Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The News Is Information Junk Food (2022)

chuck.is

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 205 posts

Re: The News Is Information Junk Food (2022)

#61

Post by cheeseomlit »

cdrini wrote: post #47

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…

Whoever does the scoring will do so based on whether they agree with the sites bias or not instead of any of those criteria. So you're back to square one but now with a false sense of legitimacy

Re: The News Is Information Junk Food (2022)

#62

Post by tcbawo »

steveBK123 wrote: post #46
criddell wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you think about political cartoons in newspapers and elsewhere? https://firstamendmentmuseum.org/exhibits/virtual-exhibits/a...

I'd prefer people still had the attention span to read the news, including the cartoons.

Is it’s not an either/or proposition. There is a dearth of informed populace. But many of the problems in a modern society are very complex and boring to the majority of people. There is a very small population of informed people. Getting things done requires swaying public opinion and “motivating your base”. Real reporting (presenting or revealing facts), op-ed, comedy, satire are all part of a healthy media ecosystem. But I think one reason for the political divide in the United States is not necessarily a disagreement on policy, but rather the very issues that motivate people on either end of the spectrum are different. It would be great if the population was less impressionable and more informed. But that requires ongoing effort and flies against human nature.

Re: The News Is Information Junk Food (2022)

#63

Post by dosinga »

llm_trw wrote: post #6
Phiwise_ wrote: post #4

"To be completely cured of newspapers, spend a year reading the previous week's." -Nassim Nicholas Taleb, "The Bed of Procrustes"

I rather enjoy doing that. It reduced my anxiety greatly when I realized just how little anyone making news understands what is going on. Doing it for the week, month, year and decade was even more educational.

I love reading books about the future written 10 years ago

Re: The News Is Information Junk Food (2022)

#64

Post by qbxk »

cdrini wrote: post #47

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…

Oh so news should work like science? Citations, references, peer reviews! I approve

Re: The News Is Information Junk Food (2022)

#65

Post by kranke155 »

cdrini wrote: post #47

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…

I think you're going about this in a way that won't make sense to anyone but individuals like yourself.

People watching Fox News all day can't possibly think that it's a picture of reality, unless they use their intuition and rational systems in exactly the opposite sense that you are doing here (and this system of ratings would serve). People are not interested in more information, they are interested in the right information. Information that's belief affirming.

These individuals are using their "survival mode" default setting of understanding reality, not the scientific, rational, system 2 type thinking you're using here.

They feel like they're constantly under attack, so they join a system-world where constantly being under attack is validated for them.

There's no overlap between "let's give people more information" and fixing the actual problem. The actual problem isn't lack of information, but the overwhelming lack of emotional balancing and maturity to take in information you don't like.

Re: The News Is Information Junk Food (2022)

#66

Post by pjc50 »

cdrini wrote: post #47

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…

There's a problem that traditional news gathering regards it as valid to print X if they can find a source saying X and print "X said ...". They consider that to have done their duty. In an era where political figures have neither a sense of honour nor an obligation to the truth, and therefore routinely lie about everything, this leads to the newspaper repeating and amplifying those lies.

(a recent example: a lot of places had to issue apologies and corrections over Imane Khalif due to quoting disreputable sources at face value)

Re: The News Is Information Junk Food (2022)

#67

Post by vitaliyf »

boingo wrote: post #12

All it takes to ditch the news is being on the inside of a breaking story, and realizing how much information being spewed out is just plain incorrect ... then the next few articles you read, you realize it's not just your article they warped for clicks, but all of them. When newspapers were the primary news consumption, it was a bit better - journalists had a few hours to collect facts before publishing. Now there's…

Definitely - basically, that's https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#Gell-Mann_a...

Re: The News Is Information Junk Food (2022)

#68

Post by tiktir »

cdrini wrote: post #47

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…

I love the idea of nutrition facts. AllSides has sort of started doing this. They measure left/right lean for articles and news sources. Newsweek has now included a left/right lean indicator in all of their articles from AllSides.

While the lean of an article is not a measure of factual errors. It at least is a move in the right direction. Maybe one day they will include a nutrition facts.

The other problem I see is who does the fact checking? That cannot be cheap.

Re: The News Is Information Junk Food (2022)

#69

Post by _rrnv »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #45
Phiwise_ wrote: post #4

"To be completely cured of newspapers, spend a year reading the previous week's." -Nassim Nicholas Taleb, "The Bed of Procrustes"

I had this moment during the prelude to the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. First the experts were confindent that the troop movements in Russia were just posturing and saber rattling, there's no way they'll do anything. Next, once they'd entered Ukraine, it would be over in a few weeks. The Russians would win. When the Russians were getting their asses kicked and it looked really bad, the Ukrainians would win by the en…

Virtually no true expert whose predictions are accurate shares their opinion with the public, because they know what their words are really worth. Virtually all news experts are clueless placeholders put there to support the daily narrative.
Post reply on HN