Reliable Information?

Where do you guys go for reliable, accurate news information... or information of any kind? I was in a discussion/argument with a guy yesterday, and I got ahead of myself when I referred to Dick Cheney as a war profiteer... I knew I had read a few articles about the matter, but during our discussion I was unable to draw on any real, cite-able, sources. So today, I began a small quest to find out if I was accurate in my assertion...

of course there is ALMOST NO information on the web about Dick Cheney and the Iraq war...

I got sidetracked on my mission for information by the overabundance of opinions disguised as news. Disguised from both sides. The guy is either Jesus returned, or Satan incarnate. I had to step away from the computer. There is just TOO MUCH shit out there. It feels like the internet has leveled the journalistic and scientific playing ground. By that, I mean that I could write a news article or a "scientific" paper about neuroscience (which would be completely inaccurate) and as long as it is articulate enough, and designed slick enough for the web, it would probably be read more than a paper by Rob or Mark... and how is the average American going to know any better?

It begs the question: Who can you trust? Where does "news" come from?

Though I would like to hear your philosophical discussion, I would also like to hear your practical ones. Where do you get your news? Where do you go for authoritative data?

I kinda trust Wikipedia... but even that seems to have a slightly tech savvy, anti-authority leaning... So much power is derived from the control of information. Information used to be controlled by few, but now it is almost free to anyone. So how do we know when some crazy blogger has the truth about some story that the NY Times says never happened? Why do we trust corporate and politically controlled news sources over a person with a computer, and write them off as a conspiracy theorist?

I dunno... it may just be time to buy that ranch in Montana and just completely unplug.