a) Avoid the news altogether
b) if it looks suspiciously exaggerated, it’s exaggerated.
Knowing the bias helps tremendously. With such extremes in bias these days from most news outlets, regular and “alt” and fake, it’s easy to figure out what bucket they belong into.
From there I have a couple of trusted sources. I trust Christian Science Monitor, Al-jazeera (news articles, not so much opinion unless I take their left bias into account) and RT (taking into account their pro-Russia and hard right slant).
Even among those, take with some skepticism for slant. Anything that’s a “he said / she said” or speculation on the intentions of another always have to be treated as being at least partially gossip.
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