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Things you notice when you quit the news (2016)

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Re: Things you notice when you quit the news (2016)

#311

Post by popctrl »

ROTMetro wrote: post #168

As someone who just stepped back into pop culture after being in prison for years (so might as well been on the moon) my first shock was just how horrible it all is now. There is no news worth watching. Cable news is just a pile of filth excremented by a Labrador Retriever that solely eats baby diapers. I thought I will watch Bloomberg since if real money is involved it can't be too manipulative. Nope, wrong. The int…

This is an interesting perspective. I feel like a frog in a pot of boiling water, the discourse in my life is just getting gradually worse and most of the media is happy to gaslight people into thinking...Well, anything that gets a click. I'd be interested to hear any more of your perspective.

Re: Things you notice when you quit the news (2016)

#312

Post by selectodude »

mixedbit wrote: post #301
yojo wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a firm believer in quality over quantity when it comes to news. Google News has gotten increasingly annoying though, forcing me harder toward the "personalized" results, the kind of filter bubble I'm intentionally trying to avoid. What worked well for me was getting a print subscription to the Economist. They definitely have a bias (particularly in their editorials), but it's mostly of the "free trade" variety, w…

After one year of subscribing to the Economist I like it, but would prefer if it was a monthly newspaper with 1/4 of the content. Reading it throughout each week takes quite a lot of my reading time and I have a feeling that dedicating this time to books would be better. Monthly with well selected topics would be enough to stay informed of important current issues.

I’ve been a subscriber for about fifteen years now. You triage the content. I rarely read more than half the magazine and that’s with spending >1hr on the subway every day.

Re: Things you notice when you quit the news (2016)

#313

Post by thenoblesunfish »

This worked really well for me: instead of checking “the news”, I look at the front page of Wikipedia. That has some of the biggest (world) news stories, but it also has a bunch of other stuff. Often when I am checking the news it’s really just because I want to read about something interesting, and Wikipedia provides that without trying so hard to get me to click on stuff.

Re: Things you notice when you quit the news (2016)

#314

Post by Melatonic »

jabroni_salad wrote: post #189
flats wrote: post #83

I strongly agree with this. I would, however, like to call out one TV program here in the U.S. that I think comes much closer to approximating the experience of “reading a 5,000-word article”: PBS NewsHour. It’s great, completely free and available to watch online, and you can even get most of what you need from their podcast alone ( https://www.pbs.org/newshour/feeds/rss/podcasts/segments ). It consists of fairly in…

I feel like PBS is one of the few orgs that prioritizes quality above all else and really means it. Between newshour, NOVA, and the kids programming, they get a lot of playtime in my home.

That is also because PBS is one of the only channels that is held to any actual standards. All other channels (including all news channels) are classified purely as "entertainment" and therefore are not held to anything.

Re: Things you notice when you quit the news (2016)

#315

Post by philovivero »

ROTMetro wrote: post #168

As someone who just stepped back into pop culture after being in prison for years (so might as well been on the moon) my first shock was just how horrible it all is now. There is no news worth watching. Cable news is just a pile of filth excremented by a Labrador Retriever that solely eats baby diapers. I thought I will watch Bloomberg since if real money is involved it can't be too manipulative. Nope, wrong. The int…

[flagged]

Re: Things you notice when you quit the news (2016)

#316

Post by lostlogin »

mixedbit wrote: post #301
yojo wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a firm believer in quality over quantity when it comes to news. Google News has gotten increasingly annoying though, forcing me harder toward the "personalized" results, the kind of filter bubble I'm intentionally trying to avoid. What worked well for me was getting a print subscription to the Economist. They definitely have a bias (particularly in their editorials), but it's mostly of the "free trade" variety, w…

After one year of subscribing to the Economist I like it, but would prefer if it was a monthly newspaper with 1/4 of the content. Reading it throughout each week takes quite a lot of my reading time and I have a feeling that dedicating this time to books would be better. Monthly with well selected topics would be enough to stay informed of important current issues.

Things like Private Eye and (even worse) The London Review of Books have this issue. It's like having a bad debt and it weighs you down when you know you should deal to it.

Re: Things you notice when you quit the news (2016)

#317

Post by mattlondon »

There are things that happen in the news that may affect your day to day life.

Apart from the obvious things such as covid, there are a lot of things going on all the time that may influence your voting decisions (not just in the run up, but the entire time someone is in office), purchasing decisions, where you go on vacation, who you want to work for, how you get to work today etc.

I guess if that is fine for you, then please feel free to carry on and go book your vacation to the Ukraine, drive a Volkswagen, work for facebook, use too much water during a drought season, have your garden furniture blow through your windows when that storm rolls in, have a BBQ during a high-risk fire season, don't use condoms, and then just flat out are late to work today because you didn't know about the strike/accident/whatever on your usual route. Good luck.

By all means, quit twitter or facebook or whatever but at least read the headlines from major journalistic outlets. Something might happen that deeply matters to you and you won't know about it otherwise.

News does not always only happen to other people.

Re: Things you notice when you quit the news (2016)

#318

Post by Domenic_S »

BeetleB wrote: post #200
ziggus wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hard disagree. Watching/reading/consuming modern news is too stress-inducing (as it is designed to be) just to have something to chat about or become more well-informed about issues that in large part have no bearing on me. I pay attention to issues that are important to me at scopes that matter - state and municipal. Everything else is noise.

> Watching/reading/consuming modern news is too stress-inducing Let's not project. I was a news junkie for years, and the news itself was not stress inducing.

You're both projecting, and the only answer is data.

This APA survey shows that:

> While most adults (95 percent) say they follow the news regularly, 56 percent say that doing so causes them stress

https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2017/11/lowest-point

Re: Things you notice when you quit the news (2016)

#319

Post by asdff »

BeetleB wrote: post #200
ziggus wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hard disagree. Watching/reading/consuming modern news is too stress-inducing (as it is designed to be) just to have something to chat about or become more well-informed about issues that in large part have no bearing on me. I pay attention to issues that are important to me at scopes that matter - state and municipal. Everything else is noise.

> Watching/reading/consuming modern news is too stress-inducing Let's not project. I was a news junkie for years, and the news itself was not stress inducing.

The news itself is often pretty boring but the tone being used is meant to be stressful and keep you reading with baited breath. Looking at stale news like a web archive from cnn from months ago is always funny. Almost hysterical titles and sentences for things that just end up not mattering or being significant at all, but its all written up as if Japan has bombed Pearl Harbor and war were declared.

Re: Things you notice when you quit the news (2016)

#320

Post by asdff »

inanutshellus wrote: post #163
tazjin wrote: post #15

In light of the current situation in Europe I've thought of a rule of thumb I give people about media they consume. If someone is painted as an enemy, and the information you're given makes their actions or motivations seem irrational, you're likely not being given all relevant information. In the same vein as this article, I've also quit Twitter a year ago and it's been great. Pretty much the same effects also.

A few years ago, seemingly out of nowhere, were a bunch of articles about how Oman was the center of terrorism in the middle east. I had had family stationed there years before so the name popped out at me, as they'd described it previously as "open and accepting of westerners" (relatively speaking, I guess). Anyway, this "center of terrorism" thing was front page news across the board for a solid week, maybe two, th…

It's a fun little metagame to imagine the motives of headlines put in front of you. In this case, maybe the motivating factor that lead to the journalist's boss dropping this assignment on their lap could have been anything from a slighted Saudi prince to someone shorting Oman Air that week.
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