Do you avoid the news? You’re in growing company • Hacker News Board

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

#101

Post by tivert » Tue, Aug 08, 2023, 6:58 PM UTC

djoldman wrote: post #93

It's interesting to me that many threads here seem to imply that lower news consumption by Americans is bad and that the fault lies with the news industry. Ignoring whether it's bad or not, if Americans want mostly unbiased news, they have easy access to it on the web: https://www.reuters.com/ https://apnews.com/ Americans choose other sources for news... they're not forced to consume it. The "blame" lies with the pe…

> Ignoring whether it's bad or not, if Americans want mostly unbiased news, they have easy access to it on the web:

Those might be better than, say, the New York Times or Fox News, but they're hardly unbiased.

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

#102

Post by runlaszlorun » Tue, Aug 08, 2023, 6:58 PM UTC

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…

Great description.

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

#103

Post by nathanaldensr » Tue, Aug 08, 2023, 6:58 PM UTC

glonq wrote: post #100

In 2016 (for likely obvious reasons) I broke the habit of watching the evening news, and I'm much happier for it. And I'm still well-informed. I peek at TV news occasionally, and glimpse at online news too. But I avoid editorials and sources that add a lot of spin. Give me the as-raw-as-possible news so that I can decide if/how I feel about it on my own.

Is there such a thing nowadays? There's too much incentive to post polarizing, rage-inducing content. I'd love to see what sites you're getting information from.

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

#104

Post by tootie » Tue, Aug 08, 2023, 6:59 PM UTC

throw0101b wrote: post #43

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…

> Cable TV and the internet are to blame for this. Is it a supply issue, or a demand issue? If people didn't want want it in the first place, would the producers bother to make it? We've had salacious media for a long time: > Scandal sheets were the precursors to tabloid journalism. Around 1770, scandal sheets appeared in London, and in the United States as early as the 1840s.[4] Reverend Henry Bate Dudley was the ed…

There is more and better quality news available now than ever in history and people flock to the crappiest options because they can't get enough. It's demand.

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

#105

Post by gretch » Tue, Aug 08, 2023, 7:01 PM UTC

I avoid the news because it’s often wrong (and I don’t necessarily blame them, because they are reporting with incomplete information as it appears).

I find that it’s much more productive to just ask “what happened 2 weeks ago?”. All the unverified trash gets filtered out at that point. All the outrage bait has simmered down.

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

#106

Post by damnesian » Tue, Aug 08, 2023, 7:01 PM UTC

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…

Reinstating the Fairness Doctrine would be the one switch to flip to undo a lot of this very destructive mess. Of course all of the media giants would throw all the lawyers at it. Now that they know how incredibly lucrative news-as-entertainment is. But it's what must be done to turn this problem around and get a handle on it.

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

#107

Post by bcoates » Tue, Aug 08, 2023, 7:01 PM UTC

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…

Uh, early 2000s? There was very much 24/7 news media back then. Mature internet news, immature social media, multiple 24/7 national news channels for most major countries and languages...

I daresay most teens in the early 2000s were aware of such minor news events as Sept. 11 and the subsequent decade of global war.

Your stereotypical Millennial news junkie that the Wapo is crying about moving on with their lives was minted in this era of hyper-pervasive media.

Note that the actual non-news media of the early 2000s, and the period pieces that remake it, mostly ignore this reality and are culturally set a decade or more earlier. This is a sort of 'the Simpsons' effect where creators in their 30s and 40s who don't realize how much the world has changed produce media about their childhood set in the present.

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

#108

Post by tootie » Tue, Aug 08, 2023, 7:01 PM UTC

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…

"Cable TV and the internet are to blame for this"

Viewers are to blame. Cable and the internet are just better than ever monetizing the garbage people gravitate towards. There's more high quality journalism on offer than ever and it's audience just keep dwindling in favor of social media and purely fraudulent news like FOX.

People talk about media or corporations or government like they're from some alternate dimension or alien species. They're run by the exact same human beings that exist in your daily life. Most people act out of self-interest and are subject to bias. Media didn't invent it, it's an extension of human nature.

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

#109

Post by draw_down » Tue, Aug 08, 2023, 7:03 PM UTC

jcfrei wrote: post #19

The problem is that people don't just ignore the mainstream news media. A lot of them also turn to fringe channels that peddle an alternative view of the world that's more affirmative of their own worldview - without being more truthful. It's going to be a huge challenge to every democracy because people will fundamentally disagree about basic facts.

It’s interesting that the people so concerned with the survival of democracy or whatever, also seem deeply skeptical of actual democratic outcomes.

You guys gotta decide if you like democracy or not. Is it still acceptable when the results are tainted by voters watching watching the wrong, untruthful, bad, fringe news instead of the good, right, truthful, mainstream kind?

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

#110

Post by vidanay » Tue, Aug 08, 2023, 7:05 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #83

jwells89 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Yep. For a decent chunk of my early adulthood, barring really major events, my news consumption was ABC World News Tonight and maybe This Week with David Brinkley on Sunday if I was around--and Time Magazine delivered weekly to my mailbox. And that was pretty much it.

And Frontline for long form.