Things You Notice When You Quit the News • Hacker News Board

Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News

#451

Post by kevinml » Mon, Dec 12, 2016, 7:45 PM UTC

bshimmin wrote: post #261

I can't really get onboard with this. A lot of the comments here, and the commentary in the article itself, talk about how depressing the news is, how biased it is, about Gell-Mann amnesia -- and they're all right. But from my own experience, the people I know who don't follow the news (either at all, or extremely minimally) are spectacularly ill-informed; they get their news either third-hand (which suffers from all…

Yeah...this is how you have an even less-informed electorate. I follow the news because seeing what goes on helps shape my political views and decide how to vote. Not just for the president either. And not just to vote, I want to know if my congressman is doing something shady or damaging so I can make my voice heard with a phone call or email. Just saying "all news is bullshit" is horribly lazy.

Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News

#452

Post by kevinml » Mon, Dec 12, 2016, 7:48 PM UTC

wu-ikkyu wrote: post #392

bshimmin wrote: post #261

I can't really get onboard with this. A lot of the comments here, and the commentary in the article itself, talk about how depressing the news is, how biased it is, about Gell-Mann amnesia -- and they're all right. But from my own experience, the people I know who don't follow the news (either at all, or extremely minimally) are spectacularly ill-informed; they get their news either third-hand (which suffers from all…

>operate with only the sketchiest understanding of what's happening in the world. What sort of practical utility do you gain from being "informed" by "the news"? Could you give an example or two of how being informed by the news made you operate differently in your day to day life?

I vote with an informed mind of what's going on in my community.

Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News

#453

Post by badminton1 » Mon, Dec 12, 2016, 7:55 PM UTC

This is selective ignorance, and all people do it to some extent. An extreme example would be when you eat a bacon sandwich, or when you walk through a street without stray animals. You don't want to know exactly how it happened, for the sake of your own mental well being.

Now, what if everyone was selectively ignorant regarding news? Public opinion is a major deterrent for a lot of things. In great part net neutrality has been maintained thanks to pushback from the community. That is only one example, there are many many more.

Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News

#454

Post by ufmace » Mon, Dec 12, 2016, 7:59 PM UTC

DonaldFoss wrote: post #374

cyberferret wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It definitely is frightening at times. And frustrating at all other times too. I remember when news articles reported all the known facts up front, or they would do some research to post base facts. Talking about air accidents above, I remember when the first lines of a news article would contain the location, info on the airline as well as the aircraft type, departure and destination information etc. But it appears…

You hit the proverbial "nail on the head." Before 24/7 news channels and online access, the rush to "scoop" another newspaper still had a 16-hour cycle due to daily print runs. The infamous incorrect front page presidential election result made editors back up and double check things before rushing a story, but it didn't last long. Many years later, Dan Rather lost his job for not fact checking before reporting somet…

The Rather case really changed my view on the mainstream media. It isn't just that they went on-air with something without any fact checking, which even the most cursory fact-checking would show to be fabricated, because it fit the narrative that they wanted to tell. It's that not only them, but the entire rest of the mainstream media, continued to defend it, even as the evidence accumulated that it was not only fake, but a really lazy, badly-done fake. Aren't these companies supposed to be in competition? Shouldn't they call each other out for blatantly biased, shoddy journalism? I guess pushing their chosen narrative is more important than that.

Really makes you wonder how many other con jobs they've tried to sell us, before the tools existed for independent parties to get their own research out to the public. And now they're telling us to beware of "fake news", as if they haven't been publishing it themselves for decades at least.

Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News

#455

Post by eutropia » Mon, Dec 12, 2016, 8:00 PM UTC

I think the movie Nightcrawler(2014) really nailed that creepy feeling I get from TV News. There's an aura of desperation, of lowest-common-denominator, hits-you-in-the-amygdala kinds of coverage. "

Nina: We find our viewers are more interested in urban crime creeping into the suburbs. What that means is a victim, or victims, preferably well off and white, injured at the hands of the poor or minority.

Lou Bloom(Jake Gyllenhaal): Just crime?

Nina: No, accidents play, cars, busses, trains, planes, fires

Lou Bloom: But bloody

Nina: Well, graphic, the best and clearest way that I can phrase it to you, Lou, to capture the spirit of what we air is think of our newscast as a screaming woman, running down the street with her throat cut.

Lou Bloom: I understand. "

Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News

#456

Post by rm_-rf_slash » Mon, Dec 12, 2016, 8:29 PM UTC

makomk wrote: post #379

trendia wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought this episode was rather funny, because they found that a right wing fake news site was actually run by a liberal who wanted to prove there was right wing fake news (and that it would be shared on social media, which they ensured by spreading it themselves). It turned out to be rather profitable for him.

The part I found hilarious is that there was one particular quote from the NPR coverage which spread like wildfire on social media - the one about how he tried to write fake news for liberals, but it just didn't catch on. Except that when I went looking for more information, one of the first successes I found reference to - via the Denver Post's article[1] about the FBI agent suicide fake - was "ATLANTA OFFICER KILLS…

This reminds me of a joke where an oilman goes to heaven and is warned by St Peter that because there are so many oilmen already in heaven, space for him will be rather limited. The oilman, undeterred, ventures to the oilmen district and proudly proclaims: "OIL DISCOVERED IN HELL!"

Everybody leaves in a mad rush, and soon the oilman is alone with a surprised St Peter who says that he may do as he pleases in this now-empty oilman district of heaven.

The oilman turns to St Peter and says: "You know, there might actually be some truth to that rumor..."

Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News

#457

Post by TeMPOraL » Mon, Dec 12, 2016, 8:30 PM UTC

ssully wrote: post #449

TeMPOraL wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's really really scary to me lately is all of this talk about "fake news", which originally referred to outright lies that were part of click-farms, but is now being talked about as if CNN and MSNBC are somehow the only source of "real" news. I am surprised by that too. This whole "fake news" thing appeared out of thin air around the US election and is reportedly a new phenomenon - as if most of the "regular" n…

The fake news being talked about is actually fake, as in nearly 100% made up with the intention to misinform. It's definitely not new but I saw it way more during the election and it's very different from shittt reporting. Maybe I am misreading you and other posters here, but I am getting the idea that people don't think this is a real thing or that it's no worse then actual news. This shit is real, harmful, and real…

> Maybe I am misreading you and other posters here, but I am getting the idea that people don't think this is a real thing or that it's no worse then actual news.

Can't say for others, but personally, I do believe the phenomenon is real. But I don't see it as something significantly different than "regular" reporting. It's a difference in degree, but not in kind. Regular news already only pays lip service to factual accuracy.

Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News

#458

Post by rm_-rf_slash » Mon, Dec 12, 2016, 8:34 PM UTC

Haul4ss wrote: post #397

wu-ikkyu wrote: post #393

>nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. the real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knolege with the lies of the day. I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens, who, reading newspapers, live & die in the belief that…

To be fair, in Jefferson's time newspapers were overt instruments of a political faction. You started a newspaper to spread your point of view. We have at least a veneer of nonpartisan purpose to the major newspapers of today, although you can argue they still have a bias. Online news/blogs/etc. are more analogous to the newspapers of the early Republic.

There is no such thing as no-bias reporting. For every topic reported on by any given publication, several others are ignored, simply because there is not enough time in the day nor is there advertising revenue to report absolutely everything, and we haven't even started on article lengths or story placement.

Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News

#459

Post by rm_-rf_slash » Mon, Dec 12, 2016, 8:45 PM UTC

Disruptive_Dave wrote: post #336

bshimmin wrote: post #261

I can't really get onboard with this. A lot of the comments here, and the commentary in the article itself, talk about how depressing the news is, how biased it is, about Gell-Mann amnesia -- and they're all right. But from my own experience, the people I know who don't follow the news (either at all, or extremely minimally) are spectacularly ill-informed; they get their news either third-hand (which suffers from all…

I haven't intentionally ingested the "news" in any considerable manner in at least 10 years, probably more. That's by design; I just don't place a premium on it. Time, energy, and attention are all limited resources and I've decided that mine are best utilized in other ways. To the best of my knowledge, I can't say that my life has been negatively impacted at all by this decision. Sure, I'm left out of some cocktail…

>A guy like me turns the "news" on and at best it feels like an advertisement wrapped in a reality show. At worst, it feels like a bunch of young children yelling at each other on a playground.

TV news is the "at worst", but your description of "at best" sums up how I feel about all news better than I could have.

There is something distinctly off-putting about the sheer volume of advertising in news publications. It gives me this subtle sense that to be a "proper citizen" I must: read news; buy things.

I read on Quora from a senior editor at the Economist that the reason they charge the same rate for digital and print subscriptions is that because it's harder to ignore or block the full-page advertisements in the print, they are worth more to the advertiser, and therefore offset the cost of printing and delivering weekly subscriptions.

Isn't it a little weird that we place so much trust in our sources of information which, in turn, (almost) entirely rely on advertising revenue?

Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News

#460

Post by _jdams » Mon, Dec 12, 2016, 8:52 PM UTC

mSparks wrote: post #389

zmb_ wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

yes and no. Ive noticed the economist has a habit of playing policy games. In that case they publish nonsense to further certain policy aims. But often its well researched unbiased material. not that easy to tell the difference. but infinately better than the junk put out by the likes of the bbc fox cnn times etc.

I thought we liked BBC?