I have recently talked to a Chinese friend of mine who started talking about how smart Trump is etc. She previously only gained her knowledge through the Chinese media and not the “western propaganda”, so it was her first exposure to the non-CCP-controlled stuff. I told her “you sound like you read FOX news”. She replied with “hahah yes, how did you know?”
This made me realize that she is very prone to getting manipulated and not doing any fact-checking. However, this situation made me reflect on my own news-sourcing skills.
How do you deal with the issue and what can I do step-by-step to verify the news that I read myself and at the same time a way that I can recommend to my Chinese friend so that she doesn’t fall for the most obvious tricks so easily?
The news is a propaganda machine designed to output a dual-pronged attack ironically outlined by your post. For skeptics like yourself the constant stream of misinfo will have you fact checking senseless data that you instinctively know to be true or false based on observation, wasting your time. however when presented in the news or by aquaintences It challenges you to correct them, this is a job for a team of the same magnitude as the news stations themselves.
For the indoctrinated Its just a constant echochamber of new info that helps fortify new or previously fabricated info, and gives them talking points to repeat to anyone even minorly skeptical of the regime.
Your experience with your friend IS part of the manipulation. the only way out is to attempt to focus on what is local to you and within your control (dont ignore the macro issues obviously just try not to focus on them). Getting involved with local politics, speak with real people and rather than attacking their facts. Attack their logic, similarly to how you are trying to get your friend understand her bias and where that stems from.
being a victim of propaganda, being religeous, being part of a subculture, having unresloved trauma, having children, never being properly taught logic or Epistemology (edit:this word is so important cant believe i forgot it.), all of these and more contribute to bias.
To answer your question, there are organizations that do fact checking but im also skeptical of those because who watches the watchers? How do they afford to exist? Do the fact checkers have bias themselves? Its a never ending cycle of bullshit.
No doom and gloom though (they want you to feel defeated) because there is still tons to appreciate, so many people are waking up. Lots of individuals attacking “the system” from every possible angle all across the world. All it takes is some mildly uncomfortable conversations with the people you care about, and patience, LOTS of patience.