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I Hate the News (2006)

aaronsw.com

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Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#81

Post by unmole »

Kye wrote: post #58
Barrin92 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

avoidance behavior is a bad response to mental issues. Even if it works temporarily, in the long run it shrinks your world and reduces your confidence. It's why people with panic disorders are taught to confront stressors and learn to adapt, not lock themselves in their house. Regarding the news, a practical issue is of course that it doesn't always work. If you're privileged, self-employed or what have you, you can…

Reading the NYT would make me less informed on the issues that affect me and people I care about.[0][1] That's the point, I think. "The News" most people consume is a pale imitation of information. A version of this article with 10 years of growth might modify the suggestion toward finding better sources of information. Less New York Times, Fox News, and MSNBC. More ProPublica, NewsHour, and advocacy orgs staffed wit…

> advocacy orgs staffed with people

who don't even have to pretend to be neutral.

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#82

Post by unmole »

stOneskull wrote: post #72
kweingar wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just one example: Tennessee has recently passed a law banning “male or female impersonators” from performing in public places. Tennessee also does not alter sex on birth certificates for trans people. Arguably this means that Tennessee banned trans people from performing in public in any capacity.

seems to be about the Ts rather than about the Ls, Gs, and Bs.

LGBT as an umbrella term has never made any sense to me. One of These Things Is Not Like the Others.

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#83

Post by awb »

Meekro wrote: post #77
awb wrote: post #75

> Let us look at the front page of today’s New York Times, the gold standard in news. In the top spot there is a story about Republicans feuding among themselves. There is a photo of soldiers in Iraq. A stock exchange chief must return $100M. There is a concern about some doctors over-selling a nerve testing system. There is a threat from China against North Korea. There is a report that violence in Iraq is rising. A…

Maybe we should distinguish the impact of the story itself from the impact of people reacting to the story after they read the news? The Tea Party talked a lot about taxes and got a bunch of people elected to Congress, but if you simply ignored the news you'd be none the wiser (and totally unaffected). Same is true for the Iraq War -- it surely had major impact for Iraqis, but for most people in the U.S. it may as we…

If you add up all the people that had live in a district where the Tea Party was active, or served in the military, or in government where budgets, decisions, negotiations, etc. were affected by the Iraq war or the Tea Party, it’s probably a decent minority. Now add in anyone who works in health care or received a large medical bill. Then add in their families and friends. That’s got to be a large minority either directly affected or one step removed.

Obama got elected 2 years after this article with these 3 issues core to the debates. I’m guessing that some people who weren’t directly affected based their votes off of the news.

I see what you’re saying that a lot of knowledge isn’t useful day to day, but I actually do use my knowledge of WWII and evolution as foundations of some of my ethical and political views, which I’m sure emanate out into the world via my votes, purchases and conversations.

I agree though the line between news and entertainment is blurry and some people might follow just for the sake of not being out of the loop socially.

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#84

Post by mo_42 »

I think we need to take into account profits and careers of people producing news.

Mostly, news is a business. It will inevitably distort reports to make more profit. Even the most well-intentioned editors and journalists will be outcompeted those who make better stories. I guess this mechanism works on the level of people and organizations.

Also, people who argue against Aaron's idea tend to forget that there are other sources. Books, in-depth articles, discussions of experts may provide a better understanding. However, it's much more effort. If you really want to be informed, then, it's work.

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#85

Post by xboxnolifes »

kortilla wrote: post #74
xboxnolifes wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Nobody should be watching 24/7 news, but you also probably shouldn't be avoiding every news publication ever. 10 minutes a day skimming your news sources of choice for topics relevant to you combined with hearing things from your friends/family/coworkers goes a long way.

10 mins a day is still way too much. It’s 99.99% absofuckinguseless. I say this as someone who read it for decades. It’s all caricatures of the truth designed to push some other narrative. Every single time I thought I was informed and chatted with someone who had even a small notional bit of first hand information, it became immediately apparent how I was both extremely ignorant and how my false sense of knowledge m…

10 minutes is roughly 5 minutes of skimming through everything and 5 minutes reading the single thing that you might care about. It's definitely not too much. Some days you can even skip the last 5 minutes if nothing that you care about has happened.

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#86

Post by silisili »

jmcgough wrote: post #27

As a queer person watching a slew of recent anti-LGBT laws pass, I wish I could have the luxury of just ignoring the news and not caring. Aaron was 20 when he wrote this and it shows.

Not lgbt, but had the same takeaway. Can't blame him. It's funny that at 20 we know everything. By 40 we barely know anything.

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#87

Post by kortilla »

xboxnolifes wrote: post #85
kortilla wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

10 mins a day is still way too much. It’s 99.99% absofuckinguseless. I say this as someone who read it for decades. It’s all caricatures of the truth designed to push some other narrative. Every single time I thought I was informed and chatted with someone who had even a small notional bit of first hand information, it became immediately apparent how I was both extremely ignorant and how my false sense of knowledge m…

10 minutes is roughly 5 minutes of skimming through everything and 5 minutes reading the single thing that you might care about. It's definitely not too much. Some days you can even skip the last 5 minutes if nothing that you care about has happened.

It’s not the time lost that provided negative value. It was the false sense of “being informed”.

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#88

Post by bigger_inside »

kortilla wrote: post #74
xboxnolifes wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Nobody should be watching 24/7 news, but you also probably shouldn't be avoiding every news publication ever. 10 minutes a day skimming your news sources of choice for topics relevant to you combined with hearing things from your friends/family/coworkers goes a long way.

10 mins a day is still way too much. It’s 99.99% absofuckinguseless. I say this as someone who read it for decades. It’s all caricatures of the truth designed to push some other narrative. Every single time I thought I was informed and chatted with someone who had even a small notional bit of first hand information, it became immediately apparent how I was both extremely ignorant and how my false sense of knowledge m…

Exactly. I'm a researcher, and there are maybe two or three things I know a lot about, and some things where I understand, structurally, how they function.

Literally everything on the news about these things is horrible. It either dumbs something down to the point where it supports aggressive misunderstandings, or highlights an element that serves to support some public (misguided) preconception, or it deletes structural context to the point where the thing said isn't per se wrong, but without that context, it's certain to be misunderstood.

I made the mistake to let myself be interviewed once (on more of a "lighthearted" subject, nothing controversial). The journalists twisted my words to make them conform to some feelgood complete misconception, reflecting the things "people like to read about themselves" and how we, in our late modern hyperindividualist societies, imagine the world works: it's all about you in the end! Nope.

The news is a commercial enterprise; its purpose, classically, is to sell your stereotypes back to you. Today, in polarized society, it's there to sell one segment's stereotypes back to that segment while maximally riling up other segments, thus creating engagement through battle. And no, "Publicly funded" ones aren't any better at it, they operate in the same space.

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#89

Post by [deleted] »

kortilla wrote: post #61
dryanau wrote: post #8

It's alright for one person to think this way, but if everyone did we'd be in a bit of trouble as a society. I think the reality is in the middle anyway, i.e. very few people are desperately gripped to each and every story, and if you think you're supposed to care about every story then you're missing the point of the news. Chances are enough people will care about each story to make it worthwhile running, even when…

> For most people there's something in there worth knowing. Your distribution is way off. If we’re talking national US news like the NYT or WaPo reports on, there is actually worth knowing. The only value it provides is “sounding informed” at a party. It has a huge negative downside too. It’s some watered down biased version of what’s going on in the world that fits narratives of the editors, with barely any relation…

[deleted]

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#90

Post by thenerdhead »

mistermann wrote: post #66
thenerdhead wrote: post #32

I also hate the news (and advertisements). The news will never teach you how to think. It will tell you what to think. I love books though. Books don't tell lies to you because you have to think for yourself.

> The news will never teach you how to think. It will tell you what to think. Oh I disagree with this...presumably you notice lots of people have the same "facts" based on what's in the news, but have you not noticed that the "logical reasoning" that accompanies these "facts" is also quite similar, and typically not very logical ?

That is exactly what I’m saying here. Perhaps not expressed explicitly enough.
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