Confirmation bias

I am saddened and infuriated by how people take sides and then read everything to favour of the side they've taken. 

You see this with people who dismiss all evidence that suggests the Ukrainian government is corrupt (or that Ukrainian policy is mistaken) as being pro-Russian and therefore untrue.

But I did this myself for a long time. I too had a secret policeman in my brain.

People likewise take any evidence that Israel is committing war crimes as being anti-Western, even anti-Semitic. 

I'm certainly not anti-Ukrainian. I took a side in the Arab-Israel dispute starting only on October 7 but I hope that doesn't make me not look at the evidence dispassionately. Perhaps I deceive myself. 

I don't bother to read anything written in the Murdoch Press and I certainly dismiss anything written in the Daily Telegraph on the subject of Ukraine, Israel or the Middle East. But I do occasionally read the stuff the Telegraph prints because I still have a subscription and am almost always horrified at the way the truth is twisted. 

So yes I do give the Telegraph a chance by reading it very occasionally, though certainly not with an open mind. 

See how many inaccurate statements you can find here. There are at least two very big ones plus the usual absolute distortions, worthy of the paper in the 1914-18 war.