For me it's essentially being my own journalist. I cringe writing that, as 'being my own journalist' is basically what every extreme-wing lunatic says in just a

For me it's essentially being my own journalist. I cringe writing that, as 'being my own journalist' is basically what every extreme-wing lunatic says in just about every conspiracy group. But of course I like to think I'm different. That means that whenever I want to form an opinion on something I try to seek out information to construct my own arguments, based on premises, based on facts, to eventually get to conclusions. That limits the range of topics I can draw reasonable conclusions on given I have limited time. The result is that on most topics I don't actually hold any firm stances because I simply don't know, despite knowing quite a few facts about said topics. And I'm okay with that, I'd rather be not sure than to be wrong, and outside of some political or health or work decisions I have to make every now and then, it's not really necessary to have to draw a correct conclusion all the time. For example I really don't need to predict with a great degree of certainty whether Tumblr or Twitter is going to succeed or not over the next 12 months, and for what reasons. It's interesting to follow the facts, but concluding a trajectory from that is not necessary. And I find that 'the news' is still pretty good at reporting facts. Not so great at drawing conclusions from them, always. But just getting facts is fine for me on a whole range of topics. Then I pick the few topics that I want to really draw conclusions on, and research it myself. (which usually involves seeking out prior research by others btw, in a non-news setting, often academic).