Negativity drives online news consumption

Post by specialist » Fri, Mar 17, 2023, 11:15 PM UTC

gwbrooks wrote: post #154

paulmd wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BBC is one of the best news sources around. For a long time, Al Jazeera was great on anything that didn't directly impact Qatari domestic politics. PBS is pretty fantastic overall and serves a lot of niches that aren't served by commercialized media and really shouldn't be . Like yes if you set out to make a state-sponsored propaganda agency then that's what you get (see: Voice of America, etc), but state sponsorship…

PBS is essentially corporate media, getting ~15% of its budget from government. NPR is even less at ~2%. Corporate vs. public ownership matters a lot less than institutional standards and the org's cultural commitment to a rigorous journalistic mission. BBC has a relatively strong commitment; NPR (my favorite whipping boy for bad journalism packaged as Thinky Stuff) does not.

Post by kevin_thibedeau » Fri, Mar 17, 2023, 11:21 PM UTC

Post by specialist » Fri, Mar 17, 2023, 11:25 PM UTC

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #120

warner25 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've moved towards this too, for better or worse. Between 18-25, I was very passionate about national politics and macroeconomics and consumed by following political news and fiery debates, as many young people are. As my adult responsibilities grew, I realized that the national political stuff was either irrelevant to my day-to-day life experience and / or not something that I could affect much (not actionable, as y…

Do these fiery debates help? I say as someone who also was like this in my late teens. I do local advocacy for transit and civic planning related purposes in a US city. A lot of the "work" is really boring, just going to long public meetings and listening to SMEs drone about very specific issues. But that's where the sausage gets made. Our local transportation department is very receptive to the public's urban concer…

Post by initramfs » Fri, Mar 17, 2023, 11:27 PM UTC

specialist wrote: post #175

HPsquared wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Urban living is more anonymous and alienating than rural living. There are too many people in a city to form relationships with everyone, you don't know 99.9% of the people you see in daily life because there are so many moving around. On the other hand in a small village, most times you see another person it's a repeated interaction and you have met that person before. So the rural conservative view and values on so…

In my experience, neither urban or rural communities are impersonal. Suburbs, however, are dystopian soul destroying hellscapes. Simultaneously parasites feeding off of the prosperous urban areas while desecrating previously productive lands. Urban and rural peoples are natural allies, kept apart by pro suburbanite propaganda. The American Dream™ was presented as McMansions, endless pavement, strip malls, and 2 SUVs…

Post by alfalfasprout » Fri, Mar 17, 2023, 11:31 PM UTC

nonethewiser wrote: post #121

joegahona wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to work at a food/recipe publication and had a similar experience -- users constantly complained that they wanted more healthy recipes, but those types of recipes always performed poorly. Meatloaf and other comfort foods dominated traffic. This has been a good opening for niche creators on Youtube and such -- i.e., there are plenty of people out there interested in vegan, oil-free recipes, and that audience ca…

Is meatloaf really unhealthy?