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Do you avoid the news? You’re in growing company

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Do you avoid the news? You’re in growing company

#71

Post by basch »

avalys wrote: post #4

The single biggest problem with America today is the presentation and consumption of national news, political commentary and public policy as entertainment. The media has figured out that America is the ultimate reality TV show and they present it as such. Cable TV and the internet are to blame for this. I don't know what could be done about it. But we'd be way better off if "the news" was something you could watch f…

Cable News may have boiled it down to its essence, but the problem transcends tv. The same problem exists in writing, its just more spread out.

If you synthesize all that happens in Washington in a day, it is a giant soap opera. IT keeps its power by keeping people paying attention to it. Even a "just the facts, maam" view of the news is largely rabblerousing. I wonder how much of what I see on https://www.memeorandum.com/river today will matter in 10 years. How much of it belongs in a history book. How much of it is needed to make an informed decision in an election. How much of it is needed to understand the world around me.

Re: Do you avoid the news? You’re in growing company

#72

Post by linster »

sylens wrote: post #3

I was recently listening to a podcast recapping a television show set in the early 2000s, where a current college aged student basically said "I wish I had the experience of being a teenager in that time period - it seemed much simpler as you weren't aware of every bad thing that was happening around the world" And that's really the way it used to be. It was even better before 24 hour news networks, as your evening n…

In summary: life was better in the 90s because you were unaware.

Cue oddly specific example of “The Ukraine” and “rocket volley”.

Next, the highlight that informal communities that make their own echo chambers are more popular as distrust in established media is sown.

Finally, a personal anecdote that echo chambers curate more attention-getting articles.

Nothing in this post is especially truthy or falsey, yet it serves up mild “distrust the media” nihilism.

Re: Do you avoid the news? You’re in growing company

#73

Post by clsec »

Jeema101 wrote: post #45
avalys wrote: post #4

The single biggest problem with America today is the presentation and consumption of national news, political commentary and public policy as entertainment. The media has figured out that America is the ultimate reality TV show and they present it as such. Cable TV and the internet are to blame for this. I don't know what could be done about it. But we'd be way better off if "the news" was something you could watch f…

A lot of it isn't actually news at all: it's news entertainment. It's very similar to how professional wrestling isn't real wrestling, but actually 'wrestling entertainment'. I call this the 'WWE-ification' of the news and politics.

I can't even count the number of times Taylor Swift and her concert tour have been on the news in the past two weeks.

Re: Do you avoid the news? You’re in growing company

#74

Post by [deleted] »

starttoaster wrote: post #7
sylens wrote: post #3

I was recently listening to a podcast recapping a television show set in the early 2000s, where a current college aged student basically said "I wish I had the experience of being a teenager in that time period - it seemed much simpler as you weren't aware of every bad thing that was happening around the world" And that's really the way it used to be. It was even better before 24 hour news networks, as your evening n…

> There was no need to follow the result of every individual rocket volley in the Ukraine or each individual comment from a politician. This is really it. Who has the time or the emotional bandwidth to spare for following all of this? I was talking to somebody about the overturning of affirmative action, and their response to me was basically "if you haven't read the Supreme Court opinions on this matter, we can't ha…

[deleted]

Re: Do you avoid the news? You’re in growing company

#75

Post by alberth »

I've completely cut out watching/reading news, with 1 exception.

https://www.newsminimalist.com

I stumbled across it on HN sometime back.

Someone created an AI model to consume daily, thousands of news sources, scores the articles and lists what it's highest scored for the day.

---

Ironically, APNews use to work this way. They provide a "relevance score" for every news article they published/reported so that other outlets could use that score as a signal on what they should report on.

Problem is, all other news outlet are disparate for eyeballs, so everything becomes "breaking news" regardless of the news relevance score.

Re: Do you avoid the news? You’re in growing company

#77

Post by shortcake27 »

linster wrote: post #72
sylens wrote: post #3

I was recently listening to a podcast recapping a television show set in the early 2000s, where a current college aged student basically said "I wish I had the experience of being a teenager in that time period - it seemed much simpler as you weren't aware of every bad thing that was happening around the world" And that's really the way it used to be. It was even better before 24 hour news networks, as your evening n…

In summary: life was better in the 90s because you were unaware. Cue oddly specific example of “The Ukraine” and “rocket volley”. Next, the highlight that informal communities that make their own echo chambers are more popular as distrust in established media is sown. Finally, a personal anecdote that echo chambers curate more attention-getting articles. Nothing in this post is especially truthy or falsey, yet it ser…

Yes, my elderly mother can’t stop complaining about how much crime there is “these days”. Despite the fact crime per-capita has decreased, the news reports the absolute value. This in turn tricks people into believing something that is quite literally opposite from what is really happening.

Re: Do you avoid the news? You’re in growing company

#79

Post by twelve40 »

digging wrote: post #53
starttoaster wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There was no need to follow the result of every individual rocket volley in the Ukraine or each individual comment from a politician. This is really it. Who has the time or the emotional bandwidth to spare for following all of this? I was talking to somebody about the overturning of affirmative action, and their response to me was basically "if you haven't read the Supreme Court opinions on this matter, we can't ha…

> I need to read multiple news articles and then a novel just to have an opinion on something now? Yes. Why do you want to have opinions on things you don't understand?

well, this is how real life works. This is how popular vote works. 99% of voters will never read any of that crap (maaaybe just the tldr from the news) but will happily opine, and popular vote is based on that. so not exactly uncommon.

Re: Do you avoid the news? You’re in growing company

#80

Post by robotnikman »

Yeah I've been trying, it has never been good for my mental health seeing all the negativity. Even sticking here to HN trying to only stay on top of tech related news, I still run into problems stumbling over news of negative things which I have no control over
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