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Things You Notice When You Quit the News

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Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News

#101

Post by cyberferret »

cyberferret wrote: post #70

I haven't had a TV in the house for nearly 8 years now, and don't miss it at all. The biggest problem to me, seems to be the 24 hour news cycle for things like wars, elections and the like. I was visiting friends during a couple of major air accidents in the past couple of years (The MH370 and MH17 incidents in particular), and was astounded at the propensity for news stations on ALL channels to fill every minute of…

In an extension to what I wrote above, I used to follow my local newspaper on Facebook a couple of years ago, just in order to keep in touch with local events seeing as I don't have a TV.

I noticed their feed back then starting to change from a simple and useful dissemination of their newspaper articles, into a conduit for posting tabloid style or inflammatory/unverified web links and popular memes.

I questioned them a couple of times on this in the comments area, but was told on both occasions by the page admins that their Facebook page was a 'fun and social' outlet for their paper, and if I wanted 'real news', I should just buy a copy of their actual paper.

Shortly after, I noticed that their print paper started to echo their Facebook feed, in terms of unresearched articles simple copied and pasted from other sources. I stopped following them on Facebook and stopped buying their paper shortly after.

When clicks, eyeballs and stickiness trumps good journalism, then that pretty much closes the door for me.

Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News

#102

Post by gurneyHaleck »

equalarrow wrote: post #85
gurneyHaleck wrote: post #26

There was a period of time, starting upon the day of, and then continuing for some years after the 9/11 attacks, where " The News " was something you couldn't help but be engrossed by. Growing up during an era of Johnny Carson, in a house with no cable, and attending high school in the 90's, " The News " was something very different prior to 9/11. 24 hour cable news started providing information on fast moving events…

I remember specifically one day, I think in Oct '11 walking up the stairs from the train station and seeing someone reading a newspaper with some heading like 'US is going to look at invading Iraq for 9/11'. I just remember thinking _WHY_, that didn't make any sense. Of course we all now know, but it was just so weird to see that because I knew it had little to do with any of what was going on (I also knew Saddam was…

Yeah, that's probably true. I'm thinking in terms of conversations at Christmas parties in 2001.

Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News

#104

Post by gurneyHaleck »

woobar wrote: post #84
gurneyHaleck wrote: post #26

There was a period of time, starting upon the day of, and then continuing for some years after the 9/11 attacks, where " The News " was something you couldn't help but be engrossed by. Growing up during an era of Johnny Carson, in a house with no cable, and attending high school in the 90's, " The News " was something very different prior to 9/11. 24 hour cable news started providing information on fast moving events…

I am not sure one needed family members in military to learn about invasion. The invasion of Iraq surfaced immediately after the 9/11 attacks. [1] Guardian reported about US plans (including use of ground troops) in December 2001. [2] [1] In November 2001 72% respondents in Gallup poll favored invading Iraq with U.S. ground troops. http://www.gallup.com/poll/8038/seventytwo-percent-americans... [2] https://www.thegua…

But by Christmas of 2001, a lot of people would just roll their eyes, and say things like "Oh come on. Iraq? Bullshit. No way." [0]

By mid-2002 there were weird goings on, things like lumber shortages, and it was like "Oh fuck. Iraq is happening for real, and this isn't going to be a quick in-and-out." [1]

This is just according to my personal memories, of course. They pretty much line up with wikiepedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War

  [0] Donald Rumsfeld memo dated 27 November 
      2001 (still bullshit territory)

  [1] During 2002, the amount of ordnance 
      used by British and American aircraft 
      patrolling the no-fly zones of Iraq 
      increased compared to the previous 
      years and by August had "become a full
      air offensive". (was actually happening)

Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News

#105

Post by blhack »

cyberferret wrote: post #70

I haven't had a TV in the house for nearly 8 years now, and don't miss it at all. The biggest problem to me, seems to be the 24 hour news cycle for things like wars, elections and the like. I was visiting friends during a couple of major air accidents in the past couple of years (The MH370 and MH17 incidents in particular), and was astounded at the propensity for news stations on ALL channels to fill every minute of…

>Not only that, I used to be a commercial pilot, and I could not believe the amount of disinformation and outright ridiculous theories being bandied about by so called 'reputable' news sources.

This is true every time there is a news story on about anything that somebody around me is an expert on. It's always "what the hell are they talking about!?"

I've seen this directly, too. I've been on the local news quite a few times, and EVERY TIME what they end up broadcasting, and what I was explaining to them are different things.

What's really really scary to me lately is all of this talk about "fake news", which originally referred to outright lies that were part of click-farms, but is now being talked about as if CNN and MSNBC are somehow the only source of "real" news.

Frightening. Really truly actually frightening to me.

Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News

#106

Post by m_mueller »

trendia wrote: post #98
m_mueller wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recommend the following Planet Money episode if you want to know a bit of the economic background of fake news. They even got a fake news publisher to speak. http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/12/02/504155809/episo...

I thought this episode was rather funny, because they found that a right wing fake news site was actually run by a liberal who wanted to prove there was right wing fake news (and that it would be shared on social media, which they ensured by spreading it themselves). It turned out to be rather profitable for him.

Yep, that's why I recommend it - I didn't want to spoil it though ;).

Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News

#107

Post by JohnHammersley »

jacobolus wrote: post #21
pipio21 wrote: post #12

5. You are being manipulated by mainstream news. You can learn Arabic or Russian and go to Ukraine or Syria or Iraq and inform yourself talking to the people there, both sides of the story, or you can let the TV media tell you what is happening. I have done it(I don't know much Arabic and a little Russian but I have traveled there) and it is quite an astonishment that what TV shows you has nothing to do with reality.…

Note that in English we don’t use the word “manifestation” to mean march/rally/protest gathering, the way the word is used in French.

Thanks for posting this; it really helped me parse the parent comment properly when I reread it.

Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News

#108

Post by ywecur »

knz wrote: post #87
equalarrow wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Paying attention to current events and bearing witness to some of the darkest aspects of human history is important at a societal level and if you don't think it is important to you personally then consider yourself lucky to live a life where the real world doesn't creep in often. But, how do you even know what really happens? Mainstream news is ridiculous in its intent because it literally is "if it thinks it stin…

> But, how do you even know what really happens? Mainstream news is ridiculous in its intent because it literally is "if it thinks it stinks, if it bleeds it leads". There is nothing good to get from mainstream news. Nothing. Sliced and diced to the most emotional snippets you could conceive of. The only ways to mitigate this is to use a healthy amount of skepticism, to educate yourself on the historical context of o…

Or subscribe to slow journalism

http://www.slow-journalism.com/

Re: Things You Notice When You Quit the News

#109

Post by imranq »

TV is one of worst forms of media out there. It is practically the definition of mind control and although there are multiple channels, there is a strange sense of groupthink.

This is similar to the Murray Gell-Mann amnesia effect, where famed quark discoverer Murray Gell-Mann opens the newspaper and reads a physics article. He is disgusted at the lack of research, the blatant misinformation, and random theories disguised as respectable reporting. Then he flips to another section - like politics or war - and reads it as if it was somehow more accurate than the nonsense he just read.

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