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I Hate the News (2006)

aaronsw.com

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Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#131

Post by Redoubts »

austenallred wrote: post #8

I, strangely enough, agree with Most of what Aaron says. And I'm the founder of a news company. I worry about this attitude on a macro scale, but it's hard to argue with on a micro one. I spend most of my day following what's going on in the world, and it hasn't added much value to my life. But I worry about everyone not caring. Not because that would kill my company (I started it because I hate news in its current f…

I just signed up, and all I see is the equivalent of twitter posts for #ISIS, #Ferguson, and #Ukraine -- for both "Live Feed" and "Popular Feed". Am I missing something?

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#132

Post by jessriedel »

abstractConcept wrote: post #129

> There is voting, of course, but to become an informed voter all one needs to do is read a short guide about the candidates and issues before the election. I have often wondered how people can make uninformed decisions easily. Now I know. Only reading a short guide, is akin to reading a Wikipedia article for a monumentally important decision, and not bothering to check the edit history, let alone the references.

Rather than make a snide remark, it's more useful to "steel man" this argument: Consider the X hours you spend over the course of a year reading the news, which for most people you would consider "informed American" is in the triple digits. (That's less than 20 minutes a day.) Now, rather than reading any news that year, imagine that before the election you sat down for X hours and read a some books and long-format essays about the candidates. While reading you are free to look up old news articles when pertinent. Who is the better informed voter? What if you spend only X/10 hours?

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#133

Post by WaxProlix »

sparkzilla wrote: post #121
austenallred wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I find it interesting that someone who is making a news site would say that most of the news is "bullshit and a worthless time suck." Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. 99.9% of news is garbage, .01% of news is valuable. I want to make it easy for people to get that .01%. > Perhaps you should take Swartz advice and stop fighting to improve something that has so little value to you. I think news is badly broken, a…

I suggest that you develop a thicker skin when dealing with feedback. Not everyone thinks what you are doing is helpful or beneficial. I can't speak for Swartz, but his article clearly says that he considered ALL news to be bad and even unhealthy, including your 0.1%. So to claim common ground, or to speak for him, is self-serving. As for Grasswire, I think your solution to trying to improve the news won't work. As s…

It seems to me that you could be a bit better at criticizing; you give this guy a hard time for having a thin skin, but you're being really antagonistic. I agree that his original post in this thread seemed a bit sales-pitch-y, and I resent that too, but you come off as being on full attack. Chill out a little, people will probably pay MORE attention, rather than writing you off as an angry competitor.

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#134

Post by WaxProlix »

asgard1024 wrote: post #117

Here are two ideas for non-traditional news, that would reduce the information overload, and make news more interesting and healthy: - Actionable news. Only news to which you can (or have to), as a citizen, take some action. Examples: Changes in law, cultural events that will take place in the future, openings of new institutions, planned political demonstrations or petitions. - Old news. Only give news about somethi…

Sooo... volunteers to make these? They sound like great ideas. Not sure how you monetize, as ads are sort of antithetical to the notion of clean, BS-free news feeds, and we're all trained to expect content to be free these days.

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#135

Post by westoncb »

asgard1024 wrote: post #117

Here are two ideas for non-traditional news, that would reduce the information overload, and make news more interesting and healthy: - Actionable news. Only news to which you can (or have to), as a citizen, take some action. Examples: Changes in law, cultural events that will take place in the future, openings of new institutions, planned political demonstrations or petitions. - Old news. Only give news about somethi…

The problem with actionable news is that you have to allow some individual(s) to make the decision for lots of other people what is actionable. Chances are you have someone in the audience whose creativity is greater than the filter's and could have figured out an action that was overlooked.

With old news, it does seem like there's a class of news subjects that are picked before ripe in a sense, and it'd be great to stop doing that—but stuff like disaster news is probably best to keep reporting as soon as possible...

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#136

Post by AnthonyMouse »

asgard1024 wrote: post #117

Here are two ideas for non-traditional news, that would reduce the information overload, and make news more interesting and healthy: - Actionable news. Only news to which you can (or have to), as a citizen, take some action. Examples: Changes in law, cultural events that will take place in the future, openings of new institutions, planned political demonstrations or petitions. - Old news. Only give news about somethi…

The trouble is your first and second categories conflict. If someone is about to be appointed to some office the citizenry may want to weigh in on it. If a disaster occurs then people may want to donate money or volunteer to help victims. A product review of a product not yet released can inform the decision of whether to buy an existing product or wait for the new release.

The actual problem is with 24 hour formats reporting things they don't actually know. Which happens because there is an ongoing story with ~15 minutes a day of new information, but just repeating those 15 minutes of information all day will cause you to lose viewers who leave the news on all day and don't want to hear the same thing over and over whereas reporting other stories for the rest of the day will cause you to lose viewers who tune in at random times looking for specifically that information. So they try to report "new" information about the most popular story all day even when they don't have any.

There is a fairly obvious solution to this, which is to discontinue broadcast reporting and provide news on demand. If you want to know the latest on the lost plane, here it is; that story will stick at the top of the page until people stop clicking on it but nothing new will be posted until something new is actually known.

Then let people create custom news streams like channels on streaming music sites: If some news happens with the missing plane then make that the next story in my stream, otherwise give me news about NSA surveillance, then protests occurring locally, then tech product reviews, etc.

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#137

Post by sparkzilla »

DaKK wrote: post #123
sparkzilla wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you agree with Swartz at all. You used an article that explains why someone does not read the news to promote your news site. According to the article, Swartz wasn't looking for an alternative way to consume news: he decries the news industry as a whole. I'm all for self-promotion on HN when it's relevant, but Grasswire appears to be exactly the kind of thing Swartz would not be interested in. If you we…

What Grasswire is attempting to create is the furthest thing from what current media outlets offer. That's why it's relevant. And for accusing someone of dropping links you sure seem to drop a lot of links to your news site Newslines. Newslines seems to be little more than a celebrity gossip engine. Are you attacking Grasswire because you see them as a competitor?

I add links to my site and blog posts when they are relevant to the discussion, unlike Austin's link here, which is actually contrary to the point raised in Swartz article.

My site is not a competitor to Grasswire. Grasswire is an attempt to fact check news streams. Newslines is a news archive with no fact checking at all. As I said, I used to run a fact-checking site, so I have some experience in the area, and a continuing interest in how fact-checking may work.

I am interested in all of the new news entrants, and you will see my comments on posts about Infobitt, Grasswire, Inside.com and other sites in many places across the net. That said, I have not directly criticized his site, and only said that I think fact checking in general is over rated. Unfortunately, Austen has taken my comments as a personal attack on him. He should grow a thicker skin.

I think getting feedback, positive or negative, from the community is extremely valuable. Your observation that my site is "a celebrity gossip engine" is useful to me, even though you intended it as an insult. Thanks.

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#138

Post by eos_styx »

asgard1024 wrote: post #117

Here are two ideas for non-traditional news, that would reduce the information overload, and make news more interesting and healthy: - Actionable news. Only news to which you can (or have to), as a citizen, take some action. Examples: Changes in law, cultural events that will take place in the future, openings of new institutions, planned political demonstrations or petitions. - Old news. Only give news about somethi…

If you like the sound of second one check out 'The Week'. It's a news Magazine that comes out once a week. It's the only paper news I read.

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#140

Post by lordbusiness »

Goronmon wrote: post #115
lordbusiness wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been running an experiment for the past several months to outsource relevant news curation. It's super simple and super passive. Basically I only read news brought to my attention organically; social media, word on the street which I later look up, etc. Thus far I haven't missed anything of genuine humanity-shaking importance, my emotional state has improved, and I have much more time for reading, hacking, and a…

Doesn't this experiment rely on a certain critical mass of people consuming information in a non-organic fashion?

Not really, though I don't claim this has been a truly scientific study. :-)

Generally, the principle relies on "if it's not important [1], people don't talk about it". In other words, anything someone directly or indirectly mentions to me may be of value, everything else is just soundtrack. [2]

Further, I often find that news that does matter comes to me from the likes of a more considered periodical; I learnt a lot of fact-based detail regarding the Alberta oil sands from National Geographic, and I learn about peace process break downs from twitter users I follow far quicker and with less bias than from mainstream media outlets.

Local news tends to be handled by random people I meet on the street. It's effective so far!

[1] This is an overly burdened word in this context. Darfur is very important, but we rarely hear about it, for example. What I mean in this context is "relevant enough to daily life to stop me in my tracks and get my attention". It's worth highlighting here that a lot of very important news doesn't make it to us via mainstream media because mainstream media selects for sales and / or target audience bias / interests, ergo in that sense, I'm actually NOT hearing about important things by tuning in to traditional mainstream media.

[2] People murdering each other due to orders from invisible people in the sky is going to be a soundtrack to my life thanks to the era I live in. I know this happens. It will continue to happen for my life at least. No, I don't need daily reminders of this universal constant. The way I conduct my life and my advocacy against such acts will not be altered because I don't get those daily reminders.

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