Show HN: Not Depressing News • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: Not Depressing News

#51

Post by Angostura » Fri, Nov 02, 2018, 9:19 AM UTC

tontonius wrote: post #50

From time to time there tends to arise a demand for news that are not "bad" or depressing or paints the world in a somber palette. However, I'm often reminded of this quote by George Orwell: “Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations.” Perhaps news are inherently skewed towards the negative side, and that's the way it should be.

I suppose I should point out that although the quote is often attributed to Orwell, there's no evidence that I know of the said it. A similar quote is also attributed to Harold Evans, during his time as Sunday Times editor.

Re: Show HN: Not Depressing News

#52

Post by thecatspaw » Fri, Nov 02, 2018, 9:20 AM UTC

armatav wrote: post #38

toss1 wrote: post #31

Great Idea love it! I'll second the idea of providing straight info on major current events too, tho that might take a big editorial/journo staff... More immediately, while Chrome populates nicely, Firefox just comes up with the main page with [Top Today] and [New] blank. I'm also running NoScript but w/restrictions lifted on all sources on your site.

Yeah straight info on major stuff would be good. That's interesting - I have no idea why that could be the case - I'm googling around to help it.

isnt that what reuters does?

Re: Show HN: Not Depressing News

#53

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Nov 02, 2018, 9:20 AM UTC

toss1 wrote: post #31

Great Idea love it! I'll second the idea of providing straight info on major current events too, tho that might take a big editorial/journo staff... More immediately, while Chrome populates nicely, Firefox just comes up with the main page with [Top Today] and [New] blank. I'm also running NoScript but w/restrictions lifted on all sources on your site.

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: Not Depressing News

#54

Post by ramigb » Fri, Nov 02, 2018, 9:24 AM UTC

Putting "not" to negate a negative isn't always a great idea. "Not Depressing" still has the word depressing, versus "uplifting",pleasant or even hopeful these words will always be much better.

Re: Show HN: Not Depressing News

#55

Post by SmellyGeekBoy » Fri, Nov 02, 2018, 9:33 AM UTC

Tempest1981 wrote: post #34

I would like something that filters either Google News or Apple News (app), and removes all stories of murders and abuse. I understand that a small % of adults behave badly, but I’m not sure that reporting each instance isn’t actually making the problem worse. Or desensitizing us. I guess morbid curiosity sells. I would also like to exclude most Trump news. But still know what’s going on in the world.

The trouble with the vast majority of Trump "news" is that it's not really news - if I wanted to know the content of each and every one of his tweets I'd just follow him on Twitter. It's very lazy journalism.

Re: Show HN: Not Depressing News

#56

Post by gitgud » Fri, Nov 02, 2018, 9:41 AM UTC

solarkraft wrote: post #49

szilardboy wrote: post #45

Reddit is blocked by most if not all major ISPs in Indonesia, which breaks the site without the use of a proxy. Maybe scrape Reddit server-side? I’m not too sure if that would work but just a suggestion. I really like the idea, though.

Maybe use a VPN? The issue is clearly with indonesian ISPs.

It's not the user's fault, they shouldn't need a VPN to read an uplifting news site... That's just depressing...

Re: Show HN: Not Depressing News

#57

Post by friendly_chap » Fri, Nov 02, 2018, 9:55 AM UTC

ramigb wrote: post #54

Putting "not" to negate a negative isn't always a great idea. "Not Depressing" still has the word depressing, versus "uplifting",pleasant or even hopeful these words will always be much better.

Very obviously the domain availability is a big problem with that.

Re: Show HN: Not Depressing News

#58

Post by Matrixik » Fri, Nov 02, 2018, 9:59 AM UTC

elektor wrote: post #14

For those that are interested in positive/uplifting news, I've been following a few newsletters that have similar content: 1) https://www.goodgoodgood.co/goodnewsletter/ (From a recently funded Kickstarter) 2) https://www.theguardian.com/info/2018/feb/12/about-the-upsid... (From the popular newspaper The Guardian) 3) https://tinyletter.com/inbetternews (More cute news/ GIFS of animals) 4) https://www.positive.news/ (…

https://futurecrun.ch/ Science, technology and intelligent optimism. All previous issues: https://us8.campaign-archive.com/home/?u=6321feeb3ffd42b0e44...

Re: Show HN: Not Depressing News

#59

Post by OskarS » Fri, Nov 02, 2018, 10:03 AM UTC

ramigb wrote: post #54

Putting "not" to negate a negative isn't always a great idea. "Not Depressing" still has the word depressing, versus "uplifting",pleasant or even hopeful these words will always be much better.

It's a perfectly valid rhetorical device. It's called "litotes", and it often conveys a distinct meaning compared to "collapsing" the negatives into a single positive. It's been used liberally by figures such as Homer, Jonathan Swift, Robert Frost, Fredrick Douglass and Shakespeare (as well as pretty much every great writer throughout history).

For instance, saying "it's not without issues" usually means something different from "it has issues". In the former case, you probably intending a meaning something similar to "it's has issues, but none of them are serious", while the latter conveys just what it says. The exact thing your trying to communicate obviously varies with context, but it is generally distinct from the "collapsed case"

In this particular case, "Not depressing news" puts an emphasis on the fact that most news is depressing, and that this site is different. "Uplifting news" does not communicate that as effectively.

Now, it's true that George Orwell complained about a similar construction in Politics and the English Language, but that book is full of terrible ideas about language, and you're doing yourself a disservice if you take any of his advice too seriously.

Re: Show HN: Not Depressing News

#60

Post by gyvastis » Fri, Nov 02, 2018, 10:22 AM UTC

ramigb wrote: post #54

Putting "not" to negate a negative isn't always a great idea. "Not Depressing" still has the word depressing, versus "uplifting",pleasant or even hopeful these words will always be much better.

Why do you care about the name? You'd go to that kind of place for the content not because of the title anyway.