From my own experience I have found a way to distinguish factual reporting from deceptive reporting with regard to areas of the world. In areas where there are few independent journalists, one will find considerable distortion of factual material presented by mainstream media to fit with ruling class interests. This is especially true of stories reported in mainstream news about Africa (see this, this, and this) and North Korea.
There is no limit to the slanders spewed by U.S. corporate media – from so-called journalists to filmmakers to comedians – against North Korea, the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea. “The racist and inaccurate discourse around the DPRK helps justify the almost daily military operations the US backs in South Korea.” The 60-year long propaganda campaign is “part and parcel of the US imperialist agenda to militarize the Asia Pacific.”Of course, this is modified by another consideration: the extent to which the report relates to vital interests of the ruling class. The latter consideration has a major impact on whether any news coverage is provided on any given area in the world. US mainstream media coverage has become so political that almost no coverage is given to stories where US ruling class interests are unaffected. Or, when incidents that happen that are an embarrassment to this class, they may go entirely unreported (for example, see this and this).