Trying to Obtain Use from Basically Useless Resources

Like squeezing water from a rock, some of the media resources surrounding me offer little hope of positive, constructive use...yet in almost all of them there can be opportunities for enlightenment and application if I just apply myself and face the challenge of plowing through mostly meaningless...and often downright dishonest...drivel.  Take conservative talk radio, for example.  Shows like Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin and Michael Savage depend on listeners plugging their brains into them for two to three hours daily and putting their own independent thinking to sleep as they voluntarily submit themselves to the hosts' brainwashing...but I don't have to go down that path: I can be a discerning listener, noticing when the host is being demagogic or dishonest and when he or she is expressing a reasonable opinion worth considering.  In almost every opinion show on radio or TV, be they from a conservative or liberal perspective, there is something worthwhile...even if it only is to figure out why certain individuals around me are believing the weird things they believe.  Still, with this I wouldn't rely on any of them as my primary source for news. As for other areas, I am regularly receiving company and union periodicals in the mail...I survey each of them and quickly dispose of them: maybe a little more intensive examination might reveal a useful tidbit of information I could use.  As for politicians, it's always a useful intellect and character-building exercise to take the ones I support and look for things to criticize while taking those I oppose and looking for something to praise.  Such an exercise doesn't create uncertainty within me, but rather strengthens my arguments pro and con about the issues and those espousing their positions on them.  In browsing through old newspapers online from years gone by, I have noticed that not only do editorial page columns provide insights into the time period being investigated, but also how regular articles are written, as well as advice columns, advertisements, the classifieds, entertainment section...and even the comic strips.  In a world in which the different political and self-identification factions of the population are bubbling themselves off into insulated spheres of feedback loops, each with their own "alternative facts" and subjective realities, I think it would be healthy for each of us to take at least one day every week or two (or month) and just immerse ourselves...as honestly and empathetically as possible...in the "opposition" bubble.  And also try to find some educational or useful experience in everything we encounter, even if it's generally regarded as junk...