Partial sentence Iron.
"You do not have to verify it because experience has shown that the facts they present are generally reliable."
Now, _what_ facts get presented (suppression of evidence) and _how_ they're interpreted, that's a different matter. But you don't find yourself saying "That's downright false" listening to NPR nearly as much as with the television news networks. You can be saying "Damn, there's a lot of whiny stories about suffering in the Third World slapped between soft-sell interviews of pseudointellectual writers and musicians and persistent requests for baksheesh", but you rarely say, "that guy doesn't know what the hell he's talking about."
Of course, as with anything, it helps to verify the facts. Just be sure you don't do it by turning the news channels until you hear something you agree with. Go to the sources.
Take the case of this study -- you've got the methodology, the results and the interpretation. They're all individual steps. If you want to trash the study, you need to argue:
A) The methodology was flawed, leading to bad results.
B) The results are fraudulent (and if this happens, heads will come off)
C) The interpretation is off.
For those who want to destroy this study, the most promising angle of attack here is C). So do your research, study the results, and tell me how it should be read. I see the conclusions as they are perfectly obvious.
