what to think of this?

I am a history teacher, in all modesty the greatest profession in the world. After all, we are provided almost daily with great new historic fodder for the inquisitive mind. Only looking at the past few years, we have been having a field day with 9-11, various politicians and public figures being assasinated (like Pim Fortuyn and Theo van Gogh), the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the ongoing problems between Israël and the Palestine territories, the Sudan crisis, the revolutions in the Middle East, and the political circus act starring both the Belgian government (or rather, lack thereof) and the Dutch - to name but a few.

One of my standard assignments in the classroom has to do with interpreting sources. We are living in a world were information is zapped around the world in headspinning quantities and speed, and when using sources to research a historical question you need to be able to filter out those that are usable. Which is an important skill in itself. Because especially the internet is teeming with fawlty sources, giving biased, wrong or outdated information. So I ask my students to turn the source around and approach it like a detective.
Who dunnit? Who made this source?  Was it someone who was an eye witness, someone who only read about it, someone who did thorough research, or someone who just picked something from wikipedia and copied it without understanding or checking the information?
To what aim? What is the maker's motive? Is this information meant to  inform, to accuse, to plea, to get you to do something, does it aim to change your mind or what?
Can you find sources that support this one? Or do the exact opposite, are in conflict with this one? Like evidence and c
What did you already know about this subject? Does the new information fit in or clash with your knowledge?

Only after answering all those questions is it possible to form an informed opinion. And it gets even worse when thinking about matters that are on the public's mind - like politics, animal welfare, migration, the economy.
This requires a lot of exercise and even then it is sometimes like swimming in very murky waters. Sometimes there is such an overkill in information and other people's opinions or opinionated media outlets, that it is a mammoth task to answer the seeminly simple question: how do I feel about this?

On the other hand, sometimes you just have to go with your own gut feelings. They can be surprisingly right too, after all...