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This is the Jocko Underground podcast number 221, sitting here with Echo Charles. We have questions from the field, from the front lines, from the troopers, and we will provide you with either answers or recommendations or at a minimum, courses of action to follow to stay on the path.
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It's true. Said it before, I'll say it again. A lot of these questions, you just take the principle from it, apply it to yourself. Maybe you got the same question. In principle, I'm saying it can be helpful.
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I like it, trust me. Thanks for pointing that out to everybody.
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I'm here to tell you. I'm here to tell you. All right, first question. Today I was thinking about removing distractions to clear my mind while. While trying to also stay informed. How do you find a source of truth to what is happening in the world? Is that even possible? With the mainstream media so divisive and deceptive and big Tech so readily threatening censorship? Thank for all. You do really enjoy listening to the new topics on the Underground.
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Well, first of all, check out podcast Jocko podcast number 537. It's called what's Going On? Because we really kind of go in depth on this. Because the bottom line is that everything is a headline right now. Everything is spun. They need News. They got 24 hour news cycles, they need news. And in order to get you to pay attention to the news, they give you the most emotional headlines that they can. And the most emotional headlines, the easiest emotions to utilize is, number one, fear. It's the easiest one, make people afraid. Number two, anger. Those are the. Those are the two easiest things to get you spun up and get you emotional. So everything is catastrophic. Everything. Everything is. Everything is a breaking news story, everything's an urgent report, everything's a major update, everything's an important announcement. Everything is a developing story. Everything. And one of the metaphors that I made on podcast 537 is imagine that you're announcing an MMA or you're watching an MMA fight, and the MMA fight starts and the two fighters go to the center of the cage and one of them throws a jab and misses. And now imagine that the announcer goes, oh my gosh, he missed that jab. He's doomed. His strategy is terrible. I can't believe he didn't train properly. His. His coach is an idiot. His career is over because the guy missed one jab. We all know that the one jab means almost nothing in a fight. Almost not nothing, but almost nothing. And yet the headline from the MMA announcer is that he missed the jab. And he's doomed. Well, that's what we see in the news all the time. We see just catastrophic emotional headlines blown out of proportion. And by the way, the first report is always wrong and so is the second report and so is the third report and so is the fourth report. They're all wrong as individual headlines, as individual reports. They're all wrong because they're only one perspective. It takes time to gather a bunch of different perspectives and figure, paint a more clear picture. Not a perfect picture, but a more clear picture. And the way that you get more perspectives and you is you give a little bit of time and distance from an event happening. So an easy way to give yourself a little bit of time and give the news a little bit of time to sort itself out is you don't need to check the news every five minutes. You don't even need to check it every 10 minutes, you don't even need to check it every hour. You, you don't even need to check it every 24 hours. You don't, nothing's going to happen that's going to impact you in the, in the news in the next 24 hours. Okay? You want to check it every once, every 24 hours, fine. Once a day, 7 o' clock at night, give yourself 15 minutes to figure out what the hell is going on in the world. And by the way, 99.9% of the time, none of it's going to impact you at all. And listen, things that can and are going to impact you, guess what? They will start to rise to the surface and you'll start to see them every day. So instead of getting lost amongst the bullshit catastrophic headlines that get thrown up, don't allow that to happen. Just check your news once a day for 15 minutes. If it's that crazy of a catastrophic situation, you're going to hear about it again tomorrow and the next day and the next day. But most of the things you won't hear, you'll hear about them one day and you won't hear about them again. It's a 24 hour news cycle. They make up a bullshit headline every 20 minutes. Catastrophic, crazy fear mongering headline is coming at you. So check the news, check some, check some right wing, check some left wing sources, check some conservative sources, check some liberal sources and don't believe any of them because they're all full of shit. Just, you know, get some, try and try and see if there's any facts in these stories. But you won't know that. You won't know the truth in the facts, the way that you do is over time, time and distance from stories, you'll have an idea, an idea of what happened. You won't know exactly. We still don't even know what happened. In major events, we don't know what happened. Less news is more news. So that's what I'd say. Don't, don't get bogged down in the stuff. It's all, it's all data. It's all just little data points. Not true. Not facts, just data. Just, it's just, it's just highlights from different sources. But I don't know, some big trustworthy person that's out there that's telling it like it is. I don't know. So don't listen to any of them. Listen to all of them. Don't listen to any of them. That's what I would say.
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Yeah, that over indexing nowadays on the entertainment, which I, I respect that it exists. I understand that kind of deviates from like the ideal. As far as what you're saying, how. Yeah, you want it, you need info on some, on stuff that's happening in the world. You need the info, that's one thing. But when you want to, when you turn on the news, that's something else.
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It's entertainment.
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Yeah.
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As you point out very often to me, stuff the stuff that you're watching in your phone and on your tv, it's all entertainment. I don't care what they call it. It's entertainment.
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You know, it's sadly ironic, I guess, in a matter of speaking, is the entertainment part of it works. And I said it, it works. And I mean this, where if they don't make it entertainment, if they don't make the headline like stimulate you in that way or whatever, a lot of times we'll be like, oh, that's boring, of course, bro, I'm not gonna look.
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Of course.
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So it kind of defeats the whole purpose of the news in a way. You see what I'm saying?
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Well, yeah,
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it's like, it's almost like the news channel becomes ineffective because no one's gonna watch. You see what I'm saying? So it's kind of like they have to do it. See what I'm saying? So it's like a little catch 22. It's kind of like, oh, I hate when they do that. But they have to do it, otherwise I ain't gonna watch it. So it's like, bro, what are you even talking about? You know, not this guy. But I'm just saying you know, E
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from Maddos, he, he's got his little video YouTube podcast called the Overwatch with Ephraim Mattis. And it's totally good to go. I like it. He's very unemotional about the whole thing. He's kind of just stating the facts. He's a conservative guy, so you're going to get a conservative slant to it. But like, he's. I, I like, I like what he's doing right now. Yeah, you know, that's cool. It's solid. Check out A from Mattis. Mattos Overwatch.
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Right on. Cool.
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Don't get too crazy on the news. It's not news, it's entertainment. Remember that?
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Remember that? Or if you really want to get nuts as far as like. No, no, I just want the facts straight up. Like, stop filtering, stop polluting these factual things with like your opinion and spin and take and all this stuff. Just go and chat GPT.
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GPT has spin, bro.
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No, no. But if you ask it not to have any spin, you say, hey, just give me the facts of this case. You think it'll just. You think there's a. It's, it'll do spin. Just.
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I've seen all kinds of bias in chat GPT for sure.
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Yeah, yeah. So, but if you. From my experience, I don't look into that kind of stuff, like news and, you know, that whole thing. But if I say, hey, don't sugarcoat this thing, because I understand it. Sugarcoat stuff just by default.
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Have you seen the guy on Instagram that like, has conversations with AI and it just seems so stupid? It's really funny. The guy just like, asks it questions and the way that AI responds. So that is a little excerpt of what we are doing on the Jocko Underground podcast. So if you want to continue to listen, go to jockounderground.com and subscribe. And we're doing this. We're doing this to mitigate our reliance on external platforms so we are not subject to their control. And we are doing this so that we can support the Jocko podcast, which will remain as is free for all as long as we can keep it that way. But we are doing this so we don't have to be under the control of sponsors. And we're doing it so we can give you more control, more interaction, more direct connections, better communications with us. And to do that, we're building a website right now where we'll be able to utilize to strengthen this legion of troopers that are in the game with us. So thank you. It's Jocko underground.com It costs $8.18 a month and if you can't afford to support us, we can still support you. Just email assistance@jocko underground.com and we'll get you taken care of. Until then, we will see you mobilized Underground.
In this episode, Jocko Willink and Echo Charles tackle the big question: “Is it even possible to find the actual truth in today's modern media landscape?” Responding to a listener's query, they dig into the challenges of staying informed without falling prey to divisive headlines, big tech censorship, and constant emotional manipulation from 24/7 news cycles. The discussion explores how to discern facts, stay disciplined, and maintain perspective in a world where media is as much about entertainment as information.
Jocko and Echo ultimately stress that getting the full truth from modern media is next to impossible in the short term—the best defense is disciplined news consumption, expanding your sources without believing any one outlet, allowing time for stories to settle, and remembering that most headlines are entertainment, not urgent fact. For those seeking more perspective, try fact-focused independent voices like “Overwatch”, and explore tech tools like AI, but always with a critical eye for bias and entertainment creep.