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Things You Notice When You Quit the News

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Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News

#171

Post by Spooky23 »

redsummer wrote: post #20
ssaunier_ wrote: post #6

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.

Sunday New York Times paper edition. There's enough variety in there to keep you busy.

The Economist is good, but it's like the capitalist's NPR. Good content, but it gets a little preachy.

Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News

#172

Post by blhack »

jacalata wrote: post #158
caseysoftware wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is now being talked about as if CNN and MSNBC are somehow the only source of "real" news. I believe that was the intent all along. Blocking the bad ones and blessing the good ones are two sides of the same coin. We seem to think as long as government isn't doing it, it's not "censorship" and no problem. But we learn that time and time again, various governments major tech firms are actively working together. Even m…

Sorry, but there actually are people who admit to writing fake news: http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/11/23/503...

Yes: http://www.nationalenquirer.com/

I mean, obviously: http://www.nationalenquirer.com/photos/barack-michelle-obama...

Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News

#173

Post by nkurz »

leephillips wrote: post #86
gnarbarian wrote: post #28

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…

Eichenwald did not claim that the leaked information was false

When I follow a link from Greenwald's piece I see this tweet that was sent by Eichenwald: "Russian gov manipulates email to @johnpodesta. Publishes disinformation. Takes it down. Trump recites false info." https://twitter.com/kurteichenwald/status/785676641880027136

I interpret "manipulates" as claiming that the emails to Podesta were changed by the Russian government before they were passed to Wikileaks. Referring to them as "disinformation" also claims that the contents of the emails have been modified. And I take "recites false info" to be reiterating once again that the emails are not genuine.

From the outside, it certainly seems that Greenwald is justified in saying that Eichenwald claimed that the emails were fake. But apart from reading this quote, I'm not familiar with the details here. Could you be more specific, and specify a exact quote from Greenwald that you feel is deliberately distorted, and a corresponding quote from Eichenwald that shows the undistorted truth?

Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News

#174

Post by SomeStupidPoint »

tunap wrote: post #142
hrxn wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both sides is not a marketing trick. And comparing this with weather forecasts is a false equivalence.

I believe what parent is claiming is 'both sides' is a black & white gimmick that does not depict the spectrum between two polarized extremes.

I think even more that most issues are multi-dimensional, and you can't even explain it as a spectrum between two extremes -- you can reasonably be in one of a half-dozen different takes on the issue, depending on how you feel about particular aspects or sub-issues.

Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News

#176

Post by nether »

imranq wrote: post #109

TV is one of worst forms of media out there. It is practically the definition of mind control and although there are multiple channels, there is a strange sense of groupthink. This is similar to the Murray Gell-Mann amnesia effect, where famed quark discoverer Murray Gell-Mann opens the newspaper and reads a physics article. He is disgusted at the lack of research, the blatant misinformation, and random theories disg…

Social news online is even worse. At least with TV, there's a chance you'll be shown something from outside of your bubble. Polarization increased with deregulation of TV political coverage in the US. The internet has never been regulated in such a way, and has given rise to hyper-polarization.

Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News

#178

Post by nether »

elsonrodriguez wrote: post #148
blhack wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Not only that, I used to be a commercial pilot, and I could not believe the amount of disinformation and outright ridiculous theories being bandied about by so called 'reputable' news sources. This is true every time there is a news story on about anything that somebody around me is an expert on. It's always "what the hell are they talking about!?" I've seen this directly, too. I've been on the local news quite a fe…

What you're describing is Gell-Mann Amnesia: "Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cau…

More people are interested in world events than in science, so it's reasonable to assume a newspaper will set a higher standard of reporting for those events. A journalist who studied political science isn't equally inept at writing on all subjects; he might have some very good insights on politics. Similar to how most HN readers have very little expertise outside of software engineering, and have said some pretty ridiculous things on other fields.

Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News

#179

Post by jomohke »

hrxn wrote: post #127
jomohke wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you're taking it as an absolutist argument ("Why try to avoid refined sugar? It's everywhere, so you're always going to ingest some anyway.") > Not watching CNN won't prevent other CNN-watchers from talking to you. I think a conversation with a CNN-watcher is more interesting when you yourself have read slower sources than if you have both spent your time watching live broadcasts or reading live articl…

> [..] There’s a big difference between watching a half hour of CNN’s refugee crisis coverage (not that they cover it anymore) versus spending that time reading a 5,000-word article on the same topic. In my opinion, in some cases like this, the lengthy thousands word articles are often much worse.

Can you give an example? I suspect you're referring to the same short-term ones the author is deriding, not the journalistic kind that take time to research and prepare.

Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News

#180

Post by caseysoftware »

jacalata wrote: post #158
caseysoftware wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is now being talked about as if CNN and MSNBC are somehow the only source of "real" news. I believe that was the intent all along. Blocking the bad ones and blessing the good ones are two sides of the same coin. We seem to think as long as government isn't doing it, it's not "censorship" and no problem. But we learn that time and time again, various governments major tech firms are actively working together. Even m…

Sorry, but there actually are people who admit to writing fake news: http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/11/23/503...

Yes:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/11/us/correcting-the-record-t...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Duranty

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism

The first two were both NYT journalists - one a Pulitzer Prize winner in 1932 - and the third covers the 1890s, so let's stop acting like it's new, unique, or exists exclusively on one side or the other. This is how much of the modern press started.

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