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Fear is America’s top-selling consumer product

laphamsquarterly.org

191–200 of 346 posts

Re: Fear is America’s top-selling consumer product

#191
post #37

I'm slowly trimming away the means I acquire news, because it's all becoming so editorialized. Twitter is bombarded with bots and flamewars, reddit is a lost cause, and news.google.com is mainly driven by larger syndications that have mastered the "Big Headlines Sell" strategy. That leaves HN and my little local papers, Mountain View Voice and its ilk. Great for local stories and tech news, but I feel like I'm missin…

I find french news is often much better, but I know and can read french.

Have a jab at Canadian news, its like an in-between in quality.

Re: Fear is America’s top-selling consumer product

#192
post #62
post #37

I'm slowly trimming away the means I acquire news, because it's all becoming so editorialized. Twitter is bombarded with bots and flamewars, reddit is a lost cause, and news.google.com is mainly driven by larger syndications that have mastered the "Big Headlines Sell" strategy. That leaves HN and my little local papers, Mountain View Voice and its ilk. Great for local stories and tech news, but I feel like I'm missin…

I'm in a similar situation in the UK, however in my case it's mocking Trump and being outraged about Brexit (other than the BBC, Brexit outrage/derision is omnipresent regardless of if the news site or story author is pro or anti). Unfortunately, I can't look to local news, because that's either "goose removed from river Cam after attacking cyclist" or "parking in car park now more expensive than fine for parking ill…

If both pro- and anti-Brexit are outraged, this should be a pretty clear indicator that it's not bias or manufactured editorializing.

"Leaving the EU" is a valid political worldview/goal, whether you agree with it or not, however the specific "implementation" known as Brexit has proven to be a scam, because it's not an implementation at all: politicians manipulated and lied their way to victory, and once the referendum was over they made no effort to hide that their plan was "by the way, we have no plan". Because there was no responsible preliminary assessment of the cost and outcome of Brexit, let alone any roadmap, people on both side of the issue are realizing their politicians are navigating on sight, with no map or compass, during a process critical for the future of their country. A process they triggered. In that situation, isn't outrage warranted?

As for Trump, well, it's not a UK thing. The whole world is laughing at the US.

Re: Fear is America’s top-selling consumer product

#193
post #80
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. CNN has gone the way of MSNBC (i.e. liberal, one-sided, pretty much echo-chamber). HN is the same way when it relates to political news (i.e. liberal, one-sided, pretty much echo-chamber). Fox News is, well, Fox News. NPR is, well, for the most part, the Fox News of the left. So on and so forth. In a world of two echo chambers (The Right-wingers and The Left-wingers), it's up to you to make up your mind.…

I don't understand this perspective. When CNN gets a story wrong, the right creates a huge storm and people get fired. When the right gets a story wrong (Breitbart still pushing the hard anti-climate change line, Hannity with the Seth Rich conspiracy, the entire birther movement, Pizzagate, and on and on and on )... nothing happens. Nothing. It took Milo saying "maybe pedophelia isn't that bad" before there was enoug…

The truth is, there's actually a huge amount of centrist in the USA. Those centrists are reasonable people. They'll hear you out, think, analyze and make up their mind. They'll accept compromise, and they'll try hard to see if maybe there's truth to consider, even if most things said appears exaggerated, or ridiculous.

And then there's unreasonable people. They don't want to think, or consider options.

In the USA, if you are unreasonable, you're most likely on the right. Most reasonable people are clustered with the left. And a minority of unreasonable people are also on the left, with another minority of reasonable people clustered on the right.

Effectively, the right averages to be unreasonable, and the left to be reasonable. I find the media reflect that quite well. Maybe CNN forgot to consider an option, so they reconsider. Fox news doesn't, they're not trying to be reasonable.

So what's happening currently is all reasonable people on the left is trying to give a chance to the minority of reasonable people on the right. While the bigger chunk of unreasonable people on the right are trying to avoid all reasoning about alternative options.

In that sense, its normal for most reasonable news source to appear tied to the left. And most unreasonable news source to appear tied to the right.

Re: Fear is America’s top-selling consumer product

#194
post #52
post #37

I'm slowly trimming away the means I acquire news, because it's all becoming so editorialized. Twitter is bombarded with bots and flamewars, reddit is a lost cause, and news.google.com is mainly driven by larger syndications that have mastered the "Big Headlines Sell" strategy. That leaves HN and my little local papers, Mountain View Voice and its ilk. Great for local stories and tech news, but I feel like I'm missin…

The No Agenda show analyses (twice weekly) exactly what you're talking about and compares many sources. They deconstruct the media. They frequently also use European (France 24 and Deutsche Welle) and Asian (like CCTV) to contrast the news in the U.S. They also include RT and compare. http://www.noagendashow.com/

While entertaining, No Agenda is far too conspiracy-theory laden to be taken seriously. They frequently talk about "chemtrails" and mock scientists who believe in climate change. Not too far off from Alex Jones.

Re: Fear is America’s top-selling consumer product

#195
post #189
post #37

I'm slowly trimming away the means I acquire news, because it's all becoming so editorialized. Twitter is bombarded with bots and flamewars, reddit is a lost cause, and news.google.com is mainly driven by larger syndications that have mastered the "Big Headlines Sell" strategy. That leaves HN and my little local papers, Mountain View Voice and its ilk. Great for local stories and tech news, but I feel like I'm missin…

What is your problem with Reddit? Please elaborate because it works fine for me.

I'm not the OP, but I'd argue that Reddit's voting system discourages a diversity of opinions within a given thread or sub-reddit. Although moderators discourage the practice, most Redditors down-vote opinions they disagree with and up-vote those they agree with.

Re: Fear is America’s top-selling consumer product

#196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait why is reddit a lost cause?

r/LateStageCapitalism is on the front page all the time. Its rules include "Support for capitalism--and the political parties which uphold it--is strictly prohibited". Counterbalanced views are not front paged on a regular basis. Reddit made sure idiotic pro-Trump subreddits were left off the front page. It didn't do the same for idiotic anti-Trump subreddits. r/TwoXChromosomes, also regularly appearing on the front…

Wow. The comment box on every LateStageCapitalism post says "Do not defend capitalism. You will be banned."

Re: Fear is America’s top-selling consumer product

#198
post #45
post #37

I'm slowly trimming away the means I acquire news, because it's all becoming so editorialized. Twitter is bombarded with bots and flamewars, reddit is a lost cause, and news.google.com is mainly driven by larger syndications that have mastered the "Big Headlines Sell" strategy. That leaves HN and my little local papers, Mountain View Voice and its ilk. Great for local stories and tech news, but I feel like I'm missin…

Try using wire services such as Reuters and AP for 'factual' news. Most news outlets get their news from these places and then add their own flavour to it.

How can I use those as an individual, just to read the stories? They seem like something I could use if I were to create my own news outlet.

Re: Fear is America’s top-selling consumer product

#199
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in a similar situation in the UK, however in my case it's mocking Trump and being outraged about Brexit (other than the BBC, Brexit outrage/derision is omnipresent regardless of if the news site or story author is pro or anti). Unfortunately, I can't look to local news, because that's either "goose removed from river Cam after attacking cyclist" or "parking in car park now more expensive than fine for parking ill…

If both pro- and anti-Brexit are outraged, this should be a pretty clear indicator that it's not bias or manufactured editorializing. "Leaving the EU" is a valid political worldview/goal, whether you agree with it or not, however the specific "implementation" known as Brexit has proven to be a scam, because it's not an implementation at all: politicians manipulated and lied their way to victory, and once the referend…

if for nothing else, then for trump I hate all the usual news channels (and there are plenty of other reasons). in a same way i don't care what current celebrity messed up, I don't care about him. yes we get it, US voted ego-maniacal a*hole who has no clue about real politics to its lead for next 4 years. we all make mistakes. sad story, moving on, nothing to do there.

can we please start ignoring him a bit? it seems to me controversy and popularity at all costs is what he seeks, so why please such a person?

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