Are you of the opinion that the bulk of mainstream journalism, like what is shown on the 6 o'clock news, contains the nuance and balance necessary for proper critical thought and honest skepticism?

I'm of the opinion that critical thought and honest skepticism should be applied equally to both mainstream and alternative media, because in modern reality both are essentially the same and can be undermined by the same biases, incentives and narrative distortions.

Simply assuming the mainstream media is lying all the time and every conspiracy theory is probably true is lazy cynicism.

You seem to have answered a question other than the one I asked.

What you said about social media is absolutely true wrt to trying to have nuanced conversations. It is not true when it comes to fact gathering. For example, my own opinion of Khashoggi changed when I read twitter posts from people I follow for completely unrelated reasons but who happen to have known him personally.

This is a rather bizarre and kind of scary comment to be honest. It suggests that one's opinion about torture and murder depends on the individual being tortured rather than on the one doing the torture.

I really don't care one bit about Khashoggi, one way or another, and no Twitter post about him could ever make me change my mind that torturing and murdering him is categorically wrong.

What do you mean "changed?" What was your opinion before and then after reading these Twitter posts?

Before - saudis murdered a martyr for journalistic freedom. After - barbaric power struggle spilled out of Saudi Arabia and claimed one of the players as victim

Fair enough. Kashoggi most definitely was not just any journalist. Either interpretation reflects pretty horrible on the Saudi royal family though.

Yo you might want to take a long hard look at yourself if you're cool with torturing and murdering anyone.