when you quit the news you don't remember or know about the horrible track record of a certain party and ideology and elect it back into power. but hey, lets celebrate ignorance and have everyone learn everything from headlines on facebook.
Things You Notice When You Quit the News
231–240 of 502 posts
Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News
#232Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Economist also has a fairly evident political agenda.
Has The Economist shifted? I started reading it in about 2000, and at the time I really liked it because it seemed so intelligent and neutral. It seemed like such a pleasure to read something that went deep into interesting topics without an obvious axe to grind. In the past ten years it seems to have drifted gradually leftward. Sometimes I can't reconsile The Economist of 2000 with the one of 2016. Did The Economist…
[deleted]
Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News
#233I unplugged my antenna almost two years ago. The only time i switch the TV on is when i wanna watch a movie on a bigger screen -- but i only connect my laptop to it. The antenna is cut right through.
There were a couple of moments when i was exposed to news. I couldn't believe it's this much manipulated and in your face sensationalist. Watching this everyday must be toxic as hell.
I spend lots of time on the internet though, so it's not like am disconnected. I just dodge the most vulgar of manipulations (i hope).
Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News
#234Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
My favourite example of this is the Economist news magazine. The Economist reports on a much larger range of country and topics than the typical magazine or newspaper. Many of its readers like it for that exact reason: it gives them information on stories they won't normally find in their local or national news sources and they want to be informed about, say, hydroelectric developments in the Congo. The problem is th…
My experience is the opposite. And I'm definitely not blind to the Gell-Mann Amnesia, I notice it on Wikipedia all the time. I've noticed that in The Economist the articles about my field of technology, work, and my small home country, have been accurate to the point that I suspect they have had experts in the field involved in creating them. That gives me confidence in the articles about issues I'm not intimately fa…
Interesting. My own area of knowledge is renewable energy, a topic which appears with moderate frequency in TE. I would say 8/10 articles are merely repackaging reports published by major global consultancies like McKinsey, Navigant, etc. that I had seen two or three months earlier through my employer (a large multinational energy company). I would not say the information is not correct, but it hardly insightful and often presents an incomplete picture which looks at the industry primarily from the perspective of financiers.
Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News
#236IMHO, a lot of what is in the OP is correct, but I conclude that a more nuanced view is important. Yes, I have long wanted, and still want, to know what is important, both to me personally and more generally, about what is going on in the world so still make efforts to be so "informed". Then, over time, I went through much of the negative views about news in the OP: (1) One summer while in college, I was with my pare…
Is there a reason you decided to single out the NYT at the end of your post? Is it due to its frequency of its reference here on HN?
I like your idea of archiving and summarizing articles you find interesting and meaningful. I've thought of doing something similar but, like many things, have never gotten around to it.
Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News
#237Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Economist is a good weekly review; the stories are very short but the information density is high.
The problem I have with the economist is they mix opinion into almost everything they report. It's a very British aristocratic opinion. I can almost hear the exaggerated accent sometimes when reading it, like it's a Monty Python skit. I find it annoyingly predictable and somewhat patronizing to the reader.
That's a bit vague. "Can be read in an exaggerated British accent" (whatever you're imagining there) is not an ideological position.
Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
My favourite example of this is the Economist news magazine. The Economist reports on a much larger range of country and topics than the typical magazine or newspaper. Many of its readers like it for that exact reason: it gives them information on stories they won't normally find in their local or national news sources and they want to be informed about, say, hydroelectric developments in the Congo. The problem is th…
Reading the above quote from Micheal Chrichton, I immediately thought about The Economist and how they are usually well informed. I remember a short article on some legal case in rap music. I used to be very into rap, and while I didn't learn a lot from the article it did confirm that the writers take it very seriously whatever topic they are reporting on.
I stopped reading TE because I was put off by their too steadfast belief in monetarism as the be it end all. To their credit, they are pretty upfront about that though.
Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News
#239This is incredibly relevant to me rn. I recently cut the cord and quit FB. I legitimately do feel much happier. My FB feed was just a stream of things to get pissed about and MSNBC was just filling my head with other people's opinions. Here's my daily routine: skim thehill.com, politico.com, reddit.com/r/news for headlines zerohedge.com when I want to see what's going on in right-wing land newsblok.com if I want to s…
I find realclearpolitics.com to be a broad slice of articles and videos from "both sides", as well as holding actual raw polling data when questionably sounding statistics are being bandied about. It also links to other non-political news in other areas, showing the major splash headlines. Its front page is also very information dense, so it's a lot more efficient than hitting all those sites individually. I believe…
[deleted]
Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News
#240I've always thought that reading the news is only informing you of the very recent events, but by doing so, you lose the context of what is really important, which is the opposite of how history works.
One way to be better informed would be to read a daily digest of world history and contemporary geography. I often watch a german/french short TV show called "Le dessous des cartes" (translates to "Under the Maps"). This show is fabulous, because it explain a lot of political, economical and geographical context to explain the world and specific countries and their problems. It's backed up by scientific data, but is also able to do some geo-political analysis. I have not found any equivalent in the Anglo-saxon world.
Once you know about the basics of what countries have what regimes, their economies, their history, you realize you learn nothing by reading the news.