Introduction
This article explains how to critically consume the news. What I say here applies to information sources in text format (traditional newspapers, news websites, magazines, even non-fiction books), video format (informative youtube channels, documentaries) and even audio format (podcasts). With the rise of "fake news", clickbait content and biased news sources, it's important to learn how to separate the wheat from the chaff. I won't tell you which news sources to consume (that's for you to decide); I'll just tell you how to evaluate them.
If there are three things I want you to take away from this article, they are : learn how to think critically, check primary sources and get your news from multiple sources both domestic and foreign. Just do these three things and you'll be better informed than most.
Learn critical thinking
You should read at least a couple of books on critical thinking and statistics. There are many books in the market aimed at adults which teach critical thinking and statistics. Books on critical thinking will teach you how to take a piece of written content, filter out all the extraneous verbiage in it and boil everything down to the bare essential arguments. Books on statistics will teach you how to avoid making common mistakes when you're dealing with numbers, tables, graphs and surveys. I insist you read a few and I assure you that it will be time well spent because what you'll learn from these books will help you for the rest of your life.
Some freely available resources to get you started :
Check primary sources
Look for sources for any claims listed in news articles. Read primary sources to verify those claims because it may happen that some journalists and content creators have either deliberately or inadvertently made some mistakes. This is especially prevalent in news articles reporting on jargon-dense, statistics-laden scientific research papers. A journalist who is not well versed in the scientific field and statistics may make mistakes when translating research papers which are intended to be read by other scientists to a news article which is intended to be read by laymen. This also applies to blogspam and content farm website articles which report on news articles reporting on research papers!
Get multiple perspectives
It's a folly to depend on just one or two news sources for all your news. News sources can have biases which skew their reporting on certain issues. Therefore, to counter any possible biases, you should get your news from multiple news sources (including local, national and foreign sources) to try to get a complete picture about an issue. This way you will be exposed to many viewpoints regarding the issue.
Media outlets can't upset their audience
Many media outlets have a particular demographic as their core/majority audience who have a certain worldview. For example, a news website may have as their core audience young liberals who care about social justice and take what's happening on twitter seriously. Whereas another news website may have as their target audience young conservatives who unconditionally believe in their dear leader and traditional family values. Media outlets bend their articles to fit that worldview so as to not upset their core audience. Media outlets fear that if they report news in an unbiased way, their readership will decline and their revenue will plummet. This applies equally to both liberal-leaning and conservative-leaning media outlets. Unfortunately, this leads to detachment from reality where people who follow different news sources can't even agree on basic facts any more.
Media outlets can't upset their owners
Some media outlets take care not to publish pieces critical of their owners or the owners' business interests. Some outlets are owned by politicians or political parties and are, basically, their propaganda mouthpieces. Some media outlets are owned by big corporations. The owners usually say that they don't meddle in the editorial process but the risk is always there. It can stifle honest reporting if there is any conflict of interest. Not to mention the self-censorship that might be happening in the newsroom. Some important events might be outright ignored when they are 'inconvenient' rather than reported on. Or some problematic details might be omitted from the news stories that are published.
Then there's media ownership consolidation happening in some countries. It means that fewer and fewer big corporations now own the majority of the news media outlets. It reduces the range of voices the readers are exposed to.
Watch out for sponsored content
Some media outlets take money from corporations to produce thinly veiled advertisements masquerading as news articles and videos. It can be hard to tell apart real news and sponsored content at first but it gets easier with practice.
Media outlets can't upset their advertisers
Media outlets depend on advertisers for a large portion of their revenue. Advertisers pay hefty fees to media outlets to show their advertisements on news channels, news websites, youtube channels and podcasts. In some countries, the government is one of the largest advertisers in print and television media. If majority of the revenue of a news outlet comes from a single source, whether from the government or a big corporation, the outlet will be beholden to it.
Will the editors approve of an investigative journalism project where the target is one of their advertisers? If a media outlet pisses off an advertiser by doing an exposé on the advertiser's corrupt practices, the advertiser will no doubt pull their funding. This again creates a conflict of interest situation for the media outlet.
Check foreign media outlets
If you're trying to learn about a sticky situation in a country, it really helps if you read news articles on the topic from sources based in other countries. Often, the majority of the news sources in a country have certain implicit or explicit biases. For example, media outlets can be either for or against some ideology or government or a political party or an industry. If you read news articles on the topic from sources situated outside the country, they may lack these biases and you may get a different viewpoint.
Too focused on social media
Some media outlets report what's happening on social media as news. Social media websites are not and shouldn't be primary news sources because they often lead to low-quality journalism. These media outlets want you to get outraged by what someone said on Twitter or Facebook. Stay away from such sources.
Clickbait and sensationalism
You most certainly have read clickbait articles or have seen clickbait videos. What they do is nothing short of devious. They will make ridiculous, hyperbolic statements in the title to get you to click on it and then totally underwhelm you with the actual content. Clickbait is widespread in online news and on Youtube. By the way, have you seen how stupid most Youtube video thumbnails are nowadays?
Almost all media outlets publish crappy attention-seeking headlines to get more views/clicks/shares/comments and therefore get more revenue. It works because unsuspecting people do click on clickbait titles and video thumbnails. It's become the unwritten rule now and that's a real problem because most clickbait articles are low quality. But a tiny percent of them are good. And you can't know if it's a good piece of content unless you consume it. So you either waste a lot of time consuming crap or miss out on some good stuff. In general though, just avoid clickbait; you'll be happier.
Long before clickbait appeared on the internet, there was sensationalism. You must have seen and heard this term "Breaking News" so many times now that it is virtually meaningless. News channels deliberately label every mundane news as "breaking news" to keep viewers watching. But it just ends up wasting their time and sometimes even increases their stress and anxiety.
Moral outrage
Clickbait articles also have horrible side-effects. In some cases, they mislead the readers. In other cases they cause moral outrage which helps make the readers more extreme. Most people just read the title and get outraged. And even when they do consume the content, they sometimes don't know or don't care about the validity of the arguments presented in those articles or videos. They then share the content with others in their filter bubble and the cycle continues. If you participate in an echo chamber this way, you won't be getting the full picture.
Donate or subscribe to good media outlets
Identify a few media outlets that are reporting unbiased news and doing investigative journalism then either buy their subscriptions or donate regularly.
Use an adblocker
This is kinda off-topic but I think an adblocker is necessary when browsing the web. News websites are the worst offenders when it comes to online tracking of website visitors. Please use a privacy-oriented browser like Firefox with uBlock Origin adblocker to visit news websites to protect your privacy. If you have technical skills, you can also install Pi-hole for your entire network.