The greatest enduring benefit of having studied and trained as a journalist is the experience gained as 'the gatekeeper' of information, and therefore the abili

The greatest enduring benefit of having studied and trained as a journalist is the experience gained as 'the gatekeeper' of information, and therefore the ability to interpret news more thoroughly. That, and the fact most news is depressing garbage as nutritional for your brain as sweetener is for your gut, is why I only skim the news these days. Most journalists / writers are decent people aiming to communicate as much as they can, as clearly as they can, with overly tight time-frames and (less so online) limited news-holes. They won't write "may be X" if they can write "is X" - therefore, "may be" (and related modifiers like could, perhaps, up to, close to etc) mean "not definitely" and are usually safe to ignore. They won't paraphrase someone if they have a direct quote just as specific - therefore, any general comments have been created to attempt to fit what someone said into the narrative angle of the piece. They may be inaccurate (and few things frustrate me more than the outragists of the world turning a newspaper story into somebody's direct quotes). If the headline / lede seems outrageously unfair and Occams Razor suggests there must be more to the story, then there will usually be additional information in paragraph 5 that makes the story less outrageous and more normal. Genuinely shocking stories (whistle-blowing, massacres, genocide) don't need to lead with the outrage. Genuine stories also stick around for days with new information or different angles - therefore it's safe to conclude outrageous headlines are burying the mundane facts and can be ignored, until they show up many days in a row. Obviously these are generalizations, they don't account for truly terrible writing like the Daily Mail, gossip magazines, and current affairs television, and anyone who reads enough news with a critical eye probably comes to the same conclusions (ie, nothing special about me). What this awareness gives you of course is the ability to unwind a complex narrative out from a simple story. So don't "Beware Simple Stories" - rather, develop your own expertise in interpreting them.