Fake News.

"Fake News" to me represents an achievement in self-mutilation. When I hear that response now, it signals to me that current events are not to be considered from one particular side as true. They are a two word response that conveys a sarcastic, distrustful, and likely limited world view.

The fact is fake news is binary, either the anti - Trump "main stream media" or the sites I call kooky, including infowars, the Blaze, and Breitbart.

As for me, news is news. Its fluid at all times, never set in granite. There isn't an either or.

News is mutable, distortable, and misundestandable. The most important thing to understand is that no matter who says it, how often its said, or the relative past of any party involved in the story, any news event can change in an instant, and any fact could change 180 degrees.

I enjoy the news that satisfies my mindset, and typically not so much those that don't. For me, fake news should be defined as news that is false from the get go, from the intent to knowingly deceive, but it doesn't seem to be. Rather any news from the wrong news sources earn the label.

Seems the only answer is to get news from as many sources as possible. Only speaking in terms of that ideal informed citizen, of course. I mean, if there is a war for our minds, and within that war we are being sold on the idea that one side is constantly blowing smoke up our collective ass, then the prudent course of action is to monitor all the news. From all the sources.

That's a tough bill to sell, to monitor the news from all the sources. But what's not difficult is getting the news from multiple sources, including those that are the bad guys.

It seems logical to me. How do you know who is lying if you don't compare stories? What also seems logical is to encourage the free press, especially if the environment is such that paranoia about the press is that they are dishonest.

More press is the answer, not less. Visit it all, let the marketplace make an honest appraisal. In fact, if a news outlet is using provocation to sow distrust of another outlet, scrutiny on both parties is more practical than blind trust of one over the other.

I make regular visits to "left" and "right" sites, mainstream media and aggregators. I have a good bead on the degree of honesty and incendiary nature of some of the sites out there, I still go because some times there is information that helps me understand better what the heck is going in this world.

The real picture is much bigger than any one media outlet, I often find stories that just aren't covered everywhere. As unsurprising as that it is, I can vouch, not one place has all the news covered.