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

washingtonpost.com

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

#121

Post by ecshafer »

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…

All news has a bias inherently. The news choosing to publish or Not publish is itself a bias. There is a difference though between having a bias and intentionally pushing a specific viewpoint, which is the norm of the day. But this might be an overly pedantic point.

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

#122

Post by jgeada »

DoneWithAllThat wrote: post #115
damnesian wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Literally illegal for certain with anything non-broadcast about with about 90% certainty for broadcast. It’s such a blatant violation of the first amendment it’s never going to happen.

America's notion of freedom of speech was designed at time when we thought humans would prefer truth over "truthiness". Turns out none of that was true, or only true for a small subset of the population. No other country runs with our rules of "freedom of speech == freedom of consequences" (particularly for the rich). But then, most of the West is running into similar problems with the news.

Not sure there is an easy answer. None of us want to be censored, but for sure the market has failed (both the demand side and the supply side, and there is lots of money to be made from all the fake controversy and scandal)

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

#123

Post by vasco »

twelve40 wrote: post #79
digging wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I need to read multiple news articles and then a novel just to have an opinion on something now? Yes. Why do you want to have opinions on things you don't understand?

well, this is how real life works. This is how popular vote works. 99% of voters will never read any of that crap (maaaybe just the tldr from the news) but will happily opine, and popular vote is based on that. so not exactly uncommon.

Osho had some deep thoughts about this, best summarized in these 30 seconds: https://youtu.be/QFgcqB8-AxE

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

#124

Post by selectodude »

tootie wrote: post #104
throw0101b wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

“When you’re young, you look at television and think, There’s a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that’s not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That’s a far more depressing thought. Conspiracy is optimistic! You can shoot the bastards! We can have a revolution! But the networks are really in business to give people what they want. It’s the truth.”

-Steve Jobs

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

#125

Post by hospitalJail »

r053bud wrote: post #90
alberth wrote: post #75

I've completely cut out watching/reading news, with 1 exception. https://www.newsminimalist.com I stumbled across it on HN sometime back. Someone created an AI model to consume daily, thousands of news sources, scores the articles and lists what it's highest scored for the day. --- Ironically, APNews use to work this way. They provide a "relevance score" for every news article they published/reported so that other ou…

Nice recommendation. I also really like http://68k.news which claims to be: "Basic HTML Google News for vintage computers"

Oof I saw sports as the 4th thing on the list. I consider that a failure.

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

#126

Post by Der_Einzige »

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…

The only actual unbiased news is CSPAN and it’s boring so no one watches it!

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

#127

Post by throw0101b »

tootie wrote: post #104
throw0101b wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

There has always been "better quality" news and worse quality news available to people. We simply have more of both now.

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

#128

Post by whalesalad »

jvm___ wrote: post #85
whalesalad wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ads are undoubtedly the worst part. During local news it’s terrible/obnoxious furniture companies and national news is 100% drug commercials.

"...in rare cases, may cause gangrene of the perineum."

love that the disclaimer has to explain where the perineum is on that one lol

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

#129

Post by TySchultz »

I've been able to cut out the news for the most part with a small side project. It combines hundreds of sources and thousands of articles every day to make a concise digest.

In about 5 minutes I can get caught up without doom scrolling.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quill-news-digest/id1669557131

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

#130

Post by MarcScott »

The time I take reading the news each day (BBC news and The Guardian) is the time it takes me to use the toilet each morning. I scan headlines, and only read articles of interest. I spend way more time each week on this site, than I do reading traditional mainstream news, and usually skip articles with paywalls and just come to the comments section to get a synopsis.

I used to be an avid receiver of traditional news media. I listened to BBC Radio 4 for about three hours a day, particularly Today on my commute into work and PM on my commute home. Then Any Questions on Saturday, and often The World at One at lunch.

I'm done with it all TBH. This site tends to surface most things that I find important or have an effect on my life. I honestly don't need to know what is happening on day X of the invasion of Ukraine. I much prefer reading about what's the latest going on with reproducibility studies of LK-99 than the political machinations of random ministers in parliment.

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