I play the "Media Truth" game. I read the newspaper or watch the news, and I try and discover three things about it -
1) How do they want me to feel? Each news story always has an agenda and they want you to react in a certain way, it's almost like they are a treating people like lab mice. Sometimes it will be outrage at a tragedy, sorrow for someone's loss, fear from a number of threats, or any number of different things. If you can tell what kind of agena they are pushing then you can limit the impact it has on you.
2) Whose side do they want me to be on? After you get over the initial energetic emotional reaction, the media wants you to take a side. It may be a political side, a social side, family vs non family, authority vs individuals, government vs business, there's lots of sides in the media and they always want you to take at least one. Even worse is that they may want you to take different sides in different articles. If you can see which side they want you to take, then you can choose not to take a side and remain neutral, and true to yourself.
3) What is the actual truth. Now this is the hard one. Most media reporting needs to come from somewhere, and they often use the truth because at least then you can back up the opinions with facts. After you've identified their biases, then you can see if you can uncover the truth behind the words. What happened, why it happened, who was involved, etcetera. After you have found the truth, or elements of it, you can make up your own mind on the matter. This will keep you aware, but without falling into patterns of fear and doubt.
It's also good to try and find a media source that's fairly factual and unbiased. I've found many internet news sites tend to be like that, but you still need to be sharp and aware for the hidden agendas. It would be good to have unbiased and straightforward media, but that won't happen while there's money and power to be had in swaying the masses.
