Yes I have been a reader here for a very long time and honestly have not found FR to be loaded with disinformation and falsehoods nor have a seen “herd instinct.” If I seen the majority of freepers “run down the trail based on falsehoods” I would not have continued to read or take the time to join and frankly don’t know why anyone who feels that way would. Of course the majority of people here agree on a lot of things since it is a site for like-minded conservatives. I have only read breaking news and latest articles so maybe it’s other places on the site.
Of course it is the internet so it’s a given that there will be trolls and/or people who just want to “stir the pot”
My profession is in the legal field so I definitely know how to research the truth and spot problem people
Mine too. And as I said, the level of "distrust" warranted is a function of how important it is, to you, to be accurately informed on the subject.
I do independent research on maybe one in a thousand issues that I see.
Off the top of my head, a couple "common misconceptions" that pop up here are/were that Bush's firing of AG's was not unusual (it was - all modern presidents "fire them all" at the start of their first term. Tony Snow tried to lead people to conclude that firing at the start of a second term was the same thing); that the Scooter Libby case was about leaking (it was only about lying).
At any rate, all I'm trying to convey is encouragement to think independently; and if a subject really matters to your well being (which should be exceedingly rare!), do your own research.
Threads based on articles containing misinformation that people may fall for and that could cause a stampede of embarrassingly misinformed comments are supposed to be clearly marked as such by the original poster. Violations can be reported by clicking Report Abuse. I reported one a few days ago and the management quickly locked the thread. If you check the main list of forum topics every few minutes, you will frequently see very short-lived threads that are pulled for redundancy or for being nonsense.