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The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News

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Re: The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News

#71

Post by stcredzero »

sampleinajar wrote: post #64
stcredzero wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The use of smartphones has demonstrated, I believe, that people will blindly chase their dopamine hits coming from a variety of formats because it is ingrained in human nature. The dopamine reward pathway gives a good feeling and people are naturally inclined to follow the path of least resistance to more hits. If an organization or app tries to fight this, then people will simply use it less. The way this has been r…

> The problem in 2019, is that people are trying to do end-runs around Freedom of Speech not through argument, but through reputation smearing and de-platforming. This is absolutely not a new phenomenon. "Red scare" anyone? Free speech has never protected an individual from social consequences only government/state consequences. We probably agree that it's not a good thing, but it's definitely not new nor has it ever…

Free speech has never protected an individual from social consequences only government/state consequences.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_v._Alabama

Jewish people being excluded from clubs is one example of "social consequences." Women being excluded from the clubs other executives attended was another.

Re: The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News

#72

Post by p1itopre »

I noticed some time ago that I do not learn more about a topic the more frequently I check on it (i.e., multiple times a day).

So, I make it a point to only visit websites that update daily (e.g., https://www.nytimes.com/section/todayspaper) or weekly (https://asia.nikkei.com/Print-Edition). I also started to read news in the morning for 15-30 mins from a paper subscription (Financial Times).

I hope this kind of news consumption catches back on.

Re: The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News

#73

Post by dannykwells »

irq wrote: post #58
clay_the_ripper wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did the same thing about 4 years ago and haven’t looked back. I find though that a lot of people are actually offended by it since I have no clue what thing they and everyone else is outraged about. I get accused of not caring, being disengaged, blah blah blah. It’s difficult to explain to people who are still deep in outrage mode, so I mostly avoid taking about it. My life is so much better since cutting out the new…

Honest question, how do you turn off your empathy for the suffering of your fellow countrymen? Which is what ignoring their plight would require (at least, it would for me).

I don't think that reading or not reading the news is engaging with the plight of "my fellow countrymen". We all ignore the plight of millions/billions of people every day. That is the way life has always been.

Re: The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News

#74

Post by gipp »

stcredzero wrote: post #32
sorenn111 wrote: post #9

Amen, faster and more frequent news is certainly broken. However, I worry that we are fighting against human nature. The use of smartphones has demonstrated, I believe, that people will blindly chase their dopamine hits coming from a variety of formats because it is ingrained in human nature. The dopamine reward pathway gives a good feeling and people are naturally inclined to follow the path of least resistance to m…

The use of smartphones has demonstrated, I believe, that people will blindly chase their dopamine hits coming from a variety of formats because it is ingrained in human nature. The dopamine reward pathway gives a good feeling and people are naturally inclined to follow the path of least resistance to more hits. If an organization or app tries to fight this, then people will simply use it less. The way this has been r…

> Sunlight is the best disinfectant, after all.

So, I had never heard this phrase until maybe a year or so ago. Now it seems like (on this site particularly) someone parrots this exact sentence in any thread at all related to news and/or social media.

Where is this coming from? Especially since it is... Emphatically untrue. It's just another one of those turns of phrase that asks you to believe it purely because it's so pithy.

People have studied this. A lot. It's just not true.

Re: The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News

#75

Post by chiefalchemist »

Zaphods wrote: post #46
chiefalchemist wrote: post #25

Actually, what we need first is: 1) A common and agreed upon standard definition of news. Facts alone are not news. News also has importance and relevance. It's not news simply because a (major) "news" outlet publishes it. I ate eggs for breakfast. That's truth / fact. It's not news. 2) A common and agreed upon standard definition of journalism / journalist. Again, working for a "news" outlet does not make you a jour…

I'll take a stab: 1) News is an account (story) of an event. The degree with which it is "true" is the degree with which it holds the events to account, and the degree with which the news organization/publisher holds itself accountable for that account/story. Good news is accountable and provides accounts of events. "Truth" is the wrong focus; "fact" is far too malleable (hence the status-quo legitimacy of "alternati…

1) Being an account of X isn't a high enough bar. 100% of what I see on "the news" is an account of something. The problem is, the line between TMZ and Fox or CNN is less defined.

2) " but few are willing to hold themselves to the standards of accountability good journalism demands."

Well yeah. But it's because the dentition of journalism has become "anything done by self-proclaimed journalists." It's entirely self-serving. There is no higher standard. Mainly because the pot is afraid of calling the kettle black.

3) We might call them op-eds but plenty of "news" orgs are all too comfortable presenting their op-eds as news and/or journalism.

Re: The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News

#76

Post by joe-collins »

steelframe wrote: post #14

I stopped reading the news about a year ago. I felt like my emotions were being manipulated by a sharply-honed system built precisely to invoke outrage and draw you in to read more and more of it. I've been able to direct my focus and energy to much more productive tasks since I disconnected. Of course I entirely missed that whole Supreme Court thing until after it was over, and I have no idea what people around me a…

At the risk of sounding glib, your presence on this site would seem to imply that you've not, in fact, stopped reading the news.

Re: The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News

#77

Post by jdreyfuss »

I like the idea of "slow news." I imagine my ideal state would be a combination of slow news and rapid fire updates. You get depth on the things that deserve depth, as well as a shallow horizontal understanding of the most current happenings across the board.

From the reader side, the challenge would come in making the time for the slow news part when the rapid fire updates never stop, and in resisting the urge to equate seeing the rapid fire updates with actually being informed on the issues (i.e. "I don't need to read this in-depth look at the border situation; I've already seen a bunch of small updates on that"). From the publisher side, monetization is the ever-present issue

Re: The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News

#78

Post by jimbokun »

sorenn111 wrote: post #9

Amen, faster and more frequent news is certainly broken. However, I worry that we are fighting against human nature. The use of smartphones has demonstrated, I believe, that people will blindly chase their dopamine hits coming from a variety of formats because it is ingrained in human nature. The dopamine reward pathway gives a good feeling and people are naturally inclined to follow the path of least resistance to m…

"However, I worry that we are fighting against human nature."

I mean, trying to stop people from getting addicted to opioids is fighting against human nature, too.

Re: The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News

#79

Post by openasocket »

notacoward wrote: post #56
openasocket wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

William Barr has never made that claim. And he went on to say, right after that quote, that the Justice Department is conducting an investigation into this. That's very big news! Trump tweeting about how Obama spied on him is very different than the Justice Department dedicating resources to investigating the FBI, Obama, and Hillary Clinton.

Let's say for the sake of argument that it qualifies as news. Does it change the overall argument that "news" outlets try to claim far too much of our attention for topics they've already saturated, in the process failing to bring new events to our attention? Or are we just sealioning here?

I think it depends. If you use NYT or WaPo or WSJ as your primary news source I don't believe you'll see duplicates (if you only pick one of those 3, obviously each of those papers will publish their own version of the same story), excluding editorials. To a lesser extent this is true with the CNN news site, if you exclude their opinion pieces and "Analysis" articles (which tend to just link to their actual news article and add the potential political ramifications. Not true journalism, but not really an editorial either). Though the same can not be said of the actual CNN TV channel, which I find nearly unwatchable because they rehash essentially the same information over and over. I can't comment much about other sources.

As for failing to bring new events to our attention, I totally agree. The 4 outlets I mentioned above don't give enough attention to international news, stuff that really is important. Even in domains that are heavily covered bits get left behind. Like a Trump-appointed federal judge for the Federal Court of Appeals who had never been a judge of any kind before (The BAR recommends at least 12 years of judge experience for that position, the nominee didn't even have their law degree for 12 years) and was an active member of a SPLC-recognized hate group (who was confirmed by the Senate, btw). I don't have a single news article about that one, which is an absolute shame.

I'm just not entirely sure what stories should be cut. Maybe it will come down to just having a better aggregation system and UI to discover and keep track of these stories.

Re: The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News

#80

Post by enchiridion »

joe-collins wrote: post #76
steelframe wrote: post #14

I stopped reading the news about a year ago. I felt like my emotions were being manipulated by a sharply-honed system built precisely to invoke outrage and draw you in to read more and more of it. I've been able to direct my focus and energy to much more productive tasks since I disconnected. Of course I entirely missed that whole Supreme Court thing until after it was over, and I have no idea what people around me a…

At the risk of sounding glib, your presence on this site would seem to imply that you've not, in fact, stopped reading the news.

Just noticed your username. Are you the YouTuber?
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