I believe the last time I actually sat down and consumed news from my TV was live coverage of 9/11. Before that, my memories of MSM exposure was limited to listening to Fox News and CNN blaring several rooms down as my near-deaf stepdad tried to watch the news when I tried to sleep at night.
Thinking for myself has only ever brought me trouble, especially in school many years ago. My senior Civics teacher was one of the best teachers I had. He taught the Bill of Rights/Constitution, distinguished between the branches of government and military, made us spend a week sitting in on actual court hearings, and I appreciated what he was doing to an extent.
But I remember one day I was sitting in his class, on the verge of failing it (and as a consequence repeating my senior year), and he addressed me in the class, asking me a question. He asked me about a detail of a court case and I told him. In front of the entire class, he addressed my by my full name and asked me why, if I could remember that, that I can't remember anything he said in class, and why I was close to failing. He also called me a loser and asked me if I was going to go through life like that, never having a girlfriend and exploded into some bizarre personal attacks on my character.
I told him that I wasn't concerned with his teachings because what he taught didn't ultimately matter, that rights were illusions and contrary to operating within the system he spent the entire semester describing, our politicians and authority figures routinely skirted and outright violated the tenets of the American system. I told him there are two things to take from this class; one is the idea of something as it should be, and there is the reality of what it is, and the idea is only good if people recognize its violation and wish to maintain it.
He sent me to detention for 3 days because of that. But he never addressed me again and our final was to recite the preamble and constitutional amendments in front of the class. Which I did and he passed me.
But that was my time in school from kindergarten to senior year. A straight D/C student.