161–170 of 245 posts
There's one thing apparently missing in the article (and discussion here) that for me is the most important reason not to read news - namely, they lie. All the time. And when they don't, they systematically confuse stuff, ending up in writing wrong articles anyway. Proof? Just pretty much every article about science, technology or business submitted here on HN gets debunked in the top comment. If they can't get simpl…
Any suggestions for a good neutral concise must-know news source?
The Economist. It's not neutral. It's pro-market. But it is concise and if you just read it you'd be better informed than almost everyone.
News is useful for exactly one reason: to have something to chat about. Don't underestimate that. You may have no interest in NK, Beckham, sports, the stock market or other stuff that frequents the news, but having something to talk about with people around you is important.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"reality has a left-wing bias" The ABC (Australian version) gets comments that it's heavily left-wing, yet they have their own internal metrics that watch for evenness of opinion, and these have to match up with an external auditor. Of course no-one can be neutral about a subjective topic, but it's interesting that those news organisations with strong reputations for quality general-news reporting are always seen as…
Like The Economist? Are the ABC's internal metric's available? What about the audits? Their selection of journalists on current affairs shows is interesting though. Chris Uhlman's wife is an ALP MP, Barrie Cassidy was a Hawke staffer, Maxine McKew became an ALP member, Kerry O'Brien was a Whitlam staffer. It's almost like there is a pattern....
My knowledge came from a friend of mine who had some reason to be at an ABC office at one point and witnessed a meeting between the ABC staffers and the external agency, and they were concerned that their week's tallies didn't match up, as they were out 2 minutes. I imagine that the ABC's numbers would be public info somewhere, and I have no idea about the external agency.
As for the list of journos, it doesn't really say much about the content itself, if the content is monitored. I mean, if you want to do quality current affairs on TV in Australia, there's ABC, and there's SBS, the latter of which doesn't do much domestic stuff (as it's not their bailiwick).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"reality has a left-wing bias" The ABC (Australian version) gets comments that it's heavily left-wing, yet they have their own internal metrics that watch for evenness of opinion, and these have to match up with an external auditor. Of course no-one can be neutral about a subjective topic, but it's interesting that those news organisations with strong reputations for quality general-news reporting are always seen as…
I don't know anything about ABC, but generally speaking, I imagine that the likelihood of a media company's internal team declaring that their own company's reporting is biased is about as likely as BP creating an internal team that reports offshore drilling creates uncontainable environmental risks. I don't think it's surprising that the majority of established media companies lean in a certain political direction.…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the best counter to the faff in this article is simply: Talk to someone who watches the news. Then talk to someone who doesn't. Even if nothing else, watching the news is at least indicative of an interest in the world beyond arms'-length. Besides, there's a world of difference between "read the news being aware that the news-maker has an agenda" and "ignore the news entirely".
I totally agree with what you said, some of my coworkers are blissfully ignorant to anything that happens beyond their household and talking to them feels almost like talking to a child. Sometimes it even gives me a sense of superiority when I see I am way more "prepared" than them. Having said that, I feel exhausted from news. Specially link bait or biased media. Almost like I have a burnout of BS and I am becoming…
I also find that keeping abreast of the news provides a history that helps things make sense. Why the news has to provide some sort of life-shattering function for you (as the article describes) is beyond me. Why is politician A pushing Article 1? Well, there's been several strings of related articles, and then there was Incident 2 a couple of months ago...
This article irks me. Although most "news" has regressed into banal link bait just plain yellow journalism, and the notion of the "news organization" has undergone an inexorable transition towards the likes of Buzzfeed the the Huffington Post, it's absurd to assert that all news is worthless. First, his point that no news can be of value to one's personal situation or decision-making is false. News has impacted my li…
I think the best counter to the faff in this article is simply: Talk to someone who watches the news. Then talk to someone who doesn't. Even if nothing else, watching the news is at least indicative of an interest in the world beyond arms'-length. Besides, there's a world of difference between "read the news being aware that the news-maker has an agenda" and "ignore the news entirely".
Besides being able to talk about latest news themselves, of course.