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Stop Reading News (2013)

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Re: Stop Reading News (2013)

#141

Post by musha68k »

gowld wrote: post #116
musha68k wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very cool. Thanks for sharing. FWIW sharing my primary global non-tech news source while we are at it: The Financial Times to me is all the important news without the fluff and very much worth the subscription price. Obviously there is a heavy focus on economic news (but not exclusively). I especially like the News Briefing which I can listen to conveniently with a "Hey Siri, play the FT News Briefing" while doing my…

FT is fine as far as it goes, but it ignores most of the world's news except for business/finance stuff and the same mostly-useless "headline" stories you see everywhere else. Unless all you care about is the finance markets, it doesn't have much to say that is important your life and the world.

IMHO "the economy" underpins everything. I'm not sure what is more important to know about on a systemic level.

Re: Stop Reading News (2013)

#142

Post by AndrewKemendo »

prossercj wrote: post #126
birksherty wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't read news, don't use social media. I find it working fine. Although hacker news kind of works like a news source to me. I find almost everything in news noise now. Don't following any of that on purpose makes me feel calm. Now if there is something that I should really know, it comes to me. I meet people all the time and then they tell me if something important is going on. I don't have to go after news. I ad…

This quote from Thomas Jefferson seems relevant: "I have given up newspapers in exchange for Tacitus & Thucydides, for Newton & Euclid; & I find myself much the happier." [0] [0] http://tjrs.monticello.org/letter/280

Jefferson was 80 when he wrote that, so the context is a little different than what people are discussing here.

Re: Stop Reading News (2013)

#143

Post by mistermann »

jshowa3 wrote: post #104
afiori wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> An uninformed populace is a malleable one. A overreacting population is even more malleable. >This isn't news, it's opinion. Don't read this. >Be a discerning news consumer. Media, even big mainstream media, is very flexible regarding the distinction between news and opinion; the latest big example being the maga-kids and how people were rewriting the same articles over and over on debunked facts. I am not saying t…

How does this make any sense? Why should you distrust news because they report on inconsequential stuff? Whatever is on twitter is still a real fact because they repeat, verbatim what people post on it. Distrust implies they're lying to you, when most of the time they aren't.

How do you know most of the time they aren't lying?

Re: Stop Reading News (2013)

#144

Post by jaabe »

lystergic wrote: post #45
jaabe wrote: post #38

I buy the bit about being critical about what news we consume, but I just don’t see a complete avoidance of news as being a good solution. To me, not reading news would remove more value from my life than reading too much. My personal fix for news media was to identify exactly what I wanted from a news paper and then identify the one which suited my needs best. This turned out to be a paper, which at the time (2017)…

What is the name of this paper?

Weekendavisen, it’s a Danish paper though.

Re: Stop Reading News (2013)

#145

Post by untog »

hycaria wrote: post #118
Datsundere wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I find almost everything in news noise now. Don't following any of that on purpose makes me feel calm. Yes, that's what ignorants do. It's easier to ignore what's happening around the world. Vietnam war could've gone longer had it not for the public to come out and tell the government to pull out of Vietnam. It's easier to ignore things and live a blissful life, but then you have the no right to complain when laws a…

Well I feel that following news for the sake of... following news ? is also very ignorant. Like people getting angry at stuff that they don't fully understand, is that reasonable ? >but then you have the no right to complain when laws are passed that don't align to your values. Who says that ever happens ?

How about following news in order to be an informed citizen, who makes informed choices about how to vote, what to protest and what to support?

Re: Stop Reading News (2013)

#146

Post by SaintGhurka »

gowld wrote: post #116
musha68k wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very cool. Thanks for sharing. FWIW sharing my primary global non-tech news source while we are at it: The Financial Times to me is all the important news without the fluff and very much worth the subscription price. Obviously there is a heavy focus on economic news (but not exclusively). I especially like the News Briefing which I can listen to conveniently with a "Hey Siri, play the FT News Briefing" while doing my…

FT is fine as far as it goes, but it ignores most of the world's news except for business/finance stuff and the same mostly-useless "headline" stories you see everywhere else. Unless all you care about is the finance markets, it doesn't have much to say that is important your life and the world.

That filter is exactly what makes it valuable to me. Financial news still has to report political news if it has real-world impact on the economy, or a company or a politician of sufficient import.

So watching CNBC, for example instead of NBC Nightly News, you'll still know all about the government shutdown or the possible resignation of the governor of Virginia or a winter storm shutting down half the country, but you won't have to endure endless, excruciating segments about a kid smiling at a guy beating a drum.

Re: Stop Reading News (2013)

#147

Post by godelmachine »

nkozyra wrote: post #70

Do not stop reading news. Be selective with your sources. Be a discerning news consumer. An uninformed populace is a malleable one. Controlling and limiting information has long been a strategy for despots or worse. > The point is, most of what you read online today is pointless Don't read that then. Read sources you believe are important to you and deliver information that is important. Be a discerning news consumer…

>>Read fewer articles and more books.

This is a weird argument.

His point is news is a stupid fodder to feed your mind with and its better to get indulged with books like literature, biographies, self help books et al.

Re: Stop Reading News (2013)

#148

Post by tristanperry »

skilled wrote: post #6

For the last 4-5 years, Hacker News has been pretty much my only source of any kind of news outside of the topics that I work with on a daily basis. This is true. Before that, I did not read newspapers or follow any kind of journalism. I still recall being around age 12 or 13 and making a conscious decision not to watch TV anymore. It has been around just as much time since I last saw a TV news report. Maybe it has s…

> I think the new generation is caught up in quizzes that stir up emotions, and psychological tests that determine whether a giraffe is your spirit animal.

You're definitely wrong on this point (and as others have said, it's a condescending sentiment).

This has always happened. I'm 28 and online quizzes and tests were _very_ common when I was school age.

My parent's generation also took lots of quizzes and tests, albeit they were in newspapers and magazines (and you had to tally up your own results).

Re: Stop Reading News (2013)

#149

Post by untog »

koonsolo wrote: post #125
nkozyra wrote: post #70

Do not stop reading news. Be selective with your sources. Be a discerning news consumer. An uninformed populace is a malleable one. Controlling and limiting information has long been a strategy for despots or worse. > The point is, most of what you read online today is pointless Don't read that then. Read sources you believe are important to you and deliver information that is important. Be a discerning news consumer…

> But rejecting information from the media is a concession to power. Mainstream news is not information, it's entertainment. The sooner your realize it the better. Journalists have nor the time, nor the expertise or the means to write a purely accurate objective articles (that nobody wants to read because it's purely informational). I cannot count the times I read articles about my field of expertise, that are laugha…

> Mainstream news is not information, it's entertainment. The sooner your realize it the better.

This is, and always has been, an utterly dumb argument that only persists because it sounds clever. Mainstream news informs people about what is going on in the world around them. What their elected representatives are doing. What the weather is doing (an underrated one, in terms of every day utility, especially in hurricane season).

The mainstream TV news also happens to wrap this information up in a package fronted by two or more telegenic presenters, and often finishes off with a nice feel good story. That doesn't diminish the information being conveyed. Perhaps the world would be better informed if everyone set aside two hours a day to read academic journals, but that's never going to happen.

Re: Stop Reading News (2013)

#150

Post by hycaria »

untog wrote: post #145
hycaria wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I feel that following news for the sake of... following news ? is also very ignorant. Like people getting angry at stuff that they don't fully understand, is that reasonable ? >but then you have the no right to complain when laws are passed that don't align to your values. Who says that ever happens ?

How about following news in order to be an informed citizen, who makes informed choices about how to vote, what to protest and what to support?

I don't practice any of those, because repeating what media told you about issues which context you have no idea about doesn't exactly sound enlightened to me. I've seen it happen about issues in my small area of expertise, I can only guess how desperate experts of discussed issues must be.
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