131–140 of 502 posts
I thought that "quitting the news" meant not consuming news, not simply abstaining from watching TV. At this point I feel like watching news programs is more unusual than not.
~15 years ago, we abandoned this to spend our free time sharing Buzzfeed quizzes with one another.
Must-(re)read: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews - it was 10 years ago.
He mentions: "instead of reading the back and forth of a daily, why not read a weekly review? Instead of a weekly review, why not read a monthly magazine? Instead of a monthly magazine, why not read an annual book?" Can anyone recommend such a weekly or monthly review? One that isn't particularly ideological. It would save so much time.
I haven't had a TV in the house for nearly 8 years now, and don't miss it at all. The biggest problem to me, seems to be the 24 hour news cycle for things like wars, elections and the like. I was visiting friends during a couple of major air accidents in the past couple of years (The MH370 and MH17 incidents in particular), and was astounded at the propensity for news stations on ALL channels to fill every minute of…
In general, I agree with everything you said. However, > No thanks. I would rather control my own news firehose, and be selective about the information that I want to learn more about. My worry is: Isn't this what caused the fake news / misinformation silos? By being selective about our information sources, aren't we distancing ourselves from how a majority of the world lives and thinks? And as product developers (as…
For instance, I absolutely loathe 'celebrity news', but most main news sites here that I go to have at least one or two articles on rubbish like that as their lead, and I have to dig to find the stuff that is relevant to me.
To use the example of air accidents above - I rarely find out anything useful that I want to know from popular news sources. Of course, I hear about the incidents on them, but when I want to dive deep, I go to specialist forums or sites where people in the know are talking about it.
Similarly for mundane things like sport. If I want to find out more about, say, Formula 1 races, I will visit certain sites that I know have motor heads discussing things. That way I can learn about future car developments, driver contracts etc. Mainstream sports news seems to want to talk about dirt and gossip for just a handful of drivers.
Must-(re)read: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews - it was 10 years ago.
He mentions: "instead of reading the back and forth of a daily, why not read a weekly review? Instead of a weekly review, why not read a monthly magazine? Instead of a monthly magazine, why not read an annual book?" Can anyone recommend such a weekly or monthly review? One that isn't particularly ideological. It would save so much time.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The whole FUD campaign regarding "Fake News" is comically hypocritical in my opinion. Glenn Greenwald has an excellent article calling them out for it: https://theintercept.com/2016/12/09/a-clinton-fan-manufactur... Edit: Ironically, that post was doing great until it got flagged. Edit 2: It has been unflagged Edit 3: Flagged again.
Greenwald's "excellent" piece is itself fake news. It deliberately misrepresents the reporting done by Kurt Eichenwald about the leaked emails. We know it's deliberate because he's distorted the story the same way in the past and it's been pointed out to him. Eichenwald did not claim that the leaked information was false, but showed, to a high degree of certainty, that Trump campaign staffers were working with Russia…
The instances of so-called "fake news" that I have seen are quite easy for me to "verify" as fake with relative confidence: it's generally an explicitly partisan source with a shady-looking website making an outlandish claim that is not corroborated by any traditional news outlet. The situation you've just described sounds much more difficult for me to verify.
I depend on NPR and PBS for the news. It might not be the most impartial source when it comes to U.S. involved foreign affairs but it is much better that all the rest that's available.