81–90 of 96 posts
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Block all ads and (try to) burn the whole fetid industry to the ground.
I specifically block ads on clickbait news sites. It would be great if somebody maintained a blocklist that awarded good reporting.
I think modern journalism is like application development at a startup, except with even less QA. "Get it out!!! Get it out!!!" And since people will forget about the article in a few days anyway, as long as nobody who knows better and knows how to make the right noise about it and has enough energy, time, and incentive to actually do so reads it and starts the correction ball rolling, it's just, kinda... there. Arch…
In a world where commercial advertisers are the only source of income (because no one will pay subscription fees anymore, and classified sections are obsolete), it's all about viewership, all about eyeballs. You get eyeballs by making outrageous claims and exaggerations (and engaging in other methods to exploit the subconscious processes of the human mind). You can then return to your advertisers and say "Look, I got 20k pageviews for that article yesterday, and all 20k saw your ad. Keep paying and I can make it happen again tomorrow."
For this reason, highly-polarizing or controversial pieces are extremely common. The media outlets have profit incentive to get two or more large groups at each others' throats, because it means each party is watching their content more often and more intently, which means when a disaster primarily of their own making occurs, they can go back to advertisers and say "We had a record month in June!", excluding the further explanation "because so many people died in violent ways, occasionally because of the false information we reported to get more viewers".
We have to make it so that viewership stops being the most important thing. People are too easy to exploit and hijack for the most-viewed to be a good source. Most often, the most heavily viewed articles will be extremely controversial and will get tons of people who agree coming to bask in the glory of self-congratulation and tons who almost-violently disagree coming to pick apart the arguments and seek ammunition for counterpoints. Both sides see ads when they do this, which means more revenue for the publisher, which means more incentive to produce divisive content.
We need to find a way to fix the perverse incentives in media. As long as its eyeballs-first, it's going to be a circus, because circuses draw attention.
I'd like to know how my drinking behaviour affects my mortality. And how that effect is compared to the consumption of tobacco, marijuana, participating in road traffic, jogging and overwight. While it's clear that alcohol is not particular healthy, I feel the risk is negligible compared to other common behaviours. I like alcohol very much and I'd like to make a informed decision about it. But i dearly miss the curia…
> I like alcohol very much Could I ask what you actually like about it? I used to be a moderate drinker but a few years ago I just thought "what's the point?". The only reason why I drank was because my friends drank, and nearly all the times I met my friends was to drink. Since then I've moved to a different city for work, and I've made new friends with mostly people who don't drink. Yesterday we went to a lake to s…
I think modern journalism is like application development at a startup, except with even less QA. "Get it out!!! Get it out!!!" And since people will forget about the article in a few days anyway, as long as nobody who knows better and knows how to make the right noise about it and has enough energy, time, and incentive to actually do so reads it and starts the correction ball rolling, it's just, kinda... there. Arch…
Newspapers used to have a robust QA mechanism: the profession of copy editing. Wasn't perfect, but they knew generally what they were doing. (My dad used to be one). Guess who goes first in the layoffs. Any discussion of the state of modern journalism has to acknowledge that newspapers are hemorrhaging cash and lashing out with desperate, short-term plays to try to keep breathing until next quarter. In your software…
What I find interesting (perhaps confusing is the better word for me) is that the other article from a few days ago that proclaimed drinking leads to cancer didn't mention that the moderate drinkers have fewer risk factors than the control group of abstainers. (The OP article does indicate the result, however.) So what is it? Is moderate drinking helping? Or is it the lifestyle of moderation helping? From the Nationa…
If you're worried about cancer you should reduce your alcohol consumption to less than about one drink per day.
The definition of "one drink" is a bit confusing.
There are other things that are more important: stop smoking and be careful in the sun are the two obvious ones.
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Social science is quite bad. Reporters on, KQED for example, will cite a single study to bolster their opinion on something. It'll go along the lines of, "UC Davis ran a study which concluded giving money directly to the homeless with no strings attached had the best results". But they won't say how many people were involved, what other studies this was compared to, how it was conducted, were there studies with oppos…
My favorite is when there is a legitimate controversy in the field, and outsiders cherry pick which side to listen to. Person A references a study that just so happens to support his existing opinion. Person B searches and finds a study that contradicts it. Person A finds some criticism of that study and claims it's been "debunked". And so on, back and forth. You end up with 2 sides that believe their opinions have b…
And sometimes there is a consensus and it still doesn't prevent people from finding studies to back up their point of view. Take climate change for instance. When people aren't intellectual honest or have an agenda (e.g. politician), it's not even worth arguing.
That being said, I noticed that while it's pretty easy to find studies about anything, it's more difficult to assess the pertinence of those studies or to know what the current scientific consensus is.
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Not an ad-lover or marketer here, but even in the pre-internet days, ads were how you found out about things you might be interested in buying, an information source, sure, to be taken with a grain of salt. But still I bet if you really trace a purchase, even if a friend told you, he most likely saw an ad or a product-based article for selling. In some cases the ads have been put into the articles themselves, like al…
Yes but adverts then had a limited ability to make your life worse. Take something I found annoying then (full page magazine advert) and compare that to a full page auto play advert that sometimes even has extra adverts that are flashing down the sides. It is so hostile that I don't go to those places even with a blocker turned on because anyone who values their content that little doesn't have anything I want to see…
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It is a race to the bottom as long as we value speed over quality. It is a shame too because I think consumers would really prefer quality over speed for software and news, I know I would. But consumption of these things isn't a rational deliberation by the consumer, but a reflex click or don't click. Hence the proliferation of click bait headlines and bs startup promises. I think the key is reputation and branding.…
>It is a race to the bottom as long as we value speed over quality. It is a shame too because I think consumers would really prefer quality over speed for software and news They do but quality is expensive to produce and consumers can't always recognize it consistently.
I think modern journalism is like application development at a startup, except with even less QA. "Get it out!!! Get it out!!!" And since people will forget about the article in a few days anyway, as long as nobody who knows better and knows how to make the right noise about it and has enough energy, time, and incentive to actually do so reads it and starts the correction ball rolling, it's just, kinda... there. Arch…
It is a race to the bottom as long as we value speed over quality. It is a shame too because I think consumers would really prefer quality over speed for software and news, I know I would. But consumption of these things isn't a rational deliberation by the consumer, but a reflex click or don't click. Hence the proliferation of click bait headlines and bs startup promises. I think the key is reputation and branding.…
You're basically describing The Economist here. Go find their coverage of some topic you know well. It might be shallow, it might emphasize the wrong things, but it will very seldom be out and out wrong. I'm not aware of any non-specialist publication I can say that for.
And instead of just "Principle A said 'aaa', principle B said 'bbb'" coverage of foreign events they also provide a bit of historical context of who these people are and what they've been doing. Along with some editorial about who they think is write which I don't always agree with but which is usually understandable at least.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My favorite is when there is a legitimate controversy in the field, and outsiders cherry pick which side to listen to. Person A references a study that just so happens to support his existing opinion. Person B searches and finds a study that contradicts it. Person A finds some criticism of that study and claims it's been "debunked". And so on, back and forth. You end up with 2 sides that believe their opinions have b…
> When in reality the facts are still uncertain and there is no consensus. And sometimes there is a consensus and it still doesn't prevent people from finding studies to back up their point of view. Take climate change for instance. When people aren't intellectual honest or have an agenda (e.g. politician), it's not even worth arguing. That being said, I noticed that while it's pretty easy to find studies about anyth…
So even long after a consensus has formed, they still believe that.