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Do you avoid the news? You’re in growing company

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Re: Do you avoid the news? You’re in growing company

#21

Post by tekla »

starttoaster wrote: post #7
sylens wrote: post #3

I 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 ha…

> 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.

It's incredibly hard to have a conversation on a complex legal document if you do not read the legal document.

Re: Do you avoid the news? You’re in growing company

#22

Post by AmericanOP »

It is a remarkable phenomenon that all three cable news channels in America have dedicated themselves entirely to the individual of Donald Trump, all the way from 2016 to 2024 and beyond.

It defies a certain logic that audiences can tire of Marvel movies that come out a couple times a year, but daily coverage of such an asinine topic for nearly a decade is supported by the market?

Certainly this has to be culturally damaging, but everyone sort of pretends it's normal for the country to focus on the antics and tribulations of one person.

TV runs the country for now but I am optimistic their vapidity will drive the next generations to the internet. There appears to me a growing number of young people growing up online.

Re: Do you avoid the news? You’re in growing company

#24

Post by JimtheCoder »

tekla wrote: post #21
starttoaster wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 ha…

> 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. It's incredibly hard to have a conversation on a complex legal document if you do not read the legal document.

"It's incredibly hard to have a conversation on a complex legal document if you do not read the legal document."

On HN, not only is it easy, it's standard operating procedure...

/s, but not really...

Re: Do you avoid the news? You’re in growing company

#25

Post by jwells89 »

avalys wrote: post #4

The 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…

> 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.

This is how the news was for me as a 90s kid who only had over the air channels for TV. 6:00-6:30PM was local news, 6:30-7:00PM was World News Tonight with Peter Jennings. Outside of that folks weren't particularly concerned with what was happening beyond their immediate bubble.

Re: Do you avoid the news? You’re in growing company

#26

Post by blakesterz »

AmericanOP wrote: post #22

It is a remarkable phenomenon that all three cable news channels in America have dedicated themselves entirely to the individual of Donald Trump, all the way from 2016 to 2024 and beyond. It defies a certain logic that audiences can tire of Marvel movies that come out a couple times a year, but daily coverage of such an asinine topic for nearly a decade is supported by the market? Certainly this has to be culturally…

Seems like we're already there. I can't say it's due to vapidity, but regular tv news stuff largely watched by older people.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/742225/frequency-of-watc...

This one puts the average age at about 60 for all primetime viewers.

https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/the-cw-age-average-viewer-b...

Re: Do you avoid the news? You’re in growing company

#28

Post by taude »

jwells89 wrote: post #25
avalys wrote: post #4

The 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…

> 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. This is how the news was for me as a 90s kid who only had over the air channels for TV. 6:00-6:30PM was local news, 6:30-7:00PM was World News Tonight with Peter Jennings. Ou…

Even in the early 90s news started shifting towards our modern incarnation. CNN was considered hard news in the 80s, but that changed around the time of the Persian Gulf war and Wolf Blitzer becoming the Scud-Stud, and all the other shows like Cross-Fire becoming news-er-tainment (or whatever the proper industry term is), etc...

Re: Do you avoid the news? You’re in growing company

#29

Post by chmod600 »

avalys wrote: post #4

The 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…

"with the same care and thoughtfulness that goes into rooting for your favorite NFL team"

While true, I can't help but think everyone who says that is talking about "other people" (mostly people on the other side but maybe a few from my side) or "other news sources" (mostly ones from the other side that I don't watch and maybe a few isolated examples on my side).

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