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Stop Watching the News (2019)

josephcwells.com

121–130 of 139 posts

Re: Stop Watching the News (2019)

#121
post #91

A democracy only works if people know what's going on. Otherwise, the collective decision-making process is no longer connected to politician's actions and the whole process breaks down. That's the most basic theory of any regulated system: air conditioning needs a thermometer. A driver needs to keep their eyes open to stay on the road. Any such system is a feedback loop of actuators (wheels / politicians), sensors,…

News doesn't connect the collective decision-making process to politicians' actions - it connects it to what the news tells us politicians are doing and why. Effectively, it makes democracy less about rule by the people and more about rule by the press. That system is starting to break down in some countries and journalists are not happy about it.

Yeah, sure. Youtube is the future of democracy! And blogs!

Re: Stop Watching the News (2019)

#122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be shocked if it were less than 50% Commercial news by definition is looking to shock/sensationalize/rile up. It may not be on a conscious level but it's a race to gather & keep attention - boring stuff won't cut it. I'm not supporting author's point mind you, I believe education/informedness is the only thing we have approaching a silver bullet. But the amount of internet justice and vigilanteism we have today,…

There's a certain amount of sensationalization to get eyeballs with things like headlines, obviously, but I'd be surprised if you looked at the various news stories that caused public outrage over the course of a year, if more than a small percentage were actually mis-reported/factually incorrect when it came to mainstream news coverage by reputable organizations.

Possibly. I don't think either one of us has immediate access to a solid survey or report/analysis - so it's an interesting point of its own that we have a wildly different initial estimate/assumption ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Re: Stop Watching the News (2019)

#124
post #35

> When was the last time you watched the news and thought, “thank God I saw that. Let me go take action.”? > I’ll answer for you: probably never. The article is dated "July 29" so I'll assume 2019. We have a pretty huge counterexample right now: the pandemic has led to a lot of critical information needing to be conveyed to everyone very rapidly. For example, people need to be aware that they cannot leave home, or th…

All the info we needed could have fit inside just a few paragraphs, updated each week.

And where do you go to read those paragraphs?

Re: Stop Watching the News (2019)

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems to be true. But partly so because there don't seem to be any hits for "far right" in their coverage of US politics. Good for them. I doubt this would be true for NYT, WaPo, etc., but I am indeed too lazy to look. For those too young to remember what reasonable journalism used to look like, Reuters and AP are probably the closest, in the MSM.

> That seems to be true. But partly so because there don't seem to be any hits for "far right" in their coverage of US politics. Good for them. How is that a good thing? "Far right" and "far left" are both perfectly fine terms to describe certain political ideologies and movements.

"Far right" and "far left" are both garbage terms, as they frame the political gamut to favor some reasonable "center", with that supposed "center" being economically-expedient authoritarianism. Use of the prefix "far-" is essentially just Overton window policing.

Re: Stop Watching the News (2019)

#126

> If that’s the case, what’re you actually getting from the news? Aggravated? Wound up? Certainly not informed about anything important. This seems like the author is explicitly arguing for the tragedy of the commons. Yes, any one individual getting 'wound up' doesn't accomplish much, but the public 'at large' getting wound up can and does effect real change sometimes. Like, it's very easy to point to a variety of to…

There are definitely benefits to the 24 hour news cycle, like the Ahmaud Arbery case you mentioned, but I don't think it is clear that those benefits are worth the cost to society as whole. For every case where the outrage is justified, there are cases where there was public outrage that was based on completely false information, or directed to the wrong individual. And this also can motivate people to do things like mass shootings, since you know that the story of what you did will be talked about around the country for days.

Outside of people being targeted for no reason, this news cycle just polarizes the American public. People have their set of news sources that only push them the news supporting their opinion, and spin the news in their favor, moving peoples opinions further to the extremes - politics stops being about real issues, and there is no room for real debate. In a building I lived in they had CNN constantly playing in the games room, and all they ever seemed to have was talking heads discussing Trump, mostly speculation about Russia at the time - does that really lead to anyone being more informed, or cause any positive action? I don't think this cost is worth the few cases where the public outrage was correct and effective.

I think it would be a huge problem if the general public stopped consuming any national/international news at all, since injustice would go unnoticed unless it affected you directly. And of course with things like COVID it is important to be informed about what is going on. But I think we would all be better off if instead of looking at the news every day, we just looked at the top stories once or twice a week on a set of reputable news sites, and stayed out of the comments.

Re: Stop Watching the News (2019)

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be shocked if it were less than 50% Commercial news by definition is looking to shock/sensationalize/rile up. It may not be on a conscious level but it's a race to gather & keep attention - boring stuff won't cut it. I'm not supporting author's point mind you, I believe education/informedness is the only thing we have approaching a silver bullet. But the amount of internet justice and vigilanteism we have today,…

There's a certain amount of sensationalization to get eyeballs with things like headlines, obviously, but I'd be surprised if you looked at the various news stories that caused public outrage over the course of a year, if more than a small percentage were actually mis-reported/factually incorrect when it came to mainstream news coverage by reputable organizations.

Just as an example, a friend of mine had a fishing video get picked up by a few different news outlets. He gave a small writeup explaining the video to each of them. Not one of them reported the correct information. None of them got the location correct, only one got the kind of fish correct and one of them might as well have been talking about a totally different video, they literally contradicted what you could see in the video.

The way I see it, of something as trivial as a fishing video can be reported on so completely and utterly incorrectly, without the slightest regard for even the tiny amount of facts provided alongside the video, then why should i assume anything else is reported correctly?

Re: Stop Watching the News (2019)

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many similar cases where the outrage was wrong , the facts of the case weren't as originally reported, and the resulting outrage couldn't be rolled back or productively channeled. My heart breaks at the idea of a guy being murdered with no consequences, but that can't mean that we embrace anything and everything which delivers those consequences.

Yes, but what's the ratio where harm was done there, vs where the public outrage was entirely reasonable and good? Public outrage is one check on societal institutions. The police are a check on general lawlessness and disorder, and the fact that sometimes they kill someone they really shouldn't have doesn't make us think, "well just get rid of the police then altogether I suppose". Why would we get rid of public out…

Agree that public outrage is useful. Sadly Trump is the counterpoint where people over identify with a subject to the point that the subject has total immunity.

Re: Stop Watching the News (2019)

#129

I never look at CNN, MSNBC or FoxNews. I feel sites like reuters.com or apnews.com give me a good level of news without the emotional content. I agree about local newspapers. We should worry more about what's going on close to us versus Washington.

List of political activities ordered by actual effects on the world, more to less: 1) involvement in local politics (say, with a party or with advocacy groups), 2) voting in local politics, 3) involvement in state or national politics, ... 1,000) voting in state or national elections. You're arguably a better citizen if you ignore everything past your county or metro area entirely but get really involved in the local…

Interesting take. You've given me pause to think about this some more.

Re: Stop Watching the News (2019)

#130

A democracy only works if people know what's going on. Otherwise, the collective decision-making process is no longer connected to politician's actions and the whole process breaks down. That's the most basic theory of any regulated system: air conditioning needs a thermometer. A driver needs to keep their eyes open to stay on the road. Any such system is a feedback loop of actuators (wheels / politicians), sensors,…

On a large scale, perhaps so. But in terms of what I individually can accomplish, the answer is "nothing". The chances that my vote, my petition, my call to a politician, my letter to a newspaper, my post on social media, will affect the world in any way are infinitesimally small. Weighed against near certain negative mental health effects, it makes a lot of sense to just check out. Or at least to stop spending more…

>The chances that my vote, my petition, my call to a politician, my letter to a newspaper, my post on social media, will affect the world in any way are infinitesimally small

they are but that's not actually participating in politics. Participating in politics can mean joining a party yourself, joining a city council. Running for a local office. Participating in a local activist campaign, and so on.

The author's thesis declares news unecessary on the basis that it has no influence on your life. That's only true if you're already detached from public life or citizenship to begin with. The word 'idiot' actually literally translates to 'private person'. In ancient Greece it used to be an epiphet for a person not participating in public life. That's essentially what the author is encouraging, literal idiocy, when the task should be to rekindle participation.

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