News Zoom
Zoom in or Zoom out on the news. Pick a story you’ve seen on social media and read two news articles that are either extremely local, or international.
Not every story will have a fixed location to zoom in, and some will not make it to international press, but checking helps catch fake news, adds context, and shifts you outside the media bubble increasingly controlled by the regime.
Why we do it:
The news cycle is so fast, and so consolidated, that an error or assumption in one national story can quickly be repeated in dozens more, making it look true. Additionally, critical context may be missing, or government pressure may shape the story. To get around this, periodically zoom in for hyper-local coverage of regional events (like ICE in Chicago) and zoom out to non-U.S. press for an un-influenced viewpoint.
How to do it:
Start with a basic browser search. We suggest DuckDuckGo which provides privacy controls and allows you to turn off AI “help.” This will give you the cleanest search. Search the event looking for local news and international news.
If you don’t get any matches, pump up your search: search for newpapers from the area where the story happened. Look for very local sources, down to the neighborhood blog level. When you find some, copy the base URL (e.g. “myedmondsnews.com” and add it to your story search. If there is no local news, review where you heard about the story: is it credible? Or could it be fake news?
Now look for international news sources, if the story is significant. This will work best if you either add an international news source’s base url (e.g. lemonde.fr) or go directly to international sources you trust and search on their sites. Here are a few to get you started, but we encourage you to build non-U.S. resources and use them regularly.
