51–60 of 205 posts
I started my career as a reporter a decade ago. I can't tell you how many stories I filed that an editor twisted into something different to fit their narrative. There were also stories I was directed away from because they would alienate our audience. It's a narrative business.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Multiple studies over those years showed that The Daily Show watchers were significantly better informed on issues than cable news viewers. Cable news is the junk food, and TDS showed it to be so bad that even a parody news show could do a better job of informing people, a point made very often by the host. Using it as an example of junk news is missing the point by a rather wide margin. > Better to simply turn off y…
> Multiple studies over those years showed that The Daily Show watchers were significantly better informed on issues than cable news viewers. This comment only makes sense if you're trying to imply the Daily Show increases how informed people are. It seems plausible that causation runs the other way: more informed people are more likely to watch the Daily Show, because then they get all the jokes.
It's the same political culture of preaching to the already converted and mostly shouting about how bad the other side is. No attempts at persuasion.
I started my career as a reporter a decade ago. I can't tell you how many stories I filed that an editor twisted into something different to fit their narrative. There were also stories I was directed away from because they would alienate our audience. It's a narrative business.
The worst thing is watching everyone around me, even very intelligent people, get so angry over a space that is so heavily fabricated, optimised even for that very same outrage.
The more I think about the state of news, the more I'm convinced that we need independent rankings of news sites and journalism. Something similar to a health inspection score. With considerations like: - News needs to be verifiable. Direct links to data sources. - News need to have history of modifications to their article. - Factual errors will cause dings to their score. - Revenue sources/tax forms need to be publ…
For such a thing to work, it needs to be funded. At the end, it doesn't matter if it comes from public or private hands, it's going to be leaning towards one direction or another, then a group of people will consider it the absolute truth and other group of people will create their own site for "fact-checking".
If humans cannot possibly be objective and independent (yes, that's what I believe after 30+ years in this planet and having met multiple people), then news cannot possibly be. Bearing in mind such a limitation, let's think how this can be possibly improved.
I personally gave up on news being informative and just see it as entertainment - it's a narrative business.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Multiple studies over those years showed that The Daily Show watchers were significantly better informed on issues than cable news viewers. This comment only makes sense if you're trying to imply the Daily Show increases how informed people are. It seems plausible that causation runs the other way: more informed people are more likely to watch the Daily Show, because then they get all the jokes.
Precisely. The Daily Show was a predecessor to Twitter political culture and remains the offline version of it. Blue Flavored Fox News with more laughs. It's the same political culture of preaching to the already converted and mostly shouting about how bad the other side is. No attempts at persuasion.
The blending of comedy/entertainment with news, going back to the GWB era with the Daily Show is a good example of this problem. People consuming junk food thinking they are getting their vegetables. Better to simply turn off your brain and honestly watch real junk without the false sophistication.
What's your opinion of John Oliver? I just watched a YouTube video of his show https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqK3_n6pdDY . It seemed pretty good, but I'm also very ignorant. What's the best way to become informed about a topic? Or, is it better to stay ignorant?
If that question exist, the answer is: be ignorant. If you are involved into the topic, you will be pretty informed. So the question is: should you be involved into the topic in he first place. If true, you go to the Uni, join NGO, join related job or research program and get informed pretty quickly, otherwise it's not worthy. Besides, with contemporary media all you can hope for is getting misinformed.
A decade ago I switched from my local morning news to a French show. Instead of violence, traffic accidents, and soccer, the French show talked about recipes, books, travelling, etc. It didn't really try to be a news show, just something light to start off the day. Nowadays I prefer silence during breakfast.
I cut out news (except here) about three years ago. My life has not changed, except that I'm not pissed off as much. Turns out all that the 24 hour news cycle really doesn't teach you very much.
Is there something better out there?
That being said I’m still looking for some good weekly news(papers) in English.
Would love some recommendations.