOT doing this is “The Daily Show”: They “report” news, but do not hide the fact they’re making fun of it.

d. An increasing number of Substack authors are now doing this. If you see a Substack offering “unbiased reporting” but embedding numerous editorial comments, be aware of the line between news and everything else.

These summarize the methods news groups, from Corporate to Independent Media, use to get you to pay attention to their content across platforms, including digital print newspapers, magazines, and here on Substack, as well as other platforms like X, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook.

The Quality Hierarchy

Again, the way I present this isn’t my favorite because it skips context, but for the sake of efficiency, I’ll break down the four tiers of how you can access news content. Knowing which one you’re reading is the first step in realizing what level of manipulation you might be exposed to. That takes back control and puts it in your hands, which is my goal here.

Tier 1: Methodological Journalism

· Cross-references multiple sources

· Clearly states what’s known and unknown

· Transparent about methodology and limitations

· Separates fact from analysis

· Is currently a “tiny, tiny sliver” of the “Independent Media”

Tier 2: Standard Institutional Reporting

· Original reporting but may engage in sanewashing

· Generally follows journalistic standards but with institutional biases

Tier 3: Derivative Analysis

· Repackages existing reporting with added commentary

· Can be valuable if transparent about sources and methodology

Tier 4: Pseudo-Journalism

· Presents opinion or commentary as reporting

· Lacks transparency about sources or methodology

· Often engages in tribal signaling rather than information gathering.

KEY INSIGHT: Institutional type (mainstream vs. independent news) tells you almost nothing about journalistic quality or methodology.

SO WHAT? When people use institutional labels as shortcuts for quality, they are allowing themselves to be systematically manipulated. For example, they'll trust sanewashed propaganda from prestigious (Mainstream) outlets while dismissing solid reporting from unfamiliar sources—or vice versa, trusting commentary from "independent" sources (like some publications on Substack) while rejecting legitimate institutional reporting.

This tribal approach to information consumption makes people easier to deceive, regardless of which tribe they belong to. The result: citizens making critical decisions about politics, finances, and health based on a flawed information filtering system, leaving them vulnerable to manipulation by any actor—corporate, independent, or state—who understands how to exploit these institutional biases.

Trust Signaling – the Fox News “Entertainment” Problem

Trust signaling refers to using superficial markers of credibility—such as an authoritative tone, professional formatting, credential dropping, or confident language—to appear trustworthy without actually demonstrating trustworthiness through transparent methodology or accuracy.

Almost indistinguishable from Real News, right?

Here are a few examples:

· A blogger adding "Former CNN contributor" to their bio while peddling conspiracy theories

· Using phrases like "sources say" without naming sources

· Adopting the visual style of legitimate news sites

· Speaking with absolute certainty about uncertain information

· Name-dropping prestigious institutions or experts without context

The key is to look credible rather than being credible. People signal trustworthiness through style and presentation rather than proving it through rigorous methodology and transparency.

How Social Media Changes the News

Social Media is a cesspool of commentary masquerading as reporting, as well as embedded editorializing. That has dangerous consequences. Let’s examine a few of the immediate and most destructive:

Epistemic Collapse: Big word, simple meaning. When most information consumption occurs through tribal signaling (“Clearly MAGA” is an example of tribal signaling), societies lose a shared understanding of reality. People aren't just disagreeing about solutions—they're operating from entirely different sets of "facts."

Emotional Hijacking: Pseudo-journalism prioritizes engagement (likes, shares, outrage, replies) over accuracy. This trains people to process information emotionally first, analytically second, or not at all. Critical thinking atrophies from not being used.

Democratic Breakdown: Effective democracy requires citizens who are capable of evaluating competing claims and making reasoned choices. When the information ecosystem is dominated by tribal cheerleading disguised as reporting, voters make decisions based on identity signals rather than policy analysis.

Exploitation Vulnerability: People lose the ability to distinguish between quality information and manipulation. This makes entire populations sitting ducks for bad actors – whether foreign adversaries, domestic demagogues, or financial scammers – who understand how to exploit tribal information processing.

Institutional Nihilism: Constant exposure to pseudo-journalism breeds blanket distrust of all information sources, including legitimate ones. People retreat into pure cynicism, making them paradoxically more susceptible to confident-sounding charlatans.

Social media pseudo-journalism is not only about misinformation; it’s an attack on your ability to be informed, turning you into a mark more than a consumer of news.

I hope you’re able to gather helpful information from these separate angles in both mainstream and Independent news sources. Please understand, I am NOT against editorializing or embedded opinions in news reporting!

It’s about disclosure and transparency: Consider the example of Jeff Tiedrich and “everyone is entitled to my own opinion” Substack, he writes. Jeff’s hilarious! I laugh to the point of almost hurting myself every day from his content. But he doesn’t pretend to be “reporting” a straight, unopinionated version of the news. He’s upfront about what he’s doing, right down to the name of his publication. Be wary of publications that don’t disclose whether they’re offering just a fair reporting of the news in an unbiased way or using embedded commentary.

That’s a Wrap

Thanks for spending time with me today, reading this article! I hope you got value from it.

My typical approach is to spend time on a few major news items that warrant closer inspection. Last week, we got into the tax bill in Congress, and why it’s such a bad thing for working-class Americans. Tomorrow we’ll resume our regular programming.

As for today, I hope you’ll consider minding your mental health. Nobody knows you better than you. That’s not cliché, it’s the truth. In times like these, life can be especially stressful, so taking a break from all the demands on your brain to engage with social media can be invaluable. I sincerely hope you’ll consider that for today.

Be well.

Rick Herbst

June 30, 2025