There was an interesting thread in reddit's /r/AskHistorians about common mistakes amateur historians make, and the top comment was this
> Valuing primary sources over secondary, and first person accounts over records.
Primary sources are great in that they are created in or near the moment; however, the lack the scope and broader understanding hindsight provides to secondary sources.
First person accounts are great until you start accounting for perspective bias, mirror imaging, qui bono, intended audience, and time between experience and narration; all of these can have drastic effects on first person accounts.
Now, the context of the OP is less about history and more about contemporary events, but the key point here is that there is different value in primary vs secondary sources, and that primary sources aren't always categorically better.
As a personal example, I grew up not knowing a lot of racist dog whistles that some politicians use, something I would have missed if I had only read or listened to the primary source (ie the politician). Having secondary sources interpret and explain things was highly valuable to me.
However, the OP also has a really good point that sometimes these secondary sources can't always be fully trusted. It's a tough epistemological problem about who and what you can trust, interleaved with social influences, mass media, and personal worldview.
And I didn't do a good enough pointing out that my complaint was focused on mainstream news media as the secondary source, not expert commentary.
I don't think primary sources are some be-all, end-all, standalone authority. I'm just concerned that mainstream news media is so many layers abstracted from them, but people rely on them as though they have some sort of firm enough grounding in "reality" to support a worldview.
> Valuing primary sources over secondary, and first person accounts over records. Primary sources are great in that they are created in or near the moment; however, the lack the scope and broader understanding hindsight provides to secondary sources. First person accounts are great until you start accounting for perspective bias, mirror imaging, qui bono, intended audience, and time between experience and narration; all of these can have drastic effects on first person accounts.
See the whole thread here: https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/16d474n/what...
Now, the context of the OP is less about history and more about contemporary events, but the key point here is that there is different value in primary vs secondary sources, and that primary sources aren't always categorically better.
As a personal example, I grew up not knowing a lot of racist dog whistles that some politicians use, something I would have missed if I had only read or listened to the primary source (ie the politician). Having secondary sources interpret and explain things was highly valuable to me.
However, the OP also has a really good point that sometimes these secondary sources can't always be fully trusted. It's a tough epistemological problem about who and what you can trust, interleaved with social influences, mass media, and personal worldview.