On the contrary, even with primary sources, there's almost no event that can't have its narrative completely turned around by additional context. In particular, such a primary source is almost always an anecdote rather than data. Data always introduces a possibility for bias. Truth is hard. There are no shortcuts

> It's hard to argue with a video or a transcription.

There is video of many things. Choosing which ones to show and promote is itself a point of view, and greatly biases the political slant of news.

Of course context matters as does choice of material, but it's a heckuva lot better than hearing what someone thinks something means or (my favorite) 'unnamed sources'.

No, not necessarily. Journalists use unnamed sources because they can often provide the most salient, relevant, and expert information. There is no better source for information about a bureaucratic screwup than a senior official, but the senior official also stands to lose the most by publicly providing good information. Primary material without context is really overrated, there's a reason that statistics is often quipped as even worse than damned lies (I'm referring to "Lies, damned lies, and statistics").

I'd say that at this point in the Rota Fortunae of politics, 'unnamed sources' is essentially meaningless to me. It's a combination of purposeful fibs with an agenda, truth, and the utterly made-up for clicks.

Randomly true things don't have much explanatory or predictive value.

My current view of the interpreters of primary material is that they have little in the way of deep knowledge or overview to add to the mix, I'd just as soon try to suss it out myself. If anything, internet-provided 'news' is architecturally similar to a game of 'telephone'.

In terms of public policy, it's just a mental puzzle in any case, it isn't like that world that you access via a little screen and keyboard can be changed in any significant way.

Even with all relevant context given, choosing which incidents to cover has a massive biasing effect.

> It's hard to argue with a video or a transcription.

You'd think so, but people either refuse to watch it, or claim they have watched it but then have no trouble saying something wild that's a complete contradiction.

Indeed--even if the video or transcription was completely fabricated, it's tough to argue with. :-/