I don't practice any of those, because
repeating what media told you about issues which context you have no idea about doesn't exactly sound enlightened to me. I've seen it happen about issues in my small area of expertise, I can only guess how desperate experts of discussed issues must be.
There is no single entity of "the media" though. The whole point the OP was making was that you should seek our a variety of news sources and evaluate them. Would you say "repeating what reviews have told you about a product you're thinking of buying doesn't sound enlightened to me"?
The idea that everything you read in the news is garbage because they don't have a solid grasp on the strange esoterica we work in simply doesn't make any sense. There's no reason why any news organisation would be equally informed on every topic. So yeah, if I read an article in the Washington Post comparing relational databases I'd be suspicious. But if I read an article about tax policy, written by a journalist who has spent years studying the area, what on earth would it have to do with my database experience?
