If you’ve walked across the University of Mississippi campus lately, you’ve probably felt it—something in the air that isn’t just southern humidity. It’s the buzz of constant news. Reporters set up cameras on the Grove. Political attack ads interrupt every podcast and streaming break. Group chats are on fire with headlines, rumors, and hot takes. It’s exhausting, and it’s confusing. According to Griffin Armstrong, a freshman political science major from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, the only way to stay above water is skepticism. Not the joyless, trust-nobody kind, but a thoughtful, active questioning of what you’re being told. Misinformation is the barrier to serenity, he argues. It is everywhere, from national campaigns to local stories. If you don’t learn to separate the real from the fake, you’ll be tossed around by every wave of outrage. This essay is a plea for discernment. It starts with a simple realization: not every story is true just because it looks polished. Not every headline is backed by evidence. Not every account is complete. The news is a business, a political weapon, and a source of entertainment all at once. That means it should never be swallowed whole. Armstrong isn’t suggesting that everyone become paranoid. He’s saying that the first defense against misinformation is the willingness to pause. To ask who made this, why they made it, and what they want you to feel. When students are surrounded by attack ads, the temptation is to tune everything out. But tuning out is also dangerous. The answer isn’t indifference; it’s vigilance. You can’t stop the noise, but you can change your relationship to it. You can learn to listen with a critical ear, to notice emotional manipulation, to wait for evidence before deciding. That is what he means by skepticism. It’s not a personality trait; it’s a practice.
Armstrong applies this mindset to the world of campaigns. From homecoming elections to the national midterms, candidates and causes make promises. Some of those promises are real. Many will never be thought of again once the votes are counted. The challenge is knowing which is which. He says people will say things that are false or irrelevant because they believe the audience isn’t paying close enough attention. That’s a strange but common calculation: if you can get away with a lie, why not use it? This is why Armstrong urges us to be the people who are paying attention, to call out nonsense when we see it, and to stand up for facts. It’s not about being aggressive or self-righteous. It’s about refusing to let falsehoods pass unexamined. When someone repeats an unverified claim in class, in a group chat, or at dinner, you can ask a simple question: where did you see that? That small act can change the dynamic. It forces the conversation back to evidence. But skepticism must be balanced with receptivity. The quickest route to ignorance is to close your mind entirely. If you approach every article, speech, or person with the assumption that it’s all a lie, you’ll miss the truth that’s right in front of you. Armstrong says it well: don’t go through life proclaiming that everything is a lie. Be open. But be ready to test. This balance is hard, especially in a world that rewards strong opinions and quick judgments. It’s much easier to pick a side and defend it than to hold a question open. But the open question is where learning happens. In a democracy, citizens are supposed to evaluate information and choose leaders accordingly. If we don’t do that work, we get the leaders we deserve. We also get the news we deserve.
The classroom is a particularly concerning setting, according to Armstrong. On one hand, many professors teach the importance of keeping an open mind. On the other, some instructors are themselves resistant to narratives that conflict with their beliefs. This is a delicate issue. Students are expected to respect authority, and professors are experts in their fields. But expertise isn’t infallibility. If a professor presents a biased view as the only possible view, that is not education; it’s indoctrination. Armstrong cautions students to be skeptical of what they hear in the classroom. He’s not saying everyone should assume their teachers are brainwashing them. He’s saying that a genuine education demands active engagement, not passive absorption. You can respect a professor’s knowledge while still asking for evidence. You can appreciate a professor’s passion while noticing when they rely on emotional appeals rather than data. You can be a good student and still disagree. The classroom is supposed to be a place for debate, inquiry, and critical thinking. If the goal is to keep an open mind, then every perspective should be open to examination, including the perspectives of professors. Armstrong encourages students to trust but verify. The best instructors will welcome this. They’ll say, that’s a great question, let’s look at the evidence. The ones who don’t might feel threatened. But that’s their problem, not yours. Learning is not about finding a comfortable echo chamber. It’s about developing the tools to think for yourself. And those tools get stronger through use. So when a lecturer makes a sweeping claim, write it down. Ask for sources. Imagine the counterargument. That’s not disrespect; it’s the whole point of a university. In a time when everything is polarized, the ability to examine your own beliefs is rare. The classroom can be the last place where difficult conversations are possible. But only if students are allowed to question.
To make his point concrete, Armstrong recounts a recent story from Oxford. On September 24, Fox News published the account of a University of Mississippi student. She said she had been mistreated by the Oxford Police Department after claiming she had been drugged at a bar on the Square. The article quoted her as saying students were “scared to leave” their homes and dorms. That phrase ended up in the headline. The implication was that the campus had descended into chaos and that police had abandoned an endangered student. It was a shocking story. It was also uncorroborated. The student’s statements had not been checked, and the police department had a very different account. In a statement released later, OPD said that the available video did not support the claim that she was abandoned or left alone. Instead, the officers assisted her, took her situation seriously, and made sure she got home safely. According to police, she was able to say where she was going and was okay, though she was intoxicated. Fox News eventually added the OPD statement to the article, but it was placed at the end, after the dramatic narrative had already done its work. Armstrong uses this example to show how a one-sided story can spread before the facts come out. The initial report made students feel unsafe and made the whole town look bad. But the truth was more complicated. The student may have felt scared and alone. The officers may have handled it differently than she expected. Both things can be true. But the media’s job is to sort out the reality, not to choose the most sensational angle. When a story is designed to trigger fear, watch out. Before sharing it, ask: is there another version? Has anyone else confirmed this? What did the official record say? If you can’t answer those questions, you’re not ready to share.
Armstrong also reminds us that large news companies are, at their core, businesses. They make money from ratings, views, and clicks. No one gets an extra paycheck for being one hundred percent correct. That is a hard truth. We want to believe that reporters are searching for the truth, and many of them are. But the structure of the industry rewards the dramatic, the emotional, the outrageous. A story that makes you angry will get shared. A correction buried at the bottom won’t. An algorithm will show you more of what you engage with. If you click on the scary story, the next thing you see will be even scarier. This is why media literacy is so important. Armstrong says to keep that in mind when listening to the reporter on your For You page. You need to understand the incentives that produced the content. Another local example drives the point home. The American Kratom Association reprimanded local law enforcement for announcing that packaged kratom was found at the scenes of two student deaths. In reality, the substance found was Smax Pseudo-DHM, a synthetic, kratom-like product. That distinction might seem technical, but it matters. Kratom is a botanical substance; Smax Pseudo-DMH is a synthetic compound. Confusing them creates misinformation about what happened and what the dangers are. Mac Haddow, senior fellow of public policy for the AKA, said the organization wanted to hold the Oxford Police Department and the Lafayette County Sheriff’s Department accountable for the confusion. This story didn’t get the same attention as the Fox News article, but it illustrates the same problem: even official sources can be careless with facts. If law enforcement can get a substance wrong, who can you trust? The answer isn’t no one. It’s trust, but verify. Check the original documents. Read primary sources. Follow up with other reports. It’s exhausting, but it’s necessary.
In the end, Armstrong acknowledges that the news is often a game of “he said, she said.” The real truth is buried somewhere in the middle. It can be a tall order to ask average people with jobs, or students with homework, to take the time to sort, wash, and fold the laundry of information. But he insists it is our duty. We have to search for the truth wherever it might be. This is not an abstract ideal. It is a survival strategy. If we rely on others to tell us what to think, we will be manipulated. If we refuse to think at all, we will be at the mercy of anyone with a camera and a microphone. Skepticism is the life jacket. But it’s not the only tool. We also need humility, curiosity, and courage. We need to admit when we don’t know. We need to change our minds when the evidence changes. We need to defend facts even when they’re inconvenient. Armstrong represents a generation that has grown up with the internet, social media, and twenty-four-hour news. He knows how hard it is to find clarity. But he’s not giving up. His call is for all of us to be shrewder, more attentive, and more willing to challenge the narratives we’re given. As he prepares for a career in political science, he’s practicing what he preaches. And his message is simple: the madness isn’t going away. But we don’t have to drown. We can learn to swim, one skeptical question at a time. That is the most human response to a dehumanizing information environment. We are not passive consumers. We are thinkers. And thinkers have a responsibility to be exact. The truth may be buried, but it’s not gone. Keep digging. Stay open. Be brave. That’s how you stay afloat when the news is crashing all around you.