I know it gets confusing - the sea of voices saying different things; conflicting things. What I do believe, however, is that it gets less confusing when you lose the hero-worship of politicians & pundits and step outside of your personally constructed echo-chamber - I'm not judging you at all, we all have to do it. So, let's judge media based upon the question: who is it for?
Does the media you ingest benefit the same old parties and people - left & right - who refuse to effect meaningful change? Does the media you take in day in and day out, feed the perpetual war machine; do they merely parrot the government lines or do they investigate and read in-between those government lies & lines? Does the media you gravitate towards include dissident voices beholden to righteous & just causes or is it filled with those with status-quo interests and status-quo masters?
Because, you see, this has been the state of media for quite some time. Independent media, true independent media, is meant to counter that - independent media is meant for you. It isn't tethered to corporate or partisan interests; its focus is how to be part of the change that is necessary in society and not an impediment to it.
The MSM is selectively silent and selectively vocal - and in both instances it comes back to hurt and haunt us - ALL of us (i.e. the investigatory silence on weapons of mass destruction/sarin gas attacks in Syria or the swallowing of neo-liberal orthodoxy and policies that leads to crash after crash after crash).
How many times does the Orwellian-octopus have to deceive and mislead us before we reject its influence? And how many times does independent media have to get it right, before you acknowledge that it's looking out for you? Support indie media.