Do you avoid the news? You’re in growing company
washingtonpost.com
Do you avoid the news? You’re in growing company
1–10 of 252 posts
Re: Do you avoid the news? You’re in growing company
#2Re: Do you avoid the news? You’re in growing company
#3I was recently listening to a podcast recapping a television show set in the early 2000s, where a current college aged student basically said "I wish I had the experience of being a teenager in that time period - it seemed much simpler as you weren't aware of every bad thing that was happening around the world"
And that's really the way it used to be. It was even better before 24 hour news networks, as your evening news would give you the stories of the day, and then you would buy the next morning's newspaper if you wanted to read about it more in depth. Sometimes multiple newspapers if it's a topic you really wanted to sink your teeth into. There was no need to follow the result of every individual rocket volley in the Ukraine or each individual comment from a politician.
As more people turn away from the news, it seems that they rely on their own smaller, informal communities to filter and signal boost the topics they really should pay attention to. Articles that get shared in a Discord catch my attention more than anything on Drudge or even Hacker News.
Re: Do you avoid the news? You’re in growing company
#4The single biggest problem with America today is the presentation and consumption of national news, political commentary and public policy as entertainment. The media has figured out that America is the ultimate reality TV show and they present it as such.
Cable TV and the internet are to blame for this. I don't know what could be done about it. But we'd be way better off if "the news" was something you could watch from 7 PM - 8 PM if you were interested, or something you could read in a printed newspaper if you were really interested, and otherwise the general public could ignore it.
Instead we talk about the direction of the country and indeed, humanity itself, with the same care and thoughtfulness that goes into rooting for your favorite NFL team, or voting people off the island on Survivor.
Re: Do you avoid the news? You’re in growing company
#5The moment you realize that news is just another form of entertainment, not a source of knowledge you're obligated to follow, you free to stop wasting your time on it.
Re: Do you avoid the news? You’re in growing company
#6https://archive.is/Xuy8c
All news is bad, because human beings find happy stories to be uninteresting.
Many stories told for entertainment describe tension and release, but very few describe paradise. The difference might be, that the news lately has been all about increasing tension, and nothing much about the release, or resolution, of that tension.
We need good news, especially about topics like Fukushima,and the war in Ukraine, for examples. Good news on other topics can't cancel that lack of good news.
Re: Do you avoid the news? You’re in growing company
#7I was recently listening to a podcast recapping a television show set in the early 2000s, where a current college aged student basically said "I wish I had the experience of being a teenager in that time period - it seemed much simpler as you weren't aware of every bad thing that was happening around the world" And that's really the way it used to be. It was even better before 24 hour news networks, as your evening n…
> There was no need to follow the result of every individual rocket volley in the Ukraine or each individual comment from a politician.
This is really it. Who has the time or the emotional bandwidth to spare for following all of this? I was talking to somebody about the overturning of affirmative action, and their response to me was basically "if you haven't read the Supreme Court opinions on this matter, we can't have a real conversation about this." That opinions pdf on supremecourt.gov is 237 pages long. I need to read multiple news articles and then a novel just to have an opinion on something now? That's cool, I just won't then.
Re: Do you avoid the news? You’re in growing company
#8I don't avoid the news, but I'm pretty selective about my news sources. I do mostly avoid discussions about the news, though.
Re: Do you avoid the news? You’re in growing company
#9The single biggest problem with America today is the presentation and consumption of national news, political commentary and public policy as entertainment. The media has figured out that America is the ultimate reality TV show and they present it as such. Cable TV and the internet are to blame for this. I don't know what could be done about it. But we'd be way better off if "the news" was something you could watch f…
> 7 PM - 8 PM
Back in my day and in Germany, "news" was from 20:00 to 20:15 with the last 5 or so minutes of that were dedicated to the Bundesliga :)
Re: Do you avoid the news? You’re in growing company
#10The definition of what "the news" is has become blurry...
Are the articles I read on HN considered 'news'?
(I mean, it's right there in the title!)
Is this article 'news'?
The article talks about 'traditional' sources of newspapers, NPR, MSNBC -- is there a certain type of 'news' that people are starting to avoid?