A long time ago, maybe 1985 or so, I met a yuuuuge Rumanian wrestler, a champion who had defected after the Olympics.
He said he and alllll his countrymen NEVER believed anything written by Government sources at government papers:
It was a total waste of time to read such things.
That was really amazing to me AT THAT TIME.
“How strange it must be, to disbelieve your entire media apparatus...” I thought AT THAT TIME.
I had no inkling that much later I would come to think JUST LIKE HIM, but in my own country.
Well, the old Russian gag was “Pravda ne Isvestia, Izvestia ne Pravda.” There is no news in Pravda and no truth in Isvestia.