We don't all have the time or the resources or the curiosity to connect all the raw data making up the news. Sure the newspapers can have a bias or conflicts

We don't all have the time or the resources or the curiosity to connect all the raw data making up the news. Sure the newspapers can have a bias or conflicts of interest but the journalism industry at least attempts to mitigate these, there is a code of ethics. You can only do so much on your own, and through one on one interactions. Some people find it valuable to have others do this for them. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Sure it's imperfect, because there is always bias, but t's a lot easier to read a newspaper story about an issue than to redo all the work the reporter would have done, on every conceivable issue. You can even do your own fact checking after reading the paper. I'm mostly talking about newspaper reporting, and from high caliber sources, but your local community paper can be a good source of info as well. [1] http://english.stackexchange.com/a/244277 http://english.stackexchange.com/a/244277 (Murray Gell-Mann Amnesia effect)