There’s a lot of virtue to be found between complete abstinence from the news and drinking from the firehose.
No news is good news
121–130 of 160 posts
Re: No news is good news
#122> Fake news is a term to describe news that is merely untrue In my experience it is more commonly used to describe news which the speaker does not like.
That is a common usage, but not the meaning. There's really nothing we can do about people misusing terms though.
Re: No news is good news
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps more like globalist/corporatist, which reflects their recent ownership? In 2015, Pearson - a publishing company - sold its controlling stake to a bunch of corporate owners, like the Agnellis (43%) and the Rotschilds (21%), among others. The change in their editorial direction was immediately visible (I had been a subscriber/reader for 35+ years until 2016) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Group
The Rothschilds have had a substantial stake in the Economist for 70 years, including prior to the time when Pearson was a shareholder. Pearson did not control the board, had only 6 of the 13 board seats, and never had majority control of the company. It's unclear what is meant by "corporate owners;" Pearson is a publicly traded corporation. I'm also a long-time subscriber and do not understand the "shift" you are re…
Pearson had a 50% stake, most of which was sold to the Agnellis. So now, the Agnellis and the Rotschilds are the largest (and, together, controlling) shareholders.
Board members like Lady de Rothschild and Eric "you have no privacy" Schmidt publicly supported/donated to the Hillary Clinton campaign. The Rotschilds were invited by the Clintons to spend their honeymoon at the White House. The rest of the board reads like the attendees at the Bilderberg Group and the Council on Foreign Relations. The very definition of elitism, and collusion with the governments (Schmidt, Alex Karp, who is also on the board, there are also Sirs and Baronesses). "Free trade" - yes, reserved for the multinationals, Most definitely not mom-and-pop, small/medium business oriented anymore (which they used to be, before the sale).
The fact that they (probably still) have superbly written articles should not disguise the shift in their political stance.
Re: No news is good news
#124I have been a very strong adherent of this philosophy for over 30 years. There’s an adage, “there’s nothing as worthless as yesterday’s news”. Which led me to wonder, “was it even worth knowing yesterday?” I realized the solution was a low pass filter. I first switched to a seven-page newspaper (CSM) delivered through the mail. I realised the editors had to figure out whether it would still be interesting by the time…
I much preferred the print CSM to their online version. With the print I knew what to read front to back. With their web version it seems less organized. Stories remain for a week or longer as new ones crop up. It’s hard to know where to focus.
The economist model is much better. A dedicate weekly edition you can read front to back with daily articles posted outside of that.
Re: No news is good news
#125> Fake news is a term to describe news that is merely untrue In my experience it is more commonly used to describe news which the speaker does not like.
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Re: No news is good news
#126I have been a very strong adherent of this philosophy for over 30 years. There’s an adage, “there’s nothing as worthless as yesterday’s news”. Which led me to wonder, “was it even worth knowing yesterday?” I realized the solution was a low pass filter. I first switched to a seven-page newspaper (CSM) delivered through the mail. I realised the editors had to figure out whether it would still be interesting by the time…
In the olden days when coal fires in open fireplaces were part of daily life, old newspapers were used to build up the base of the fire. You would scrunch up sheets of newspaper, pack them into the hearth, then add some kindling on top, then add a modest amount of coal, preferably dry coal.
With a single match you would then set light to the scrunched up newspaper, which would set light to the wood, which would get the coal started. Once the coal was glowing you could add more coal and the fire would be truly lit.
To speed up the process you could hold up a sheet or two of broadsheet newspaper over the fireplace, so air would be sucked in at the bottom to hold the flat sheets tight over the fireplace opening, making the fire roar. This was like 'turbo mode'.
This whole process was time consuming and you would generally be using newspapers that were a few days old. Frequently this 'news' had some real gems in it. Removed from the original context by a few days, the news articles often had details that were not important at the time, but, with hindsight, made them somewhat curious.
Because you might be holding this news up around the fireplace for a few minutes with it lit up by a roaring fire, you were sort of obligated to read beyond the headlines.
There were different wars at the time, as well as labour disputes. It was often that you would read something that foreshadowed the news of the day on the radio - which we called 'wireless' back then.
I found that the old news, read this way, was a lot more thought provoking. I found myself questioning more.
Nowadays you could go onto the Internet Archive and find the headlines for a given day. However, we tend not to do that. The news just morphs from one day to the next, lacking distinct daily episodes like it did in the days of printed papers. Articles can be edited and updated, to be the same but different.
I agree with the article and try to encourage relatives to stay away from the gogglebox. The TV news is utterly toxic. But I feel that it is end times for this mainstream media. Only boomers truly consume it, anyone under fifty isn't tuned in and were not around when the news informed a national conversation.
The blanket propaganda/news of today is not the same as the national conversation that was once a thing. The Overton Window has gone widescreen and narrow at the same time. If you are not with the mainstream narrative then you can only be deemed to be 'worse than Trump/Putin/Assad/Hitler/Farage'. Or a communist. What was the left has got old and conservative. Or co-opted, particularly when it comes to identity politics. It has become infantilised with the majority under fifty just opting out of giving a damn.
Re: No news is good news
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did the Jews who escaped Nazi Germany know to do that because of what they were reading in the news? I get that we all want to avoid dangers and that knowing about them in advance helps. I just question whether reading the news is a good way to do that.
Are you asking about the historical facts? I don't know. Not my speciality, and I don't want to say something which might be not true. Are you asking about the younger me's understanding of this question? I can answer that. Understand the following in this light: My understanding that their persecution was not a bolt from the blue. Politicians were agitating against them. There were speeches, there were marching demo…
> Are you asking about the historical facts?
Yes, because that's what's relevant to the question of whether watching the news is or is not a good way to get advance warnings of the kind of danger you might need to take drastic action to avoid. My understanding of the historical fact is that Jews who left Germany to escape the Nazis did not do so based on anything they read in the news; they did so based on word of mouth about where things were heading and based on the declared intentions of the Nazis, which anyone who had read Mein Kampf could have predicted.
> their persecution was not a bolt from the blue
That's correct, it most definitely was not. There were warning signs years in advance. My understanding is that the biggest obstacle to Jews fleeing from Germany was not lack of information but the simple fact that it's very, very difficult to uproot your entire life and flee to a foreign country you've never seen where almost nobody speaks your language, so convincing yourself that it really, truly is necessary to do that is something people will have a very difficult time doing even if they already have all the information they need to see the necessity.
> with Ukraine I had a good 5 monthish heads-up
Based on what you read in the news? Or based on information you got other ways, that you would have gotten whether you read the news or not? Putin's intentions towards the Ukraine have been clear for years, certainly since the annexation of the Crimea. I don't think this was a bolt from the blue any more than the Nazi persecution of Jews was.
Re: No news is good news
#128The idea that only local news affects me is simply wrong, because the world is connected and things are influential. I do not live in Texas, but the Texas legislature restricting access to healthcare and allowing citizens to sue providers affects because certain political parties will treat that as a template for laws across the country, including in my area. The Florida legislature trying to ban books and discussion…
Conversely, you could follow the news, buy a home because you think you'd be permanently priced out due to investors, and end up underwater in a few years. Because you read the news, you'll choose to make financial decisions, some might be wins, but not all are guaranteed to be wins.
Re: No news is good news
#129I agree with much of what the author states. However I find it hard to completely quit cold turkey. I’ve settled into three subscriptions: the local paper (which also carries syndicated inter/national stories that I ignore completely–I’m looking for local politics and economy, and especially the special interest pieces in the Sunday edition and the monthly community-events inserts, not the crime report type stuff); T…
I'm an IEEE member mostly for Spectrum, and have noticed that some recent issues seem slimmed down a little bit. My assumption is that they just haven't had as much content to publish lately, and I'm glad they have made the decision to shrink the magazine rather than pad it out with filler. Aside from "Numbers Don't Lie", I'm continually impressed by their staff, and the submitted articles are often pretty good too.
Re: No news is good news
#130Articles that engender good feelings, either by revealing a positive story or reporting a positive event, do not receive nearly the same level of engagement. Anger sells. Outrage sells. Media companies have known it since the dawn of the newspaper. Bad news generates anger and outrage, hence all news is bad news. It's a natural consequence of the human condition.
There's even a news industry adage about this: "If it bleeds, it leads."