World news, politics: media channels, part 1

Self-tutoring about news and what to make of it: the tutor wonders, “Should I pinch myself?”

The following is according to my understanding.

I didn’t plan to talk about politics today; I’ve done so the last couple of posts, so was planning a fairly mundane post today about technology. As usual, I got up early, then started on my first pot of coffee for the day. I put on YouTube to find out what had happened over the weekend with the Iran negotiations, then started puttering away in the kitchen.

Mallen Baker, whose YouTube channel one can find here, is one of my favourite news YouTubers. Listening to his recent upload, “Iran Negotiations Fail – Now Trump Is Really Stuck”, I doubted my ears 40 seconds in. It’s not Mallen I was doubting; rather, the news he was relating seemed unbelievable: Apparently, as I understand it, an established writer (I won’t name them) in an established US newspaper, in a recent article, seems to suggest eliminating Iranian leadership until replacements emerge who will agree to a settlement Trump likes.(?!?!) I backed up the YouTube video, then listened again to make sure I was hearing it correctly. I enabled the captions. Still, I could barely believe it.

That an article can be found wherein the idea is put forward that one country might dictate the leaders of another one, based on military force – it’s so absurd, one can’t even find a scope for it. I paused the video, wondering what to to. I decided to look up the actual article, wondering if it would still be there. I didn’t necessarily believe it would stay up for long.

I quickly found what must be said article, but in my world it lives behind a paywall. That does make it somewhat different: it’s not so much news, but rather content shared to a private audience of paying customers. From that point of view, it’s probably not the most surprising thing on the Internet.

Jack of Oracle Tutoring by Jack and Diane, Campbell River, BC.