Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Things you notice when you quit the news (2016)

raptitude.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

511–520 of 741 posts

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

#511

Post by themacguffinman »

mirceal wrote: post #498
themacguffinman wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The odds of you landing in Ukraine are 0 unless you really want to go there. Oh yeah, you'll definitely find out eventually, but timing matters. This whole debacle started a fair amount of time before Putin gave the order to invade and most travelers book holidays further in advance. In that time, you could have cancelled and rescheduled your commitments around this news, but instead you'll spend most of that time…

so, at one point I planned a trip to New York and a hurricane made an appearance in the area. Had to cancel everything (you could not fly in there) and we actually got automatic refunds on anything. If this can happen with New York and a hurricane it can definitely happen with Ukraine and a war. What does spending all that time clueless mean? I'm sorry but I just don't buy it. >Uh, are you saying that if I live in a…

Spending all that time clueless means that you're wasting time you could have spent reacting to the situation. It's not just about refunds, if you blocked out four weeks for a doomed vacation, then knowing that the vacation is doomed in advance will give you time to prepare an alternate itinerary for those four weeks rather than finding out perhaps a few days beforehand.

> The water company will tell you, the bill you pay should be higher, etc

My water usage varies across months, I am hardly unique in saying that I don't keep a close tab on the water price breakdown. Many people auto-pay their electronic bills and don't check in very often until something goes very wrong (like the water gets shut off). These are the kinds of important items that show up very prominently in local headlines though.

> breaking the law always involves a reward and a risk.

That's not what I'm saying. By the time you realize that you're actually breaking the law, you're already being punished. Suppose there's a law that punishes BBQs during fire season. If I'm not aware of this BBQ law in advance (eg. via the news), by the time I'm fined or arrested for unknowingly hosting a big BBQ, it's too late for me to figure out that it's illegal.

As others have said, there are other ways to obtain this information but news feeds will highlight noteworthy issues. Do you repeatedly poll the health dept website for the latest guidance? That's one way to keep up to date on Covid restrictions, but generally it's even more inconvenient to poll everything that matters.

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

#512

Post by knodi123 »

yojo wrote: post #54
macksd wrote: post #4

I fully agree with this. Scanning Google News or a couple of the more professional international news services like BBC / Al Jazeera / Reuters I still feel pretty well informed (and confident that there's usually nothing of immediate consequence to me) but it doesn't grow into "expert analysis" or impact my feelings much. Here's another thing I noticed: how manipulated / manipulative it is. And not just news and I do…

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…

> Google News has gotten increasingly annoying though, forcing me harder toward the "personalized" results

oh brother, you aren't kidding. I want top news of the day, but all I get is a hundred clickbait versions of two or three things I clicked on once a couple weeks ago.

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

#513

Post by spiritbone »

duped wrote: post #256
dionian wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Economist, like NPR, are good at sounding informed and unbiased, but wind up to be egregiously ideologically compromised

Can you give some examples? Particularly with NPR, you have to focus on particular shows and stations. There's no central editorial staff for the content that comes from their member stations. For example the Takeaway has quite different editorial standards than All Things Considered or Morning Edition.

There's a game that's fun to play to see how sometimes ideological and vacuous the Economist can be - try and swap out the key operative term of a piece with something absurd and see if the force of the argument changes or remains persuasive.

This is a while back, and an extreme example, but the pinnacle for me was the editorial (https://postimg.cc/hhkmfgN3) on the 9th of January 2012 where one could swap every reference it had on defending banks and financiers with references to slavery and slaveholders and the force of the argument would not change one jot. This was because it made absolutely no recourse to the wider context of impacts that the industry might have besides being of benefit to a city. It was just a whirr of rhetoric and really opened my eyes to the biases in play. The magazine's prestige has never quite recovered.

Fun aside, many other cases of journalistic bias are more about very selective reporting and emphasis, see for example the Bolivian election of 2020.

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

#514

Post by tiahura »

boston_clone wrote: post #248
tiahura wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're talking about Law 360 and similar sites for legal news, sure. If you're talking about political news, no. Some of the most hyperbolic, partisan, and bizarrely flawed takes on Trump, and the US political situation over the last 5 years, have come from lawyers. It's been embarrassing.

A fair counterpoint: some of the most hyperbolic, partisan, and bizarrely flawed takes have come from Trump's own legal team (looking at you, Giuliani). But I'm sure we could find bits of embarrassment anywhere we look!

The problem is one is appearing in Borat films and not taken seriously, the other is on the faculty at Harvard and writing op eds for the nyt.

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

#515

Post by WillPostForFood »

queuebert wrote: post #159
systemvoltage wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My father tells me - "Why do you care what Andrew Cuomo is doing in New York city?" and it kind of was eye-opening. I really don't. I wish I paid more attention to local news, local politics, and perhaps check-in on international news on a weekly basis. The internet changed all this. When I was growing up, my dad read local newspaper daily. National and international news were briefly covered in the local paper. He'd…

Since all the local TV stations and newspapers were bought out by conglomerates, they have been ruined. Local TV news is just random crimes and feel-good stories, and the newspapers are stories about restaurant openings and closures and sports. Feels like meaningless dreck to fill the gaps between ads. The Economist remains a good rag, and Wired is surprisingly good, albeit full of ads. But for true, long-form, thoug…

Since all the local TV stations and newspapers were bought out by conglomerates, they have been ruined. Local TV news is just random crimes and feel-good stories

I'm older enough to remember local news before all the stations were bought up, and it was exactly the same. Nonstop horrible garbage.

Classic "kid stuck in the well" stories, a local news staple, go back to at least the 1940s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathy_Fiscus

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

#516

Post by themacguffinman »

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.

That's just an argument that news is biased and flawed. It's hardly a justification for quitting the news. Evidently, you haven't quit the news because you know about the current situation in Europe, you're just skeptical that the news is giving the whole picture.

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

#517

Post by blaser-waffle »

ROTMetro wrote: post #328
ff317 wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My personal favorite recommendation in this vein is The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/ . They've got some great writers and editors and often deliver pretty unique insights. Their articles tend towards long-ish-form, but not nearly as long as e.g. the New Yorker. They're a little less world-focused and more US-centric, but not completely. There is some bias (isn't there always?), but I've seen them cover a si…

I friggin love the Atlantic even though most of the time they have a way different political view than me. They don't hide their view but instead of assuming it's universal they give details and context for their views, where as the Economist seems to hide their agenda and present the underlying story to lead you to their point of view based on the facts and details they choose to report. The Atlantic has discourse a…

The Economist is usually pretty clear about which side it supports.

They generally try to outline both sides of a discussion but are often a little weak in championing a cause that they're not for.

But it's rarely ambiguous where they stand, or why.

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

#518

Post by s1artibartfast »

dragonwriter wrote: post #483
s1artibartfast wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>How would you have found out about the Texas power outages last year I think this is a great example. Why should anyone outside of Texas even care about the power outages and waste time "informing themselves" about it.

People outside of Texas may be considering moving to (or immediately traveling to) Texas. Or they may the citizens of a democratic polity being called upon to evaluate competing energy policy alternatives where the facts of the Texas case have potential bearing. Or, well, lots of other possibilities.

As someone said, those are a pretty narrow slice of news consumers.

I would add that the news does a terrible job of serving and educating those interests.

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

#519

Post by Smoosh »

ishjoh wrote: post #294
Jaruzel wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exclusively how I consume the news. In fact, a good 50% of my feeds are 'World News' feeds from other countries. it's the best way to see alternate points of view I think, and then as a moderately intelligent[1] adult, I can form my own opinion on the current state of affairs. --- [1] I'm not allowed to call myself 'smart' on HN, I got told off for it on a previous comment ;)

As a point of encouragement don't let some random internet bully discourage you from using a perfectly fine word like smart or from diminishing your self image. For all we know you're the smartest person in the world.

But appliances like toasters are "smart" these days, so perhaps it's no longer an apt adjective to use.

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

#520

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

thrashh wrote: post #485
mastazi wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the Economist seems to hide their agenda I think that they are pretty clear about their agenda to be honest. E.g. they explained and even gave a name to their stance ("extreme centre"), they openly endorse candidates in many elections worldwide, they often include sentences in articles such as "this paper believes that..." etc. I don't agree with some of their points, but by making them explicit they also make them…

Yeah the Economist is pretty well known to be neoliberal. Which is fine… I subscribe and it’s a pretty good source if you understand that.

Why are the journalists and writers names not revealed?
Post reply on HN