[HN Gopher] Things you notice when you quit the news (2016)
___________________________________________________________________
Things you notice when you quit the news (2016)
Author : abhiminator
Score : 675 points
Date : 2022-02-22 16:41 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.raptitude.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.raptitude.com)
| agambrahma wrote:
| Changes that have worked for me:
|
| - stop reading any form of "push news" (so, no Google News, Apple
| News etc) - whenever you feel the urge to read something, save to
| read-later service (I use Instapaper) - print subscription to
| Economist
|
| You realize you never needed to "keep up to the minute", and it's
| okay to find out about things a day or two later
| m1117 wrote:
| I only read twitter feed for news and it's great!
| tazjin wrote:
| In light of the current situation in Europe I've thought of a
| rule of thumb I give people about media they consume.
|
| If someone is painted as an enemy, and the information you're
| given makes their actions or motivations seem irrational, you're
| likely not being given all relevant information.
|
| In the same vein as this article, I've also quit Twitter a year
| ago and it's been great. Pretty much the same effects also.
| Supernaut wrote:
| Except that the "current situation in Europe" actually is being
| motivated primarily by irrationality. (That's what extreme
| nationalism amounts to.) And I don't know what kind of
| ideological contortions you'd need to undergo to conclude that
| the man who has brought about this situation is not your enemy.
| tazjin wrote:
| Thank you for illustrating my point.
| Supernaut wrote:
| Why are you certain that I don't have all the information
| necessary to have made an informed decision on this?
| haerra wrote:
| If you had the all the info, how would you be certain
| that you are not biased?
|
| I had the unluckiness to be born in a country torched by
| war. I am still finding out the info about the war, that
| you won't be able to read anywhere. I am aware that it is
| not easy for someone that grew up and lives in totally
| different world to learn and understand all the
| complexities... But at least take everything with a grain
| of salt.
| fidesomnes wrote:
| ctoth wrote:
| I'm very curious what you think of this interesting article[0]
| I read yesterday which ties into your point.
|
| [0]:
| https://wisdomofcrowds.live/email/725986a1-fc00-4962-a1dc-c3...
| inanutshellus wrote:
| A few years ago, seemingly out of nowhere, were a bunch of
| articles about how Oman was the center of terrorism in the
| middle east.
|
| I had had family stationed there years before so the name
| popped out at me, as they'd described it previously as "open
| and accepting of westerners" (relatively speaking, I guess).
|
| Anyway, this "center of terrorism" thing was front page news
| across the board for a solid week, maybe two, then poof, it
| went away. Nobody even remembers it now.
|
| I don't really know what to make of it. What would I, Normy
| McYaBasic, do with the above information in any case?
| asdff wrote:
| It's a fun little metagame to imagine the motives of
| headlines put in front of you. In this case, maybe the
| motivating factor that lead to the journalist's boss dropping
| this assignment on their lap could have been anything from a
| slighted Saudi prince to someone shorting Oman Air that week.
| mlindner wrote:
| The situation in Russia is the action of a single person.
| Rationality is not a universal state of people. People can have
| mental problems and while actions can seem to be rational in
| their own head, every other person realizes their
| irrationality.
|
| Also for the record, given the lies being created, it's quite
| obviously rational what they're doing, but it doesn't make the
| lies not lies.
| [deleted]
| rr808 wrote:
| A good tip is read 1 week old newspapers. You quickly realize
| most of it is completely unnecessary for your long term
| knowledge.
| brimble wrote:
| Nearly all of it is, for most people, when it comes to national
| and international news. It's little more than low-value
| entertainment. Which is fine, but people get all kinds of crazy
| ideas about "needing" to follow the news closely to be a good
| citizen or whatever. Nah. Much better if folks would spend that
| time reading books on political science, economics, policy, and
| history, rather than the news. Spend a couple minutes catching
| up every few months, and you won't have missed much of
| consequence.
|
| Local news is another matter.
| penjelly wrote:
| local news is still guilty of a lot of the same, but agree
| its better and agreed on your other points.
| brimble wrote:
| Oh the quality may be crap, but there's a much higher
| likelihood of learning something you can act on, even if
| it's just "oh, that band I like is going to be in town".
| srj wrote:
| Related read is this article by Aaron Swartz:
| http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews
| [deleted]
| hgs3 wrote:
| No one is under any obligation to consume any news - whether that
| be sports news, gaming news, or world news. Tangentially, what
| personally irks me is that the YouTube app on iOS forces a news
| feed on me with no way to dismiss it.
| FredPret wrote:
| I used to get so angry at Twitter.
|
| Then I watched a Ricky Gervais interview where he compares tweets
| to graffiti. Einstein and a total idiot would tweet in the same
| font.
|
| Now when I see a tweet I strongly disagree with, I get zero
| emotional involvement. It's wonderful, but now Twitter seems
| almost pointless. Perhaps that is wonderful as well.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I cherish my printed Sunday paper. I avoid news that comes with a
| comment section (except for this site).
| Friday_ wrote:
| Imagine some kids are talking about stuff from computer games,
| imagine some other kids talking about memes from tiktok.
|
| If you are not into games or memes you discard it as
| nonimportant. That is same thing if you dont watch news.
|
| Its like a joke you didnt hear and some people are referencing
| it.
|
| No big deal.
| iguana_lawyer wrote:
| The best way to stay informed about current events is with
| heavily curated Twitter lists. Every news organization is garbage
| but there are good journalists out there. You just have to find
| the good ones and follow only them, not the company they work
| for.
| verisimi wrote:
| The revolution will not be televised.
|
| This is because all the mainstream news sources, even those that
| appear to be in opposition, are working in tandem. CNN, Fox, BBC,
| RT, Al Jazeera, etc and papers WaPo, NYT, Guardian, Daily Mail,
| etc are all providing positions on the same narrative. Using this
| sources - as if they are stating truth - seems crazy to me. They
| are all propaganda.
|
| The apparent variety of left or right wing perspective gives the
| illusion of there being something there, that you have a balanced
| opinion on. This is by design. Its _all_ propaganda. Its soap
| opera for the middle classes. It does not relate to the live you
| experience.
|
| The backdrop to it is that people live such virtual lives,
| sitting at screens, not engaged with nature and real-life, the
| virtual has become a de facto reality.
| paul7986 wrote:
| All for profit media is biased trash to live and enjoy your life
| far away from.
|
| There's no objectivity especially with political news (barf) and
| world event news (things that try to control your life).
|
| Ive posted this same sentiment many times here on hacker news
| about the garbage media .. always gets voted down. But im
| passionate about living and enjoying life far from it .. think
| for myself and for me my relationships with people are most
| important not some dumb for profit news cycle that's manipulated
| bias trash. Such will never come between me and someone i care
| about! They can believe that garbage they fill their head with
| but i only very briefly give my opinion on it and move the topic
| to something positive/fulfilling!
|
| I am avid reader of tech, entertainment and some local news cause
| that's fluff vs brainwashing/try to control how I enjoy the time
| Im here on earth.
| karaterobot wrote:
| I think you also discover that a lot of things you assumed you
| believed in yourself were actually just other peoples' opinions,
| which you signed off on to because of the mere-exposure effect.
| Without hearing them chanted over and over, they stop being as
| self-evident as you thought they were.
| redisman wrote:
| Huge problem with US news sources (and most others too). Almost
| all of them have an overarching editorial "narrative" that
| colors their every decision.
| mdavidn wrote:
| A useful middle ground is to only read periodicals. These
| publications give journalists time to distill news into accurate,
| complete information with some analysis. The articles are
| information-dense and an efficient method to stay aware of
| current events without a significant investment of personal time.
|
| I currently prefer The Atlantic and The Economist for this
| purpose, but there are many choices.
| pseudosavant wrote:
| I have cut my media intake by 99% since 2016. I agree with every
| single one of these points.
| giantg2 wrote:
| One caveat. Local news on TV can still be decent. It depends on
| the specific area though (big cities tend to drop a lot smaller
| stories). It can help you find out about stuff going on in your
| area that you wouldn't otherwise know about (unless your area
| also has a small newspaper).
| Kye wrote:
| A lot of local stations are more or less syndication houses
| these days. They might buy up packages from stringers and
| sometimes actually send someone out to report from scenes after
| the fact, but it's nothing you can't get from skimming their
| web page after you stop the auto-playing video.
|
| Most actual local news IME comes from local Facebook
| pages/groups and, rarely, Nextdoor.
| giantg2 wrote:
| True, you can get it from their web page. The facebook group
| thing can be good too. I think those tend to miss things like
| interviews with local leaders or politicians.
| jimmyed wrote:
| CNN did not cover immigration even in 2016? I was under the
| impression it became a tool only after the disgraced chief.
| slothtrop wrote:
| Immigration was the most salient issue of '16 as well
| [deleted]
| akselmo wrote:
| I havent followed news or watched TV for years. Way happier this
| way. And if there is something I really must know, my friends
| tell me or I find out about it on my own (like reading official
| statements about covid for example).
|
| News are just a business like any other, and I have never needed
| their services.
| tomlin wrote:
| Living in Canada during the Convoy was a huge dose of this
| sentiment expressed in this article. You'd think that most
| Canadians supported a siege over our borders and capital city -
| but you'd be wrong. What was being characterized as a protest,
| resembled more of an attempt to overthrow of government via
| social media. You were better to not know anything about it.
| ourmandave wrote:
| I realized the news doesn't matter to me at all when I left
| Bing.com up over a week by accident.
|
| I came back and looked at the week old news stories they
| featured. I'd forgotten about all of them and they'd all had zero
| impact on my life in any way.
|
| Which, outside of the weather forecast, is true for any given
| week since forever.
| keewee7 wrote:
| This includes being subscribed to r/worldnews and r/politics.
| james-redwood wrote:
| If your worldview was derived from Reddit there was never much
| hope for you in the first place.
| 40four wrote:
| This is a great article, I can surely relate and confirm the main
| points, from my experience. I 'quit' news a few years ago, and it
| greatly improved my mood. Obsessively trying to stay 'informed'
| can be quite stressful, and I believe gives you a warped sense of
| what the world is really like.
|
| I'm not completely in the dark. I still scan headlines a few
| minutes of the day, but I have switched completely to RSS feeds.
| I use the NetNewsWire app on my iPhone, and I have feeds from all
| the major news networks.
|
| This way I'm in complete control of my intake, and I get a
| completely text based experience (my settings default to 'reader'
| mode once I click through to the article website). I get to just
| read, and not be bothered with all the other ads & nonsense on
| news sites.
|
| It's really nice to consume news on my own terms, and not what
| the Google news algorithm wants me to see. Or not consume it at
| all and be happy :) Taking a step away from obsessively reading
| articles everyday can go along way from disconnecting from the
| 'propaganda machine', and thinking for yourself, instead of
| getting sucked into whatever 'narrative of the day' is.
| mouzogu wrote:
| you will click the headline and you will like it
| kansface wrote:
| I used to listen to NPR while doing chores like washing dishes,
| laundry, driving, etc. As of late, I've come to be increasingly
| dissatisfied with NPR functioning as the unofficial spokesperson
| for the Democratic Party (chiefly broadcasting stories
| compressible into 0 bits...). I've nearly completely replaced
| that habit with listening to Lex Friedman. Lex does long form
| interviews with a wide variety of guests. He is both respectful
| and curious. The medium is just flat out better on both sides -
| you can start/stop a podcast when the dishes are done, or to look
| up related info or to discuss something. You can skip the
| episodes that don't interest you. And, perhaps best of all, it
| isn't a constant stream of doom, gloom and outrage porn
| [deleted]
| MarcScott wrote:
| I used to listen to the whole of Today on BBC Radio 4, every day.
| Plus Any Questions and watch Question Time, News Night etc on the
| TV.
|
| I quit, and now other than a 5 minute scan of the BBC News
| Website occasionally, I am news free. I know the important stuff,
| such as the ending of Covid restrictions in the UK and the
| invasion of provinces in Ukraine, but I don't dive deeply into
| the articles, or do any wider reading.
|
| The reason for my switching off from the news, is that there is
| bugger all I can do about it, other than voting once every five
| years, or becoming an activist.
|
| I don't have the time or energy to campaign as an activist on
| issues I care about. I have a family to look after and a job to
| maintain. My priorities are selfish.
|
| Voting for me, is a waste of time (although I always do vote). I
| live in a Tory county, and my vote counts for nothing without
| proportional representation (which I voted for, but did not
| happen).
|
| What's the point of digesting news. I learn stuff that mostly has
| little impact on my life, and when it does have an impact,
| there's nothing I can do about it.
|
| My quality of life is certainly better since I cut back on
| digesting the news, in any form, other than this site.
| blablabla123 wrote:
| I think this is missing the point of news and this sums it up
| very nicely:
|
| "Read three books on a topic and you know more about it than 99%
| of the world."
|
| That's why it's called "news", it's living, recent information
| that is in the making, being talked about and discussed.
| Everything else is great but it's something different and likely
| is encapsulated by an echo chamber.
|
| Nothing against reading up books about politics for instance but
| it's at best complementary to news. At worst - not being a
| political scientist - you might select the "wrong" book and find
| yourself wasting time how people describe obscure views.
|
| But yes, in general I agree of course. Watching/reading too much
| news can be draining. But really, our current democracy is built
| on the fact that people consume news from _at least_ one
| mainstream news outlet. How else do you know who to vote for?
| andix wrote:
| I replaced ,,the news" with hacker news. Much better.
| mdb31 wrote:
| "Quit the news" is _not_ the answer.
|
| Quit the 24-hour news cycle? Sure. Quit _doomscrolling_ on
| Facebook or Twitter? Yeah, most definitely quite good for you.
|
| But, "quit the news" as in "remain uninformed"? No way! The
| invention of the press enabled modern democracy, and no matter
| what you think of that, all the alternatives so far have pretty
| decisively turned out to be worse.
|
| So, here's my take: consume the news, but in moderation. And,
| like consuming alcohol in moderation (which I also wholeheartedly
| condone), I can't tell you exactly _how_ to do it, just that I
| 've seen it done successfully.
|
| For me, it's a (dead-tree) subscription to The Economist. World
| events, long-form analysis, some light fare, all with a mild(ish)
| libertarian touch, delivered to my doormat every week.
|
| A time-saver it is not: a single copy of the (weekly) newspaper
| takes at least eight hours to digest, often longer. But I don't
| feel compelled to hit 'refresh' (the newspaper is what it is for
| the next week), and there is no way to embarrass myself by
| hitting 'reply': a Letter To The Editor takes some careful
| consideration, which is great.
| rocky1138 wrote:
| A very timely article. I've recently decided to completely
| abandon the news after the most recent issue in my country (the
| occupation of our capital city) once the issue was resolved. It
| was taking up far too much of my life and was negatively
| affecting my emotions. It's been a few days and I'm still amazed
| how much I've been able to accomplish on my projects now that
| I've got that time and energy back.
|
| I hope I never relapse.
| glonq wrote:
| I quit the news in 2016, and have never been happier. First the
| national news, then local news.
|
| I still scan the headlines from various sources and selectively
| choose how/when/why I choose to dig deeper into anything. And no,
| I'm not using any crackpot sources or echo chambers. I prefer
| more "raw" news reporting; before any spin or sensationalism gets
| inflicted upon it.
| 0_____0 wrote:
| Life hack: if you do want to keep up on global current events but
| can't stand the breathless media circus, get your news from
| Wikipedia.[1]
|
| If you actually want to make a difference consider putting more
| into getting engaged locally, whatever that means for you.
| National and global scale issues are really easy to fall into a
| despair/paralysis cycle with.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events
| einpoklum wrote:
| Wikipedia will be a short and less inflammatory summary of the
| "breathless media circus", which is still really not good
| enough.
| james-redwood wrote:
| Exactly Wikipedia's flaw: it only holds a mirror to the
| sources, and even then, a distorted one at that to the whims
| of an anonymous editor who very well could have an
| inflammatory agenda and in cohort with other similar actors.
| 0_____0 wrote:
| I got some utility out of the Wikipedia current events
| page, but I don't assume that it'll be universally useful.
| I have to ask you though -- putting aside the general
| issues with writer bias on Wikipedia, what issues do you
| have with the presentation of info in the Current Events
| portal?
| 0_____0 wrote:
| I mean... I'm looking at the current events page and there's
| a conspicuous lack of exhausting USA focused culture war BS.
| It's dry and to be honest a bit boring. If you look at the
| Ongoing Events pane on the right, there's a list of present
| issues that don't necessarily get reported on because they
| don't have the flash to drive ad revenue.
| adamrezich wrote:
| I still don't understand how we made it through the 00s with
| trust in television news media still fully intact, at least here
| in the US.
|
| the nation was basically united in wanting to invade
| Iraq/Afghanistan all because the talking heads on TV manufactured
| that consent. it wasn't a "party lines" or "oh that was just FOX
| News" kind of thing--the news stations were a united front in
| getting us to believe in something absolutely ridiculous, and we
| accepted it at face value because we were scared and confused
| following 9/11. we now know it was all bullshit that resulted in
| the further unnecessary loss of life, American and otherwise, yet
| millions of Americans still "trust" these "news" programs
| implicitly--it's The News, why would you question it?
|
| now these same news stations with overly-polished talking heads--
| including "former" intelligence agency regulars--and
| pharmaceutical advertising money (most Americans never bat an eye
| at the pharma ads on TV and how creepy and weird they are, or are
| even aware that they're illegal in most of the rest of the world)
| claim to be the Arbiters of Truth and The Best, Perhaps Only Way
| To Stay Informed, and we eat it right up. my dad thinks he's
| consuming a "balanced news diet" by watching the nightly news
| from every station. it's insanity. turn it off and don't look
| back. they call it programming for a reason.
| jmcphers wrote:
| These arguments are nearly identical to those laid out by Neal
| Postman in _Amusing Ourselves to Death_ , who pointed out --
| almost 40 years ago, I might add -- that television news has
| become entertainment, not news.
| 0x4d464d48 wrote:
| "To be clear, I'm mostly talking about following TV and internet
| newscasts here. This post isn't an indictment of journalism as a
| whole. There's a big difference between watching a half hour of
| CNN's refugee crisis coverage (not that they cover it anymore)
| versus spending that time reading a 5,000-word article on the
| same topic."
|
| This is important.
|
| I haven't watched cable news in years (maybe a decade now?) but
| still check in with long form journalism for in-depth exploration
| of a topic.
|
| I think this right here is a source of all of the evil mentioned
| in the article:
|
| https://fs.blog/narrative-fallacy/
|
| I'm not always above creating narratives and cherry-picking
| information that feeds those narratives because, end of the day,
| Im human just like everybody else. But being aware of this and
| learning how to better catch yourself as you're doing it does
| make a massive difference. It also damned near forces you to try
| and look for information closer to the source.
|
| (Try reading news sources in another language from another
| country and watch what happens. Ideally you wouldnt use Google
| Translate)
| hateful wrote:
| Most of the day to day of the news reel is basically Reality TV.
|
| Firstly, the Cable news stations (CNN, Fox News) aren't news
| programs - despite the name - they are talk shows. It's Maury for
| politics.
|
| The broadcast news, that's news. But it's not without its
| problems. Whenever I would over hear my mom watching it - it's so
| shocking how it's done. some of my gripes, based on what little
| I've seen over the past few years:
|
| - The tone of the newscaster has changed - they don't sound like
| they're just reporting it - there's emotion or gravitas in their
| voice that make what they're saying authoritative.
|
| - When they cover politics - especially elections - it's always a
| fluff piece about the big two candidates. When the democratic
| primaries for the 2016 election were happening - they'd barely
| mention anyone but Hillary. You'd have 10 minutes of Hillary, 1
| minute of Bernie and 0 minutes of everyone else. Same in 2020,
| but add Biden. It's no wonder my mom had no idea the other
| candidates even existed. (and don't get me started on how the
| candidates make up issues just to debate them - so tricky - pick
| a hot button topic that is important, but may not be important
| right now - I think we know the big ones)
|
| - Fear mongering - this goes with the first one I listed. Instead
| of simply reporting that tragedy happened and giving the facts,
| they'd just keep the emotional level up. It's a bait and switch.
| You get drawn in by it and then vote for whoever is going to
| "fix" everything. The morality of it is, in my opinion, similar
| to what psychic does - play on the emotion of someones tragedy
| for money.
|
| And I say all this as someone who doesn't follow the news or
| politics very closely.
| synergy20 wrote:
| For non-tech news I only read from Reuters and AP, both are
| relatively neutral and objective.
| SN76477 wrote:
| I am often reminded of the person who said they recorded the news
| daily to watch it two weeks later... they said very little of it
| mattered.
| csbartus wrote:
| A brief summary of my experience:
|
| 1. I never had a TV
|
| 2. I've read print newspapers (local, international) every day
| for a decade
|
| 3. I've read online news (local, intl) every day for more than a
| decade
|
| 4. I've never was active (neither reading the feed nor posting
| something) on any social network except Tumblr for visual
| inspiration
|
| 5. Today I read just one single online hyperlocal news portal,
| beside tech news (Hacker News + newsletters)
|
| The takeaways:
|
| a. Less anxiety.
|
| News are, well, inaccurate since Pulitzer / yellow journalism.
| Their major function is to keep you on a constant stress level.
| Which is good on tech news, hyperlocal news -- where you can act,
| but not good on national and international level -- where you are
| just a simple spectator.
|
| b. Less biased. I know that I know nothing, so I'm listening
| everybody and trying to make sense what's happening around.
| didibus wrote:
| > To be clear, I'm mostly talking about following TV and internet
| newscasts here. This post isn't an indictment of journalism as a
| whole. There's a big difference between watching a half hour of
| CNN's refugee crisis coverage (not that they cover it anymore)
| versus spending that time reading a 5,000-word article on the
| same topic
|
| I guess in that respect I've long quit the news. I'm honestly
| surprised some people still watch TV news, I've cut the cord a
| long time ago personally.
|
| I tend to go to axios, New York times, Atlantic, Reason, etc.,
| and not on a daily basis, since long form news doesn't get
| published as often. Been doing that for a while.
|
| Axios is my favorite for keeping up with daily news, no opinion
| pieces, just reporting on events and a quick summary of why it
| could matter in a digestible form.
| StillBored wrote:
| Yah, much of the news isn't even news, its either punditry,
| gossip, or fear mongering because something sounds scary (school
| shootings vs car accidents, hours of pandemic talk without
| anything new, etc).
|
| So, yes cutting all that BS our is going to make you feel better
| because in two weeks no one is going to care that $celebrity had
| $life_event.
| elilev wrote:
| Sad that most people are only realizing this 6 years later.
| mathrall wrote:
| It depends, there are some news that actually worth your time.
| But you should be wary on what kind of news you are consuming.
| flats wrote:
| I strongly agree with this. I would, however, like to call out
| one TV program here in the U.S. that I think comes much closer to
| approximating the experience of "reading a 5,000-word article":
| PBS NewsHour. It's great, completely free and available to watch
| online, and you can even get most of what you need from their
| podcast alone
| (https://www.pbs.org/newshour/feeds/rss/podcasts/segments).
|
| It consists of fairly in-depth, thoughtful coverage of both
| domestic and worldwide news topics, as well as a tiny bit of
| political analysis on Mondays and Fridays. It almost never
| devolves into the breathless, "the world is about to end"-type
| coverage found on basically all cable news programs. Judy
| Woodruff and her team are really great. I dearly miss Gwen Ifill
| and Jim Lehrer.
|
| The Economist is also a great resource, as has been pointed out
| by other commenters here. They publish an audio edition of each
| week's newspaper, too.
| james-redwood wrote:
| I would have also recommended the Economist until I experienced
| a Gell-Mann amnesiac effect [1] with regards to an article they
| wrote about South Africa, a country where I lived much of my
| life in, in which they so horrifically butchered the coverage I
| simply canceled my subscription for fear of how inaccurate
| everything else might have been.
|
| [1]: https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/
| quacked wrote:
| What did they get wrong about it? I am particularly
| interested in South Africa; when I was young my favorite
| novel was set there (Spud by John Van De Ruit) and it's grown
| into a very interesting "split narrative" among Americans,
| who believe things about it depending on their political
| beliefs.
| Groxx wrote:
| may be worth pointing out that you seem to be using that
| backwards - the Gell-Mann amnesia effect is about
| _immediately forgetting_ that you read something so horribly
| misrepresented - you knowingly scoff and then trust the next
| thing you read. a reaction of "this is shit, what else in
| here might be shit, get it away from me" is the direct
| opposite.
| biorach wrote:
| link?
| sushisource wrote:
| The NewsHour is fantastic. Occasionally they fall into the same
| traps that any news source can, but it's a great way to learn
| about what's going on with a minimal amount of sensationalism.
|
| I disagree with the post article that "staying up to date" is
| some fundamentally bullshit concept. It can help you prioritize
| what you care about influencing in the world, even if that
| influence is relatively small.
| Domenic_S wrote:
| "Staying up to date" could mean hourly updates or weekly (or
| monthly) newspapers.
|
| How often are those priorities changing? Surely nobody needs
| hourly pings from a news app on their phone to inform what
| they care about influencing in the world.
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| I feel like PBS is one of the few orgs that prioritizes quality
| above all else and really means it. Between newshour, NOVA, and
| the kids programming, they get a lot of playtime in my home.
| Melatonic wrote:
| That is also because PBS is one of the only channels that is
| held to any actual standards. All other channels (including
| all news channels) are classified purely as "entertainment"
| and therefore are not held to anything.
| darkwizard42 wrote:
| Gosh, News Hour with Jim Lehrer was a STAPLE in my house
| growing up. Both parents would be back from work, cup of chai
| in hand, and you would hear the intro go and even I used to
| tune in as a teenager to get the news.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| I hardly watch TV, but happened across News Hour at someone's
| home. I was shocked; it was a like an alternate reality. It
| makes CNN and Fox look ridiculous - everyone should watch News
| Hour just to reset their perspectives.
|
| The only TV news worth watching that I've seen.
| joshstrange wrote:
| PBS Newshour is a gem for sure and one of the few sources I
| trust almost fully. NPR is also high on my list.
| jimmyjazz14 wrote:
| I feel like NPR has changed over the last few years though or
| maybe I'm the one that changed either way I kinda stopped
| enjoying it as much lately.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| I just wish there was a similar Right leaning news source to
| offset their very Progressive filter.
| Wohlf wrote:
| The Economist and Wall Street Journal (minus the opinion
| pages) basically fills that niche for me.
| madhadron wrote:
| The Wall Street Journal needs an option to subscribe
| _without_ the opinion pages.
| dang wrote:
| Discussed at the time:
|
| _Things You Notice When You Quit the News_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13153539 - Dec 2016 (487
| comments)
| iskander wrote:
| My parents have gone to watching Fox News regularly and my in-
| laws are MSNBC junkies.
|
| It's brain rotting and emotional content that should be socially
| treated like a drug, keeping viewers addicted to drama and
| outage.
| ppeetteerr wrote:
| So much to unpack here.
|
| For starters, being informed makes for more interesting
| conversations with others. It means that you get to reflect on
| what you stand for, and grow as an individual with an opinion.
|
| News is also the gateway for deeper information. If you stick to
| just the news, that's one thing, but if you then go deeper into
| the topic (what is the relationship between Ukraine and Russia?)
| then you get invaluable context. Without following current
| events, how would you know what is an important topic to follow?
|
| Finally (but not lastly), news makes you informed when it comes
| time to vote at the municipal, state, and federal level. If you
| don't follow the developments in your community, your vote is at
| best useless, at worst it's harming the democratic process.
|
| Edit: I should be clear on what I mean by news. In the
| traditional sense, it's reporting on facts, checking sources, and
| providing two sides to every story. Opinions and partisan "news"
| are not that.
| throwaway984393 wrote:
| > makes for more interesting conversations
|
| If "interesting" is talking about the latest outrage that
| everyone will forget in a week, sure. If on the other hand you
| find "interesting" to be debate on the philosophical principles
| of private ownership or the moral relativism of a state's
| relationship to vulnerable populations, ya ain't gettin that
| from the news.
|
| > It means that you get to reflect on what you stand for, and
| grow as an individual with an opinion.
|
| You can do that without the news. And having an opinion is like
| having an asshole: everyone has one, and you should probably
| keep it to yourself.
|
| > Without following current events, how would you know what is
| an important topic to follow?
|
| There is no objective importance other than what will directly
| affect your life. The news is mostly national and international
| information, which rarely ever directly impacts you (unless it
| is "impacting" your amygdala). Local and state actions are much
| more likely to impact you, but I doubt you follow local or
| state news, if it's even covered at all by journalists as more
| than "here's all the local crime to scare you and keep you
| tuning in".
|
| > news makes you informed when it comes time to vote
|
| The news rarely (if ever) lays out out all the positions, track
| records, or experience of candidates in local and state
| elections. But they do parrot talking points and promote the
| candidates with the most money and influence.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| > Finally (but not lastly), news makes you informed when it
| comes time to vote at the municipal, state, and federal level.
| If you don't follow the developments in your community, your
| vote is at best useless, at worst it's harming the democratic
| process.
|
| Election time is when candidates (or some of them) pump out
| propaganda against their opponents. Negative ads about what
| some candidate said 15 years ago. Who wins in that race? Often
| the one who has the most marketing money.
|
| Not just ads though; the propaganda could be part of The News
| as well if there is a coalition in the media that thinks of the
| candidate as a threat.
|
| (And it was either CNN or MSNBC (the news as the article in
| question defines it) that said that they covered Trump so much
| (free press in his case because he fed off the notoriety)
| because he was good for ratings.)
|
| I've seen perfectly reasonable candidates lose in part because
| their more corporate-friendly opponents were better funded by
| private interests.
|
| I've begun to think that an intentionally _random_ vote might
| be better for the venerable "democratic process".
| ppeetteerr wrote:
| It may be a good idea for you to follow up on your elected
| officials outside of the election period in that case. See
| what bills are being proposed, and signed. Who they choose to
| put in their cabinet, what leaders they meet with and public
| statements they make.
|
| If your idea of political news is opinionated partisan
| coverage during elections, then you're doing it wrong.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| > If your idea of political news is opinionated partisan
| coverage during elections, then you're doing it wrong.
|
| But that's the news. That's what "following the news"
| means. The American media covers each federal election for,
| what, two years? Who except people who follow politics as a
| hobby will remember whatever "the news" was before that?
| (Sure, in more local elections things are bound to be
| better than that.)
|
| And you already have to be savvy in order to distinguish
| the partisan coverage from things that are more substantial
| --you don't know what you don't know.
|
| Whatever you are talking about is not on the topic of The
| News.
| wnolens wrote:
| But you're not truly informed, at best you know the opinions of
| others. Or more typically, you're informed as to what media
| outlet publishes to get eyeballs for advertising revenue.
|
| Your conversations with others are only more interesting
| because you're engaging with people who are themselves very
| interested in discussing the opinions of others.
|
| My friends are not like this. And the ones that are, I try to
| avoid endlessly musing about some complex foreign policy which
| no one has enough accurate information to have an opinion
| about.
|
| It's all good, but it's a hobby when it doesn't affect your
| community.
| ppeetteerr wrote:
| I agree with much of what you wrote. Finding curious and open
| minded people is super important and I would encourage you to
| spend the time to find people who actively participate in
| their society. Unless, of course, you'd rather not.
|
| > But you're not truly informed, at best you know the
| opinions of others. Or more typically, you're informed as to
| what media outlet publishes to get eyeballs for advertising
| revenue.
|
| I do disagree that you're not truly informed. If you're
| coming at News from this point of view, you're essentially
| lumping all publications, from the Economist to OANN to RT to
| Huffpo to War Room together. This is a naive approach and
| leads to the rise of partisan publications and channels that
| distort reality.
| wnolens wrote:
| I'm a bit of a pessimist here. Finding open minded people
| has been very difficult. I've got a set, they are my oldest
| and best friends, spread across the continent now.
|
| What is your reading list and hours per week spent?
|
| If you are regularly reading several publications like the
| economist and keeping tabs on diverse set of news outlets,
| then you might be able to see the forest. But that takes
| significant time, and I don't know anyone who does that or
| has the time to in between working and taking care of
| themselves/family - which is why I view it as more of a
| niche hobby nowadays.
| ppeetteerr wrote:
| I agree that it's difficult. I am very selective with
| friends and it takes months if not years to find a new
| friend. However, when one is found, they are a friend for
| life.
|
| > What is your reading list and hours per week spent?
|
| It's a combination of local (municipal, state) and
| national/international news. Local is easy and tends to
| be very factual. If you're in the US, there are a lot of
| smaller publication that report on local events related
| to your city or state.
|
| For international news, something like r/worldnews is a
| good start.
|
| National news is the trickiest one because it tends to be
| the most partisan and requires reading from multiple
| sources. I also ignore it the most for that reason (US
| national politics are a shitshow: no one cares about the
| house and senate, and over indexes on the president,
| which should have very limited power compared to
| congress).
|
| I read about 10/12 hours per week.
| asdff wrote:
| Do you have advice on finding more resources for local
| news? It seems my local sources are just as biased as the
| national ones, and most pieces read like puff pieces to
| prop up political careers, hit pieces (my local news
| transportation writer loves to bash cal hsr), or
| downright advertisements just like the junk from the
| national outlets. A lot of local stuff that does
| sometimes directly impact me doesn't even seem to get
| written about unless there is some financial or electoral
| incentive to print. I feel like you almost have to work
| at city hall to get an understanding of the politicking
| between the city departments and city/county government
| interactions with what little drips its way out, heavily
| diluted into a handful of paragraphs, into local news
| outlets. What little does get out even from seemingly
| benign departments like sanitation could make for a long
| winded docuseries easily, so there is plenty there but no
| one wants to step up and shine a light on it these days
| at least. Maybe the environment for journalists is too
| litigious? I've never seen an LA times journalist accuse
| a blatantly corrupt politician of anything remotely
| improper before the FBI perp walks them out of city hall,
| for example (perhaps they do but these pieces don't seem
| very common), whereas I would expect to see these
| articles connecting obvious dots well before FBI
| indictments if the fourth estate were doing its job.
| ppeetteerr wrote:
| I agree that it's not easy. While most major publications
| in your area have opinion columns and a leaning, I would
| still read them for the facts they share.
|
| For more local news, I have found a decent strategy. This
| may sound weird, but I've joined local Facebook
| communities in my area to track the sources of the
| articles their members share. If you ignore the
| pro-/anti- rhetoric in the comment sections, you may find
| that some of the publications are actually legitimate
| sources of information about the latest happenings in the
| community. It doesn't have to be a scandal all the time
| (it often isn't). Instead, I read about new Covid
| regulations, about the struggles and successes of local
| business, about new legislation being tabled by the state
| government, about elections and their candidates, etc.
|
| Most news is surprisingly human and humble. Opinions and
| partisan publications have made news out to be this
| incendiary thing whereas, in reality, it's just a bunch
| of people trying to live their lives and make decisions
| in a world of little certainty.
| madhadron wrote:
| This is an interesting point. In Seattle we're lucky
| enough to have The Stranger. They are crass and funded by
| escort and pot ads, but they are very much in your face
| about their editorial bias and they cover _only_ the city
| of Seattle.
|
| Their coverage on local political candidates is
| considered the gold standard in the area. If you want to
| run, you _will_ show up for the Stranger 's inquisition,
| and god help you if you start spewing platitudes. Their
| elections board has no interest in being polite to you,
| even if they like you.
|
| My wife is heavily involved in local politics, so we know
| what's going on via that gossip network. The truth is
| that the forces in place change very slowly. The homeless
| problem in Seattle? Same systemic problems it's been for
| a long time. Who's driving the zoning decisions in
| Bellevue? Same couple of developers who have a chokehold
| on downtown. Puget Sound Energy's ongoing poor
| engineering and amazing propoganda? Completely rational
| actors with a fixed playbook. I could write a briefing on
| these topics that would still be good in six months or a
| year.
|
| For topics that require action on your part? By the time
| the news is covering it, the decisions have been made.
| Crazy racists running for Bellevue school board? You hear
| about them in the news when someone has already FOIA'd
| their emails and found a news outlet to publish them.
| Action happens via local groups, either your political
| party or cells of Indivisible or PTSA's or specialized
| action groups like CENSE. If you want to know what's
| going on, you need to subscribe to the newsletters of
| these groups.
| User23 wrote:
| > then you might be able to see the forest.
|
| No matter how many different sources about trees you read
| or watch, you will never see the forest without visiting
| it yourself.
| ok123456 wrote:
| >Edit: I should be clear on what I mean by news. In the
| traditional sense, it's reporting on facts, checking sources,
| and providing two sides to every story. Opinions and partisan
| "news" are not that.
|
| Yeah, good luck with that. Even what appears to be purely
| factual reporting is subject to bias in the form of what gets
| factually reported and what is simply ignored. Several good
| examples of this were documented in "Manufacturing Consent."
|
| Opinion and national bias often creep in to so-called factual
| reporting by 'expert analysis.' You really have to go to
| primary sources and evaluate them for yourself. Putin giving a
| speech is easier to evaluate than a talking head from the
| Brookings Institute who somehow ended up as their 'Russia
| Expert' because he studied abroad there 15 years ago for a
| semester.
| ppeetteerr wrote:
| You may be right that you could read the speech yourself to
| form an opinion, but you wouldn't know there was a speech to
| begin with without someone reporting it.
| parkingrift wrote:
| Strong disagree with the idea that watching or reading
| mainstream news is informative. I don't think it's unfair at
| all to label mainstream news (US) as propaganda. Have you ever
| compared the home pages of major mainstream media companies?
| It's as if they are reporting on a completely different
| country.
|
| It begs the question of whether it is better to be uninformed
| or misinformed. Consuming mainstream media in the US will
| misinform you. Not consuming any media will leave you
| uninformed. If I had to pick I'd rather have an electorate of
| uninformed than an electorate of misinformed.
| mahogany wrote:
| > It begs the question of whether it is better to be
| uninformed or misinformed. Consuming mainstream media in the
| US will misinform you. Not consuming any media will leave you
| uninformed. If I had to pick I'd rather have an electorate of
| uninformed than an electorate of misinformed.
|
| Channeling from Thomas Jefferson[1] (emphasis mine):
|
| "Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper.
| Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that
| polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of
| misinformation is known only to those who are in situations
| to confront facts within their knowledge with the lies of the
| day. I really look with commiseration over the great body of
| my fellow citizens, who, reading newspapers, live & die in
| the belief, that they have known something of what has been
| passing in the world in their time; whereas the accounts they
| have read in newspapers are just as true a history of any
| other period of the world as of the present, except that the
| real names of the day are affixed to their fables. General
| facts may indeed be collected from them, such as that Europe
| is now at war, that Bonaparte has been a successful warrior,
| that he has subjected a great portion of Europe to his will,
| &c., &c.; but no details can be relied on. _I will add, that
| the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed
| than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is
| nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods
| & errors._ He who reads nothing will still learn the great
| facts, and the details are all false."
|
| His proposed solution is:
|
| "Perhaps an editor might begin a reformation in some such way
| as this. Divide his paper into 4 chapters, heading the 1st,
| Truths. 2d, Probabilities. 3d, Possibilities. 4th, Lies. The
| first chapter would be very short, as it would contain little
| more than authentic papers, and information from such sources
| as the editor would be willing to risk his own reputation for
| their truth. The 2d would contain what, from a mature
| consideration of all circumstances, his judgment should
| conclude to be probably true. This, however, should rather
| contain too little than too much. The 3d & 4th should be
| professedly for those readers who would rather have lies for
| their money than the blank paper they would occupy."
|
| [1] https://www.loc.gov/resource/mtj1.038_0592_0594/?sp=2&st=
| tex...
| ppeetteerr wrote:
| How would you have found out about the Texas power outages
| last year or the rising Opioid epidemic if it were not for
| news (unless you lived in Texas or knew someone addicted to
| Oxy)? Or any other event from your city all the way to your
| federal government?
|
| You can dismiss all news as being misinformation, but even
| the shadiest outlets report some semblance of facts. It's the
| cause of the news that's often up for debate.
| base698 wrote:
| > or the rising Opioid epidemic
|
| For me it was the dead family members before it was
| reported. Victims have victim shit to do. They aren't
| watching the news for updates.
| parkingrift wrote:
| I have a different question. What does it matter if I am
| uninformed on those two topics? What does it matter if I am
| uninformed on most topics? There are (almost) never any
| single issue items on the federal ballot. On local or state
| ballots there are single issue items maybe once every two
| to four years. I can inform myself on those topics or I can
| cast an uninformed vote. Again, I would consider an
| uninformed vote to be a better outcome than a misinformed
| vote.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| How would you have learned about COINTELPRO if you didn't
| read the news? Right, you probably didn't hear about it in
| the news back then since it didn't serve the right
| interests (unlike e.g. Watergate).
| User23 wrote:
| The most powerful manipulation the so-called news uses is
| not what it reports, but what it refuses to. I'm not going
| to give examples because I see no upside in violating other
| HN readers' widely held taboos, but they're pretty obvious
| with a little consideration.
| BeetleB wrote:
| > For starters, being informed makes for more interesting
| conversations with others.
|
| Depends on the crowd. In my experience, that's true with only
| 10% of the people I know. Most of them are more interested in
| having an opinion than understanding what is going.
|
| When I expand the circle to the population in general, it
| probably drops to about 2% of the population.
|
| > If you stick to just the news, that's one thing, but if you
| then go deeper into the topic (what is the relationship between
| Ukraine and Russia?) then you get invaluable context.
|
| As a former news junkie, I agree - with the caveat that to get
| to what I call the minimum threshold of deep understanding will
| take _many, many_ hours.[1] You have to seek out many different
| interpretations, sources, etc. It 's a very active thing. If
| you spend merely an hour a day on the news, you won't get there
| (or perhaps you'll only get "there" for a topic or two).
|
| At that point, you start doing a cost-benefit analysis, as I
| had to. And then you realize that in the universe of things you
| could be doing, there are plenty of things that give you a
| better cost/benefit ratio.
|
| > In the traditional sense, it's reporting on facts, checking
| sources, and providing two sides to every story
|
| Strong disagree. For many (most?) issues, if you can itemize
| only two sides to the story, you have a very narrow picture of
| what is going on.
|
| [1] No, definitely just reading the Economist will not do. The
| quest for reducing news sources to just 1-2 quality sources is
| a flawed one, and you'll always have a skewed view of the world
| that way.
| fleddr wrote:
| mirceal wrote:
| yes but no.
|
| you only have so much mental energy. i think it's important to
| adopt a JIT attitude and be able to learn and filter things
| when you need them, not as a matter of day to day activities.
|
| being informed most definitely does not make for more
| interesting conversations. everyone is biased + critical
| thinking is severely lacking. nowadays i feel like any
| conversation quickly devolves into a us-vs-them and "politics"
| [deleted]
| titzer wrote:
| > In the traditional sense, it's reporting on facts, checking
| sources, and providing two sides to every story. Opinions and
| partisan "news" are not that.
|
| Unfortunately, the mad scramble for eyeballs for advertising
| dollars coupled a particularly virulent set of political
| objectives has completely decimated news, morphing it into
| nothing but a massive reality distortion field designed to keep
| you completely uninformed, pissed off, powerless, and addicted.
| basscomm wrote:
| A lot of this is addressed in Amusing Ourselves to Death (which
| I can highly recommend), but to address some specific points
|
| > it's reporting on facts, checking sources
|
| Right, but which facts? Local restaurant inspections is
| probably useful since it has the potential to impact my daily
| life. Reporting on some kid who fell down a well in some
| country on the other side of the planet probably isn't, since
| the situation will not affect me in any tangible way. Not to
| downplay the event, of course. To those involved it's very
| important, but telling me does nothing except make me feel bad.
|
| > and providing two sides to every story. Opinions and partisan
| "news" are not that.
|
| The thing is, though, not every news story or societal issue
| _has_ two sides. Some have more, some have fewer. Trying to
| find someone to provide an opposing viewpoint on an issue that
| reasonably shouldn 't have one means that every time the news
| does that in the name of giving equal time it has to go further
| into the fringe to find some wingnut who will provide it,
| legitimizing and amplifying their viewpoint instead of
| dismissing it. Repeat that a few times over a couple of decades
| and you start to see the televised discourse we 'enjoy' today.
| teucris wrote:
| Finding news sources that meet your "traditional" definition is
| extremely difficult. Even the most dry, informative outlets are
| often complicated by the need to grab eyeballs.
|
| > News is also the gateway for deeper information.
|
| When the news you watch makes you feel informed on a topic but
| is actually misleading or omits major nuance, it hinders
| motivation to seek deeper information.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| ziggus wrote:
| Hard disagree.
|
| Watching/reading/consuming modern news is too stress-inducing
| (as it is designed to be) just to have something to chat about
| or become more well-informed about issues that in large part
| have no bearing on me.
|
| I pay attention to issues that are important to me at scopes
| that matter - state and municipal. Everything else is noise.
| BeetleB wrote:
| > Watching/reading/consuming modern news is too stress-
| inducing
|
| Let's not project. I was a news junkie for years, and the
| news itself was not stress inducing.
| Domenic_S wrote:
| You're both projecting, and the only answer is data.
|
| This APA survey shows that:
|
| > _While most adults (95 percent) say they follow the news
| regularly, 56 percent say that doing so causes them stress_
|
| https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2017/11/lowest-
| point
| BeetleB wrote:
| Which is consistent with what I said: It is not stressful
| to many. I did not claim it didn't stress some people
| out.
| asdff wrote:
| The news itself is often pretty boring but the tone being
| used is meant to be stressful and keep you reading with
| baited breath. Looking at stale news like a web archive
| from cnn from months ago is always funny. Almost hysterical
| titles and sentences for things that just end up not
| mattering or being significant at all, but its all written
| up as if Japan has bombed Pearl Harbor and war were
| declared.
| BeetleB wrote:
| One item he only tangentially refers to: Most developing stories
| are not worth reading.
|
| At one point in my news addiction, I decided to stop following it
| on a daily basis but instead "catch up" on all the previous
| month's news once a month.
|
| So when the new month began, I scrolled and caught up on all the
| news feeds in my RSS reader. And you'd then see this pattern:
| Breaking news story. Lots of follow up stories that day and the
| next few days. If you compare the information content at the tail
| end of these stories vs the early stories, you'll realize how
| much junk is in the early stories: Wrong information and filler
| information. By the end of the saga, it's mostly accurate -
| there's not much information churn.
|
| So when I would read day to day, I'd read all those articles, and
| have my knowledge slowly get updated/amended as each day passes.
| Why go through that much trouble? Just wait towards the end.
| You'll get more information from reading 2-3 articles at the tail
| end than the 20-30 you may read throughout.
| cjensen wrote:
| Being informed does not take a lot of time. But there are many
| wrong ways of doing it like reading what comes up on your twitter
| timeline or visiting a clickbaity site like CNN or reading any
| algorithmically-created newsfeed.
|
| Here's what I suggest: subscribe to The Washington Post. Once a
| day, scan through the homepage and read through any articles that
| catch your interest. When you hit the bottom of the home page,
| you are done. Depending on how much you are interested in, this
| could take five minutes or twenty. You will get a reasonable
| overview of the most important topics primarily focused on the
| US.
| penjelly wrote:
| > subscribe to The Washington Post.
|
| that implies no bias on the part of WAPO.
|
| > You will get a reasonable overview of the most important
| topics primarily focused on the US.
|
| and youll most certainly be positively or negatively affected
| by that news daily. which seems pointless to me? why worry
| about US and iran going to war if 2 weeks later its no longer
| relevant? Or about how good spiderman is doing in its first
| week? or whether tiktok is spying on its users?
|
| these things fade almost immediately from public conscious.
| Staying "informed" daily seems like a waste of time imo.
| not_kurt_godel wrote:
| > that implies no bias on the part of WAPO.
|
| No news source is completely unbiased, WaPo included. But
| WaPo is an outstanding journalistic outlet with a long
| history of accurate reporting and worthy of being a singular
| news source if you had to pick one.
| ChrisLTD wrote:
| Right. Even deciding what to write about is a form of bias.
| I've found it's best to read news from outlets where you
| clearly understand the bias at play. Then you can calibrate
| your brain to what you're reading.
| Nevermark wrote:
| My family didn't have a TV while I grew up. We had one once, it
| broke, and my father decided we didn't need another.
|
| As a child this seemed unreasonable and unfair, right up there
| with not having pizza as often as I wanted, or other similar not-
| actually-traumatizing problems. Then I became aware of how much
| time my peers spent staring at TVs, filling their mental spheres
| with the ephemeral details of forgettable TV entertainment. And
| none of them were reading anything.
|
| I was very happy we didn't have one.
|
| Later in life I got a TV to watch rental movies. That was great.
|
| Then I tried cable for two years and lived with the dreck for a
| while. Everything was clearly designed to communicate to stupid
| people! Even the history and science programs are ridiculously
| dumbed down.
|
| But the worst by far was the "news". The faux partisan battles
| that turned into real partisan battles with two (not always
| equally) incoherent sides. The same people banding together on
| each side (there are almost always exactly two sides!) of every
| issue.
|
| BUT worse than the news was the advertising. People are so used
| to it they don't see it for what it blatantly is. Completely
| bizarre communication techniques doing only one thing:
| Brainwashing! Repetition of nonsense phrases, ridiculously
| happy/sad people, products shown in painfully contrived
| situations, ...
|
| The problem with news and advertising isn't just that they are
| misleading, or that they are dumbed down, or that they are
| designed to be emotionally addictive.
|
| The worst problem is that exposing ourselves to constantly
| repetitive irrationality creates thinking grooves in our minds.
| It dumbs us down both in terms of how we think, but even worse,
| all the higher forms of thinking we never develop, that we are
| channelled away from.
|
| I quit cable after two years. That was enough for a lifetime
| lesson. Movies, quality TV series, there are actually enjoyable
| inspiring things to watch.
|
| But I live a life almost completely devoid of any commercials,
| and no video news, talks shows, etc., at all.
|
| And by reading I am far more "informed" and more importantly,
| have a greater, constantly growing "understanding" of people,
| power, the practical (people) side of economics, etc.
|
| --
|
| I don't think it is a coincidence that the massive societal and
| personal problems associated with video news and a partially
| egregious scrapbooking web site are both associated with content
| produced to coerce us to watch advertising we would otherwise
| never choose to expose ourselves too.
|
| It is all a toxic brew. Avoid all advertising in you life. You
| will avoid 99% of the junk and be a much better version of
| yourself.
|
| I have threatened to drop a friendship when a friend kept sending
| me stupid baiting political memes. He finally understood me: It
| is not that it was specifically stupid or wrong, it is that I
| don't tolerate mental poison like that. Not even from a friend.
| zonovar wrote:
| As someone living in Europe right now all the news are about the
| Russian-Ukraine crisis and it's very unsettling and makes you
| over anxious and distracted from your daily job. Problem is that
| working from home makes it so easy to access the news... Anyway I
| really needed to read these five points right now. Thank you.
| dataflow wrote:
| > You were never actually accomplishing anything by watching the
| news
|
| This sounds true, but is it really? Just looking at today's
| headlines, I now know that the IRS will be using Login.gov
| instead of ID.me [1], which will be rather useful so that I know
| not to sign up for ID.me and to instead sign up for Login.gov.
|
| [1] https://www.npr.org/2022/02/22/1082283039/the-irs-is-
| allowin...
| johnnyApplePRNG wrote:
| I've found that I quite enjoy reading Wikipedia for a really big
| news event.
|
| It's the only unbiased, non-sensational, and informative source I
| have come across.
|
| It's basically impossible to get the facts of what's going on by
| reading a CBC article about the Freedom Convoy, but Wikipedia
| does an incredible job of breaking it all down. [0]
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_convoy_protest
| MaxHoppersGhost wrote:
| That's funny you mention the freedom convoy article. I thought
| Wikipedia was pretty unbiased until I read that article the
| other day. It's incredibly biased against the truck drivers.
| [deleted]
| photochemsyn wrote:
| "Things you notice when you quit paying attention to your
| surroundings"
|
| What's really needed are sources of reliable information about
| events, particularly about events that impact directly or
| indirectly on your own personal situation. Usually the written
| form of news is more information-dense.
|
| Understanding those events, however, does require a degree of
| background knowledge that 'news' will never provide; for that you
| need to at least read books in the subject.
|
| Television and radio news, it's always going to be more
| entertainment than information, due to its audio-visual format.
|
| However, crappy sources of information that distrort reality in
| order to serve the interests of a government's reelection
| campaign, a corporate business strategy, etc. - that's what most
| what is labelled 'news' today consists of. Hence the news
| consumer has to act as a filter, seeking the nuggets of
| information gold in a sewer of manufactured garbage.
|
| There are however ways to help with the filtering although
| authoritarian and heirarchical societies seem to prefer to
| generate a dumbed-down population incapable of discerning truth
| from falsehood, because such a population is easier to manipulate
| by a small group of ruling elites. Which is what you might call
| the cynical view of the current status quo.
| blintz wrote:
| I think this misses the cultural and social reasons to read the
| news. Anecdotally, friends that don't keep up with the news or
| are more politically disengaged (i.e. don't vote) seem to have a
| tougher time making friends, going on dates, hanging out at a
| party, etc. In many ways, the news seems to serve a purpose
| analogous to sports in my circles; would anyone say that watching
| sports is a "waste of time"?
|
| I do agree with the sentiment that cable news is essentially
| reality TV (with less fun). Reading a New Yorker interview and
| debating it with friends is certainly healthier than zoning out
| in front of an endless stream of anger.
| anthk wrote:
| https://68k.news
|
| gopher://magical.fish
|
| I miss the Teletext the way it was long ago. It had resumed news
| for everything, no bias, no bullshit.
| dpcan wrote:
| This article hits the nail on the head.
|
| I stopped consuming all political, health, and global news the
| day after January 6th 2021. Pretty much anything that was on
| CNN/Fox or that half hour after the local news. I never watched
| local news really anyway, so I couldn't quit something I didn't
| already do in that regard.
|
| I just assumed that if there were news outlets fooling humans
| into doing something like THAT on January 6th in the USA, then
| whatever I was watching was bound to fool me into doing something
| outrageous too, and it was time to stop.
|
| I first started to consider stopping my news consumption after a
| certain someone was banned from Twitter. The weight I felt lifted
| off of me when I didn't hear that noise anymore was immense. I
| figured it could only get better.
|
| It did.
|
| Just like this article says, within a month, you feel so much
| better about everything.
|
| The world around you starts to feel normal. Things just are what
| they are.
|
| Being informed didn't help me or anyone else. Being concerned
| didn't make the world a better place.
|
| If something horrible is going to happen, I guess I'll just be
| the last to know. And that's totally fine with me.
|
| I hope millions engage in cancelling the news. It could just be
| what sets things straight in this world.
| munchler wrote:
| Why would you hold CNN responsible for "fooling humans"
| regarding Jan. 6?
| [deleted]
| macksd wrote:
| I fully agree with this. Scanning Google News or a couple of the
| more professional international news services like BBC / Al
| Jazeera / Reuters I still feel pretty well informed (and
| confident that there's usually nothing of immediate consequence
| to me) but it doesn't grow into "expert analysis" or impact my
| feelings much. Here's another thing I noticed: how manipulated /
| manipulative it is. And not just news and I don't just mean
| politically - I know everyone thinks that news that doesn't align
| with their politics is just brainwashing. Broadcast TV is just
| generally awful now IMO.
|
| We went quite a few years without ever seeing cable. My kids
| would stream shows and consume other media on-demand, but any
| advertising was minimal and fairly non-intrusive. And then they
| were watching a kids show at a hotel once and the ads came on and
| the effect it had on them was crazy. They suddenly desperately
| needed all the toys in the commercials and were repeating catch
| phrases from ads after only seeing them a couple of times. The
| contrast in their behavior was insane. And they HAD to keep
| watching it like I hadn't seen before. I spent a week off-grid
| with my parents a while back and it was great. We came home and
| my Mom put on the news suddenly everything was terrible and she
| was angry, but she had to keep watching.
|
| Just awful for mental health if you can't separate yourself from
| it.
| kenjackson wrote:
| The manipulation part is what I find fascinating. And not just
| the way people use the term now about "fake news". But more
| about how the news cycle needs to keep you constantly engaged.
| If you follow the news, especially political news, it seems
| like the sky is falling constantly. I was always up in arms
| about something.
|
| As the author notes, when I do pay attention to the news I feel
| better. Again, political news in particular. I still will watch
| sports news. I actually feel better when I watch that -- I love
| seeing sports highlights, and great comebacks -- even when I
| don't know a single player or team involved. The stakes are so
| low, but the enjoyment so high.
| agency wrote:
| I think about this a lot when I occasionally go to the movies.
| I remember going as a kid and maybe you'd have a slideshow of
| low-budget local ads for a dentist's office or whatever until
| the movie started and then have some previews. Now it's just a
| non-stop barrage of ads. They will colonize every last waking
| moment of your attention. I think about my 4 year old niece
| who's never been to a movie theater and who will be completely
| defenseless against this kind of thing. It makes me sick to my
| stomach.
| Melatonic wrote:
| Those old local ads seem great now right? Then again the
| theaters were probably much smaller and localized as well.
| Waiting for the movie to start with a bunch of silent,
| repeating and unobtrusive ads ended up often being a great
| time to socialize before the film.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > And then they were watching a kids show at a hotel once and
| the ads came on and the effect it had on them was crazy. They
| suddenly desperately needed all the toys in the commercials and
| were repeating catch phrases from ads after only seeing them a
| couple of times. The contrast in their behavior was insane. And
| they HAD to keep watching it like I hadn't seen before. I spent
| a week off-grid with my parents a while back and it was great.
| We came home and my Mom put on the news suddenly everything was
| terrible and she was angry, but she had to keep watching.
|
| The comparison between childrens' responses to toy ads and
| adults' responses to cable news is insightful. We all think
| we're too smart to be fooled, but we're all children at the
| core.
|
| _" The first principle is that you must not fool yourself -
| and you are the easiest person to fool."_ (Richard Feynman,
| Cargo Cult Science)
|
| Research shows, IIRC the details, that people who think they
| are smarter are easier to fool. But don't worry, you and I can
| comfort ourselves that it wouldn't apply to us. :)
| [deleted]
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| In the fourth grade my history teacher was idly passing back
| tests and sang the first half of a phone number melody in a
| commercial, some portion of the class felt obliged to complete
| the phone-number-melody and my teacher laughed and muttered,
| "and they say the kids aren't being programmed by TV"
| lkxijlewlf wrote:
| We had a similar experience recently. We curate everything the
| kids watch so that they're not exposed to ads (as much as
| possible). Anyway, we had been watching the Olympics (can we
| _please_ not let NBC have the Olympics anymore!?), and wow,
| every time the ads came on you could visibly see the kids
| demeanor change. They were hyper-focused. Then they started
| repeating the ads during the day then next day during play.
| [deleted]
| throwaway5486nv wrote:
| I did not think "Al Jazeera" anywhere close to BBC or Reuters.
| It is too polarized.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Even Google News is too much for me now. Once in a while I'll
| scan the headlines. Or Apple News on my iPhone. But just the
| headlines alone are enough to turn me away. So much clickbait,
| so much outrage, so little substance.
| hwers wrote:
| We really don't talk often enough in the open about how the
| mental health crisis might be _caused_ by something like
| manipulative news (and not just social media).
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Yeah. Those people who spend a few million dollars on a
| 30-second-long ad during the Super Bowl? They aren't stupid.
| They aren't mistaken. It really is worth it to them.
|
| But... if the commercials can do that to your kids, what about
| the _programming_? If ads have the effect that you have
| observed, does programming that is full of sex and violence
| have no effect?
|
| The one mitigating factor I can see is the direction of the
| intended addiction. The ads are designed to make you want the
| _product_ ; the programming is designed to make you want more
| of the _programming_ (not necessarily to want more sex or more
| violence). That _might_ make it different from the ads. Still,
| based on the observed effect of the ads, I 'm pretty
| incredulous of anyone claiming that the programming has no
| effect...
| galfarragem wrote:
| The manipulative trivia flood of our times was exactly the
| reason I started my pet project[0]. For years I searched for
| something that could "solve" this but never found it.
| Eventually, I built something..
|
| I want to be somehow informed: I didn't quit all news, I quit
| trivia. When I can/feel like I browse HN. When I find something
| relevant I post it there and try to make sense of it. This may
| mean once a week - but no timeline. I don't really care if it
| succeeds. It's a way of using my procrastination positively and
| I hope it helps others tackling this issue.
|
| [0] https://www.slowernews.com |
| https://github.com/slowernews/slowernews
| anthk wrote:
| Thanks, good link.
|
| Also, 68k.news under Links+ or Lynx is heaven.
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| I agree, but to quote a film, maybe it is best to spend years
| building up an immunity to Iocaine Powder, because surely you
| will be exposed to it come day.
|
| Immunity, not addiction of course.
| kodah wrote:
| There are very few things, I've found, that I need to be
| informed of by an authority. I read whatever the CDC's latest
| guidelines are, I read some papers that have been replicated
| and thoroughly vetted, and blog posts. The people that I know
| that stay tapped into news either nationally or globally are
| almost always "concerned" with something. It's their topic of
| the day and leaks into their speech, attitudes, and values.
| I've previously phrased it as, "Sometimes I feel like I'm
| speaking to an RSS feed more than a friend. Maybe there's more
| to our friendship than my opinion on the latest social issue
| and whether it aligns with yours?" As a consequence, I rarely
| talk about news or current events with anyone. While my views
| may not be heard or represented much I'm at least not arguing
| over hegemony.
| pengaru wrote:
| Same here, just scan news.google.com periodically, _never_
| watch anything unintentionally [0].
|
| The incessant talking heads are such obvious brainwashers,
| whenever I get tricked into watching some in a clip or at a
| bar/taqueria it's utterly offensive and patronizing
| manipulative trash. I can't imagine how broken people are who
| constantly consume the stuff.
|
| [0] youtube-dl is a godsend for maintaining this without
| totally disconnecting from contemporary culture
| mmaunder wrote:
| Google News is filled with spam and cheap attention grabbing
| garbage these days IMO. It's also highly targeted leading to
| a bubble. But I agree with both of you otherwise!
| ethbr0 wrote:
| > _highly targeted leading to a bubble_
|
| I wish there were automation scripts one could leave
| running that literally just expanded ones bubble back to
| objective normalcy.
| themacguffinman wrote:
| I don't really understand where this comes from, if you're
| skimming the news periodically then the "Headlines" mobile
| app tab (or the "Top Stories" section in the website) is
| actually un-personalized. Google News explicitly pushes
| personalization in the separate and aptly named "For You"
| section.
| pengaru wrote:
| I only view the main page with js disabled, but agree the
| quality has diminished since its earlier years. Castrating
| its use of js still retains visibility into the major
| headlines via the main page at least.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| > I can't imagine how broken people are who constantly
| consume the stuff.
|
| I would say for starters that they live in a much more
| frightening world than you and I live in. And that is very
| unfortunate.
| MetaWhirledPeas wrote:
| For anyone looking for them, I have some recommendations.
|
| Written news (real time): https://www.reuters.com/ I mostly
| read the headline stories, and it's mostly just facts. Just
| like the founding fathers intended.
|
| Written news (daily): https://join1440.com/ An old-fashioned
| email subscription! Just facts, it seems. This may be the
| endgame for some people.
|
| Video news: https://www.newsy.com/ I watched them a bit back
| when they were new and I was pretty impressed. Just a bunch of
| short news segments on demand. When the whole "stop the steal"
| thing was going on I sensed a bit of a leftward bias (like
| me!), but it was never very thick.
| strulovich wrote:
| I avoid cable television and ads. But once in a while I'll see
| them on a screen in a bar and they really grab my attention.
|
| I think not being exposed to ads, is actually slightly
| dangerous, since you don't get used to ignoring them. When I
| watched television worth ads repeatedly I just automatically
| shut off my interest when ads were showing more efficiently.
|
| So while I'd like to keep my kids from seeing ads, I'm worried
| that no ads at all would prevent them from developing the
| mental muscles to ignore ads.
| needs wrote:
| In 2016 Google News was great because with a 5 minutes glance
| you coudl hved all the necessary news. However this strategy
| doesn't work anymore thanks to Google News trying to be smart
| by adapting news to your browsing history.
|
| I haven't been able to find a good alternative to the old
| Google News.
|
| I tried subscribing to one or many newspapers, but they all
| have too many useless articles inbetween valuable news such
| that filtering noise takes too much time.
|
| So in the end I still read Google News but I'm getting a sens
| of negativity and frustration that wasn't there in 2016. And it
| takes more time to have all the necessary news. Since "Time
| spent on Google News" is probably an important metric for
| Google, the situation is not going to improve anytime soon.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Honestly, paper newspaper. Grab it when you get gas, beer,
| etc.
|
| Typically it's like $1-3 and takes a few minutes to read.
| Much better experience overall.
| themacguffinman wrote:
| I don't really understand where this comes from, if you're
| glancing at the news then the "Headlines" mobile app tab (or
| the "Top Stories" section in the website) is actually un-
| personalized. Google News explicitly pushes personalization
| in the separate and aptly named "For You" section.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| We dropped cable when our first daughter was born. No regrets
| at all.
|
| It was only when in the hotel lobby having breakfast did we see
| the CNN/FOX alarmist news coverage blaring about a world
| spiraling out of control.
|
| I thought, why is it always when we're on vacation that the
| world begins to teeter on the brink of destruction?
|
| And then I remembered what cable news was like before we cut
| the cord.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| I find reading more history (preferably: dead person-ago
| history) to be a healthy tonic.
|
| When my more liberal friends were ringing in the end of days
| at Trump's election, my take was "Do you know how many
| terrible Presidents the United States has had? And how openly
| corrupt politics was for the first century of our country?
| And yet, we're still here." This too shall pass, indeed.
| jumpkick wrote:
| I agree but the danger of this is being too dismissive of
| actual threats. I don't know how to draw that line.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Fair! Imho, there's two classes of actual threats. (1) A
| sudden, well-prepared realignment of the status quo,
| enforced afterwards on an ongoing basis. (2) The slow
| realignment of expectations (aka boiling the frog
| slowly).
|
| It seems like people often see (2), when in reality few
| groups are farsighted and patient enough to successfully
| carry that off. In reality what they're seeing is the
| normal sausage-making of a democracy groping towards a
| compromise over a point of disagreement, which has always
| happened.
|
| As for (1), it's the scarier but less common class. Aka
| the January attacks on the Capitol, if they'd been better
| orchestrated and had a post-attack plan.
|
| To me, weighing the severity of both is a question of "If
| this is successful, what will change?" As I told my
| conservative friends when they harp on an issue du jour:
| if one school district in New York state is mandating
| critical race theory education, what will that actually
| change about our country?
|
| In a democracy, people are doing ignorant / crazy / inept
| things _somewhere_ constantly. But there 's an important
| distinction to be made between "somewhere" and
| "sufficiently large or important places."
| themacguffinman wrote:
| I don't know why you think (2) relies on groups being
| farsighted and patient. The frog boiling that happens
| today is almost always a result of chaotic
| incentivization. Politics is very different today than
| maybe 20 years ago. No conspiracy needed for that. Yet
| these unintentional or perhaps even well-intentioned
| changes to the status quo need to be observed and
| reasoned about.
|
| A single district mandating critical race theory
| education won't by itself change a lot, but it's part of
| a broader shift in the zeitgeist's heresies. Does there
| need to be a shadowy cabal of progressives saying "yes,
| just as planned" for this to be true and noteworthy? The
| things you can't say today are different from the things
| you couldn't say 20 years ago. You don't need to
| breathlessly follow the news to know this, but you would
| be a fool to ignore it entirely. Regardless of whether
| you think these heresies are morally/politically good,
| every citizen needs to keep up to date on the latest
| heresies lest they run afoul of those heresies
| themselves.
|
| Noting that slow shifts in the status quo are rare is
| rather unhelpful. Of course they're rare. But you have to
| be familiar with the forest if you want to find the right
| tree. The idea that the truth is a needle in the haystack
| is just as easily a prescription for consuming more news,
| not less.
|
| That's not to say that you should. Perhaps your life is
| such that you've decided you don't need any of this or
| you don't need to find the true danger in every corner.
| Even dedicated experts find it hard to find true danger
| before it arrives knocking at the door.
| DSMan195276 wrote:
| I'll be honest, that's kind of an odd take to me
| considering that the "first century of our country" was
| followed by a pretty bloody civil war. Yes the United
| States is still here, but I'm not sure I would be so casual
| about all the terrible stuff that has happened in our
| history as though it's no big deal if it happens again.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| I'm not saying it was great or not important, only that
| it wasn't existentially concluding.
|
| And the difference between "a bad person" becoming
| President and "half of the country withdrawing from
| Congress and formally seceding" is _several_ orders of
| magnitude.
| brightball wrote:
| Even the streaming stuff will include it subtly though. I was
| watching a show on Netflix with my wife the other day, Sweet
| Magnolia's and it seemed about as controversial as a Hallmark
| channel show. But these days I notice whenever specific catch
| phrases or expressions are getting used across multiple news
| outlets and it puts me a little bit on guard if a suddenly
| notice a phrase being used excessively...as if the point is to
| normalize it in your language.
|
| That show constantly used variations of the "Your truth" thing,
| which has always seemed in opposition to "the truth" or just
| "truth". It's one of the shadier expressions out there because
| it seems so harmless IMO.
| legulere wrote:
| That discussion about the truth is already older and is just
| arriving in mainstream media. I first stumbled upon it at the
| chaos communication congress in 2007: https://fahrplan.events
| .ccc.de/congress/2007/Fahrplan/events...
|
| It's easy to see how such an idea can become mainstream when
| our society is losing a common agreed upon basic
| understanding.
| themacguffinman wrote:
| News channels, especially many local news channels that are
| owned by the same company, can and do explicitly coordinate
| their messaging. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fHfgU8oMSo
| vgeek wrote:
| https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/816159.It_s_Not_News_It_...
|
| People from the old internet will recognize Fark, and this book
| humorously details how news organizations essentially fabricate
| "news" from non-news items and entertain rather than focusing
| on just informing.
| bduerst wrote:
| Scanning news aggregators like Apple and Google News also
| shines a light on the bias in multiple news sources, just from
| the headlines.
| yojo wrote:
| I'm a firm believer in quality over quantity when it comes to
| news. Google News has gotten increasingly annoying though,
| forcing me harder toward the "personalized" results, the kind
| of filter bubble I'm intentionally trying to avoid.
|
| What worked well for me was getting a print subscription to the
| Economist. They definitely have a bias (particularly in their
| editorials), but it's mostly of the "free trade" variety, which
| is pretty easy to account for. On the other hand, their world
| coverage, particularly Africa and Middle East, is leaps and
| bounds better than anything you'll get online for free.
|
| Plus the print medium is well suited for the wind-down time
| before bed, when I'm trying to disengage from screens. As a
| bonus, there's an exactly 0% chance you get click-baited into
| reading something inflammatory when you're consuming news on a
| piece of paper. Sadly they recently force-bundled print with
| digital, so you're stuck paying ~$80/year if you sign up during
| one of the frequent sales. $1.50/week is still well worth the
| cost of admission for me.
| Melatonic wrote:
| I would suggest subscribing to the Sunday delivery of a
| physical newspaper you like - when they know they can't just
| quickly update and edit an article online it definitely seems
| like they are more conscientious with what they are printing.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| I used to find the Economist great, but with the
| corrosiveness of everything this last bit, they seem to sneak
| agenda into articles now days in a way I feel like this whole
| post is trying to move away from. Maybe as a lost Libertarian
| who can't stand the control everyone's lives progressives I
| feel that has crept quite a bit into the Economist. It's
| funny it bothers me as I have reached a point where I feel
| Libertarianism just isn't compatible with the realities of
| the modern world as much as this child of hippies wishes it
| was and am looking for new understanding, but I always leave
| the Economist feeling like their American reporting on
| subjects I'm informed on is very manipulating which then
| makes me doubt their reporting on subjects I don't have
| enough context for deep personal understanding.
| yojo wrote:
| I haven't noticed this kind of bias in the US reporting,
| but my personal views skew moderate liberal so it might be
| hitting a personal blindspot.
|
| The main stances that seem to go against coastal US media
| I've seen are:
|
| 1) Trans rights, particularly with youth transitioning. The
| Economist seems to have an article every week or two
| talking about health implications, controversy in female
| sports, or detransitioning.
|
| 2) Free speech. The Economist is very critical of any
| perceived censorship, and will frequently cover perceived
| excesses from the left in the US, particularly in higher
| education.
|
| Generally I do not think the Economist does a great job of
| visually separating their editorial content from their news
| content. In many cases visual treatment of a column looks
| very close to a regular article, and the editorials at the
| front of each issue look (at a glance) indistinguishable
| from news stories. Each issue will also have a larger
| "briefing" on a prominent world issue that definitely blurs
| the lines between news and opinion. As a reader of many
| years, I've taken to skipping the editorial content,
| skimming the briefings, and taking the columns case-by-
| case. But I can imagine occasional readers having a
| different experience than I do.
| cnelsenmilt wrote:
| > I have reached a point where I feel Libertarianism just
| isn't compatible with the realities of the modern world as
| much as this child of hippies wishes it was
|
| You may have interest in the writings of the Niskanen
| Center https://www.niskanencenter.org/ They work from a
| similar position. For example, I was hugely impressed by
| this essay https://www.niskanencenter.org/what-the-
| pandemic-revealed/
|
| I don't know a regular publication devoted to this view,
| unfortunately.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| How did you find them? Do you know who reads them or
| where they are popular? I came across them recently and
| was both impressed and puzzled that I'd never heard of
| them and never head anyone discuss them.
|
| I haven't read that particular essay, but maybe submit
| it?
| andi999 wrote:
| Did you try the financial times? I sometimes find them
| shockingly unbiased.
| Justin_K wrote:
| In college we were required to get a subscription to FT
| and I found it quite liberal. As was the professor who
| required the subscription.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Hmmm ... they are certainly right of center afaict. If
| they are quite liberal, what do you call the vast
| landscape to the left of them? Who is a centrist?
| dionian wrote:
| The Economist, like NPR, are good at sounding informed and
| unbiased, but wind up to be egregiously ideologically
| compromised
| duped wrote:
| Can you give some examples?
|
| Particularly with NPR, you have to focus on particular
| shows and stations. There's no central editorial staff
| for the content that comes from their member stations.
| For example the Takeaway has quite different editorial
| standards than All Things Considered or Morning Edition.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| For the "network" content, NPR has good reporting but
| hammers topics again and again and again and again.
|
| The selection of stories tells the tale. Whenever the
| topic de jour hits, you'll get a good 7-10 minutes of
| patter about it every hour for a month.
|
| I'm all for it, and don't consider them "compromised",
| but there's typically not enough content to support that
| level of coverage.
| duped wrote:
| Can you give an example of what you mean by that?
| pydry wrote:
| With the Economist - their support of the Iraq war.
|
| If something has elite consensus they will usually
| support it. This is probably the last place where youd
| want an ideological blind spot to be, also.
| duped wrote:
| Do you have an article in mind?
| secabeen wrote:
| The Economist is clearly not a Libertarian newspaper. They
| represent the classical liberal position, which is not
| Libertarian, and never has been.
| UncleSlacky wrote:
| As Lenin put it, "a journal which speaks for British
| millionaires".
| temp8964 wrote:
| I have no idea what you are talking about. There is not a
| definitive / clear line between classical liberal and
| libertarian. The comment seems to be unnecessarily
| divisive and seeking for flame war.
| jknoepfler wrote:
| I'm puzzled by that reaction. In my head at least, the
| distinction is pretty deep, and describing The Economist
| as "libertarian" in any sense would be clearly misplaced,
| other than to say it sometimes supports positions
| libertarians also agree with.
|
| Historically, when The Economist was founded,
| libertarianism would have been associated with French
| anarchism. The core, consistent theme of libertarianism
| is that individual rights trump arbitrary interference by
| a collective. The various forms of anarchism are sort of
| natural "extreme" forms of libertarianism.
| Intellectually, libertarianism starts with a negative
| claim that except in extraordinary cases, the collective
| has no right to interfere with individuals. This remains
| true today. Core items (legalization of prostitution,
| drugs, elimination of many taxes) begin with the pretext
| that the collective has no right to regulate individual
| behavior in these domains.
|
| Classical liberalism emerged in Britain (Locke, Smith,
| Mill, etc.). It has roots in a blend of English
| utilitarianism and enlightenment-era attempt to root the
| form of government in reason. "Rights" in classical
| liberalism are important, but they aren't necessarily
| more foundational than well-being. Anarchism is seem as
| trivially untenable (Hobbes' "nature red of tooth and
| claw"). Liberalism tries to identify a core set of
| functions (security, laws and their enforcement, public
| infrastructure) and a set of mechanisms (constitutions,
| elections, courts, etc.) to implement them, and has a
| very enlightenment-era emphasis on building institutions
| that are robust to "bad" actors. It does cleave towards a
| minimalist view of government, and does elevate rights
| like freedom of speech, but these are seen as
| intrinsically grey and are framed much more in terms of
| limiting the power of government institutions to ensure
| that they remain true to their mission/function.
|
| I don't think that's flame bait, or super controversial.
|
| Do the words mean something else to you?
| temp8964 wrote:
| If you read your own words carefully, you will agree with
| me: There is not a definitive / clear line between
| classical liberal and libertarian. The core values are
| the same. The historical context of French anarchism has
| nothing to do with the common use of the term libertarian
| in the modern (American) context.
|
| Your own words "They represent the classical liberal
| position, which is not Libertarian, and never has been"
| make it seems like there is a clear cut difference
| between classical liberal and (modern) libertarian. Which
| is simply not true and unnecessarily divisive and seeking
| for flame war.
|
| It is the mainstream view that classical liberal and
| libertarian are mostly equivalent in the modern context.
| The clear cut differentiation between classical liberal
| and libertarian is your own personal opinion. It is ok to
| have your own personal opinion, but it is exaggeration to
| state it as if it is the objective fact.
| AitchEmArsey wrote:
| Your two positions are really not far apart from a third
| party perspective, but throwing in claims like
| "unnecessarily divisive and seeking for flame war" just
| seems to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
| martinflack wrote:
| I'm not the person you answered but I find your comment
| well put. Do you have further reading on this
| distinction?
| dropofwill wrote:
| This is all true, but in 20th century America the term
| libertarian got re-applied to a right-wing, small or no
| government, free-market approach. Now days most Americans
| are completely unaware of the French anarchist usage of
| the word. The origins of this are mixed, but I think it's
| safe to say the Hayek/Friedman wing has roots in
| classical liberalism, for example Locke's theory of
| private property.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| I agree. The Economist is like NPR for rich people and
| diplomats. Head out to the parlor with your cigar and
| jacket and enjoy it.
|
| They are good in that they are informative and not subtle
| about the voice of the paper. But it gets a little boring
| to me if I read it for a few months.
| AitchEmArsey wrote:
| I subscribe to the Economist too and perceive their
| reporting as still being reasonably libertarian without
| venturing into tinfoil-hat territory, but being in the UK I
| guess I get both a different balance of articles and also
| have a different perception of libertarianism.
| pydry wrote:
| >What worked well for me was getting a print subscription to
| the Economist. They definitely have a bias (particularly in
| their editorials), but it's mostly of the "free trade"
| variety, which is pretty easy to account for.
|
| On political issues they're also pretty firmly middle-of-the-
| road beltway, which is its own little bubble.
|
| I like this youtube channel a lot (Caspian Report):
| https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwnKziETDbHJtx78nIkfYug
|
| It's partly because it delivers fairly objective analysis,
| but also because it puts heavy emphasis on how geography
| shapes how countries behave which is a blind spot of the
| economist/atlantic and the like.
| JacobThreeThree wrote:
| I prefer an RSS reader with a personally curated list of news
| outlets.
| q_andrew wrote:
| What are some good sites with RSS feeds? I was sad to see
| that Reuters doesn't have it.
| JacobThreeThree wrote:
| I use this for Reuters: https://news.google.com/rss/searc
| h?q=when:12h+allinurl:reute...
| Jaruzel wrote:
| This is exclusively how I consume the news.
|
| In fact, a good 50% of my feeds are 'World News' feeds from
| other countries. it's the best way to see alternate points
| of view I think, and then as a moderately intelligent[1]
| adult, I can form my own opinion on the current state of
| affairs.
|
| ---
|
| [1] I'm not allowed to call myself 'smart' on HN, I got
| told off for it on a previous comment ;)
| ishjoh wrote:
| As a point of encouragement don't let some random
| internet bully discourage you from using a perfectly fine
| word like smart or from diminishing your self image. For
| all we know you're the smartest person in the world.
| clay-dreidels wrote:
| Do you have a feed list you would like to share? I just
| started using RSS again, and slowly building my list.
| fma wrote:
| Google News' most annoying thing now is they implemented
| infinite scroll....
|
| FWIW I have a subscription to a major news paper + local to
| avoid the filter bubble. The major is a little conservative
| leaning and local a little liberal.
| qiskit wrote:
| > I'm a firm believer in quality over quantity when it comes
| to news
|
| When it comes to news, I'm of the opinion that one should
| strive for diversity of opinion rather than quality. As you
| noted, all media has a bias so you should see what everyone's
| biases are. You will never get truth from any single media
| outfit so cast a wide net.
|
| > What worked well for me was getting a print subscription to
| the Economist.
|
| Why would you pay for something that has ads? It would be
| like paying facebook for a facebook account.
| _kulang wrote:
| I think the side net thing would work better if there
| wasn't so much garbage out there nowadays
| yojo wrote:
| Print ads are a lot less obtrusive for me compared to
| digital ads. It's literally just a piece of paper that I
| don't have to look at. They don't have inline ads, or
| sponsored content, or autoplaying videos, or any of the
| conventional web shenanigans that try to hijack your
| attention. They certainly can't track me. I can't speak to
| the digital side of the economist, as I do not use it, but
| the print ads are mostly for dumb luxury goods that I can
| easily ignore.
|
| People paid for newspapers for decades, and they've
| definitely always had ads in them. The advertisers
| subsidize my news reading, and in this case at least the
| trade-off seems acceptable.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > Why would you pay for something that has ads? It would be
| like paying facebook for a facebook account.
|
| Or paying to go to live sports when everything has ads on
| it.
| qiskit wrote:
| It's why I stopped watching football, baseball,
| basketball, etc. Used to be a huge sports addict. Such an
| incredible waste of time looking back. Now, I only watch
| ad free highlights, if that.
|
| But peak level of lunacy are the ad-ridden movie trailers
| on youtube. I can't believe people are actually watching
| ads in order to watch an ad...
| petemcc wrote:
| I've done exactly the same thing. Grew tired mid pandemic Y1
| of the constant drone and misinformation, just a continuation
| of how it had been going already.
|
| Print and digital sub to the Economist and then "banned"
| myself from reading 24hr/live news sites.
|
| Has been interesting to see how many real life conversations
| I've been in ~18m in where I've been (anecdotally) better
| informed, or able to add colour (the recent events in Ukraine
| are a good example) that friends have totally missed hooked
| up to the daily drip. Interested to see if you find this
| also?
|
| I'm a huge fan of the more objective attitude of charts and
| figures, and a clear subjective opinion, often explicitly
| stated as "we think...".
| yojo wrote:
| I've definitely noticed having more background knowledge on
| major events. My wife still takes all her news digitally
| (mostly NYT), and I'm able to add a lot of color to her
| understanding of events when we talk through news of the
| day.
|
| What's actually really surprising to me is how "not behind"
| my information normally is. I work my way through an issue
| over breakfasts and evenings in the course of the week, so
| my information is typically 2-9 days stale. It almost never
| matters.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| The context seems to age fairly well. So even if you're
| not current, you're only missing that most recent piece.
|
| Vs online journalism doesn't seem to have the skill, or
| make the effort, to effectively set the news of the day
| in a well-summarized background.
| swdunlop wrote:
| You can also get a non-customized version without resorting
| to dead trees -- the Economist is also published on Kindle.
| https://www.amazon.com/The-Economist-US-
| Edition/dp/B0027VSU9...
|
| This trick probably works for other periodicals with a shady-
| as-hell internet filter bubble "feature."
| EGreg wrote:
| Have you tried wikinews?
|
| Also see https://rational.app -- we are building it. Feedback
| welcome !!!
| buffalobuffalo wrote:
| I actually switched from google news to bing news, just
| because their user preference algorithms are so
| underdeveloped. So it's essentially like not being in a
| filter bubble.
| bnralt wrote:
| It seems like that still runs into the issues that are
| outlined in the blog post, however (not accomplishing
| anything, shallow conversations about current events, better
| ways to stay informed, and feeling like you're doing
| something when you're not). In general it's hard to overcome
| these issues as long as you're still reading something
| considered news.
|
| I think a good exercise is to spend a few weeks using
| archive.org to read the news from a few years back (or old
| back issues of The Economist, if you like). It's useful to
| see how many things people were obsessed over are now
| forgotten, and how many predictions ended up failing to
| materialize.
|
| We should also probably be honest with ourselves and admit
| that reading the news is mostly done for entertainment, and
| it very well might not be any better than people who spend
| their time reading celebrity gossip rags.
| buzzert wrote:
| I've personally been enjoying the "Quartz Daily Brief"[0] as
| my sole source of news for many years. My favorite thing
| about it, besides the fact that it's relatively unbiased, is
| that it's also pretty light on the actual news part. Today's
| brief only has five articles of news, which is less than a
| screenful. Following that is a "deep dive" into a non-
| polarizing topic (today it's about Cricket), then a few
| "fun", non-emotionally manipulating, articles (e.g., a new
| Coca Cola flavor).
|
| Highly recommend it! And this is coming from someone who
| despises news, generally.
|
| [0]: https://qz.com/emails/daily-brief/
| cyberlurker wrote:
| Did you consider trying the new Coca Cola flavor?
| ff317 wrote:
| My personal favorite recommendation in this vein is The
| Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/ . They've got some
| great writers and editors and often deliver pretty unique
| insights. Their articles tend towards long-ish-form, but not
| nearly as long as e.g. the New Yorker. They're a little less
| world-focused and more US-centric, but not completely. There
| is some bias (isn't there always?), but I've seen them cover
| a single issue from multiple POVs using multiple writers
| before. They have a print edition as well, for ~$70/year
| (includes digital access as well).
| JohnWhigham wrote:
| Atlantic truly is all over the map. They'll have articles
| like the watershed Coddling of the American Mind from 2015,
| but then shortly after it's nothing but Trump 24/7 like
| every other outlet.
| disqard wrote:
| Here's another vote for The Atlantic. They are also the
| only online website (AFAIK) where, once you _pay for a
| subscription, you actually get an ad-free experience_.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| I friggin love the Atlantic even though most of the time
| they have a way different political view than me. They
| don't hide their view but instead of assuming it's
| universal they give details and context for their views,
| where as the Economist seems to hide their agenda and
| present the underlying story to lead you to their point of
| view based on the facts and details they choose to report.
| The Atlantic has discourse and discussion, which is what I
| want. And they are not afraid to challenge their own core
| ideas. They are like my liberal hippie parents raising me
| with critical thinking skills, "you are free to have your
| opinion, here's ours and here's how we came to them". It's
| hard to explain the difference, especially as I agree (or I
| should say want to agree) more often with the Economist's
| politics.
| pklausler wrote:
| I loved the Atlantic until they started sponsoring
| "happiness" seminars with Deepak Chopra.
| simondotau wrote:
| Really? That's disappointing for an organisation with so
| many intelligent columnists.
| Swenrekcah wrote:
| I can fully attest to the quality of the Economist but I
| caution anyone to subscribe because they don't provide any
| way to easily unsubscribe.
|
| It's either to call some phone number or attempt it via live
| chat. I tried the second option and the representative just
| went on with the script trying to fatigue me out of it, no
| matter what I said.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Tell them you're moving to an unspecified international
| location. Usually that's a script flowchart path that
| actually allows them to cancel you.
| hadlock wrote:
| When it comes to magazine subscriptions, I just cancel
| payment via credit card dispute, it auto-resolves itself.
| Generally I frown upon this kind of thing but yeah it's so
| hard to cancel that you sort of have to pick the nuclear
| option with them.
| dhimes wrote:
| I cannot stand that dark pattern.
| mavhc wrote:
| I just email to say I'm unsubscribing and then cancel the
| payment, if they want to send me free stuff, that's their
| problem
| yojo wrote:
| I've always subscribed through a third party (DiscountMags)
| and it's been painless. In fact I've had the opposite
| problem, where my Economist doesn't show up one week and I
| start cursing the USPS until I realize it's because I
| forgot to renew.
|
| Hopefully the FTCs actions last year will put an end to the
| kind of cancellation hell you describe. At least for US
| customers anyway.
|
| https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-
| releases/2021/10/ftc-r...
| StevePerkins wrote:
| My local library has a certain number of electronic
| subscriptions, so I am able to read The Economist on my
| iPad with the Libby app for "free" (i.e. paid for by by
| local taxes).
|
| I would GLADLY pay for a print subscription, because I
| greatly prefer physical magazines over digital. But whether
| it's magazines, satellite radio, or whatever... I'm just
| not subscribing to anything known for not letting people
| go.
| apricot wrote:
| I subscribe to the Economist. My subscription lasts one
| year, and doesn't automatically renew. I get renewal
| reminders and renew at my leisure. None of that arguing
| with people on the phone.
| usefulcat wrote:
| If I were going to subscribe to a print magazine, I'd pay
| via check, assuming they will allow that.
| mixedbit wrote:
| After one year of subscribing to the Economist I like it, but
| would prefer if it was a monthly newspaper with 1/4 of the
| content. Reading it throughout each week takes quite a lot of
| my reading time and I have a feeling that dedicating this
| time to books would be better. Monthly with well selected
| topics would be enough to stay informed of important current
| issues.
| apricot wrote:
| I used to feel vaguely guilty (in a "there-are-starving-
| children-in-Africa" kind of way) when I didn't read the
| entirety of the issue I had paid for, but eventually I
| realized it didn't make any sense.
|
| Sometimes I read almost the whole thing, but there are
| weeks when I skip more than 80% of the contents because of
| no time. One issue I'll always read cover to cover, though,
| is the Christmas special.
| yojo wrote:
| I definitely get a sinking feeling when I leave on vacation
| and come back to a two-issue backlog! There's more content
| in there than I typically consume in a week, so I've gotten
| more discerning on which articles I read. Skipping
| editorials, Britain, letters, and most columns seems to get
| it down to a manageable amount for my reading patterns. I
| also tend to skip any political coverage that's about what
| _might_ happen in an upcoming election somewhere. I figure
| when it actually does happen I can read about it then.
| selectodude wrote:
| I've been a subscriber for about fifteen years now. You
| triage the content. I rarely read more than half the
| magazine and that's with spending >1hr on the subway every
| day.
| marai2 wrote:
| This is a question for the folks who have been reading the
| Economist regularly for a while. What do you guys feel like
| you get out of reading the Economist over time? This is
| meant as a genuine question. So for example, I consume my
| news only via my Google News feed, so basically just a fast
| scan of the headlines and maybe a few news articles in
| depth. Does the Economist provide more details, more
| nuance, more depth? Do you guys feel it helps paint the
| bigger picture better then "regular" news media, a more
| erudite perspective?
| lostlogin wrote:
| Things like Private Eye and (even worse) The London Review
| of Books have this issue. It's like having a bad debt and
| it weighs you down when you know you should deal to it.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| If being exposed to ads or super stimulating content is
| unavoidable, then how do you build a defense mechanism against
| it?
|
| Avoidance is good to the extent that you can engage in
| avoidance but not everything is avoidable. How do you actually
| build resistance to the stimuli?
| bsedlm wrote:
| quite simply, meditation. But sure there are many types of
| it, and while putting it like this it seems 'simple' it's
| also very difficult.
|
| more specifically, it all stems from the practice of self-
| observing how you react to something "virtually", without
| getting carried away by it.
|
| Doing this for any stimuli, good, bad, scary, exciting, is
| what it's all about, that way you can notice yourself getting
| carried away, and instead of going with it, you observe it
| pass by you.
|
| But this is a practical discipline, you gotta keep doing it
| until you get good at it and so on...
| sumtechguy wrote:
| That is a good method, another is actually studying the
| methods of advertising. The methods they have now are not
| much better than what they had 50 years ago. The only big
| differences are volume, intrusiveness, and rate. All of
| those have increased tremendously in the past few years.
| But learn about anchoring, A/B choice, timed choice, and so
| on. Helps quite a bit.
|
| So being conscious that most forms of video media are
| trying to sell you something. Nothing is on that
| screen/audio unless someone put it there. Cynical but there
| are so many different ways to advertise. One cute one I can
| not unsee is product placement. Ghostbusters was my first
| time seeing it. The pop can in the fridge. Always at the
| right angle to see the label. The funniest one was in a
| movie called Cobra. He stops in the middle of a scene to
| drink a beer, in front of all the signage. It was literally
| a commercial right in the middle of the movie and 'fit' the
| scene.
|
| One thing I have noticed after removing massive amounts of
| advertising in my life is that what does get through is
| much more effective. So you have to be very diligent in not
| being quick to buy anything. Buying something could be an
| idea or item. I also usually use a timeout method.
| Basically I set the 'thing' to the side and revisit it a
| few days later. It removes most of the urgency that most
| advertising tries to create.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| I agree with most of your points but I strongly disagree
| here:
|
| > The methods they have now are not much better than what
| they had 50 years ago.
|
| The methods are much, much more refined and quite a bit
| better. You are being sold to and you may not realize it.
| Everything you interact with on social media (including
| reddit) has a good chance of being part of an advertising
| funnel. Even reviews and unboxings are usually
| advertisements.
|
| One of the best new tactics is ragebait - when someone
| talks about how bad/evil something is. This is almost
| always a lead up to a covert sales pitch.
|
| Marketing is everywhere and it has gotten much, much
| better in the last 50 years.
| XorNot wrote:
| The depressing reality is you can't, hence why avoidance is
| necessary. It's not possible to watch any media and not be
| effected by it in some way. What people tend not to get about
| propaganda is that it works even if you know it's propaganda.
| kvetching wrote:
| balabaster wrote:
| I love the Reuters app for my phone. I can listen to the
| roundup once in the morning while I'm getting ready or in 10
| minutes on my way to the gym. It's all the basic headlines with
| a little blurb. Read to you with very little in the way of
| emotion, passion or hype. It plays in the background while I do
| other things and it's done. It doesn't drone on and on like the
| radio does until you realize you've heard this story 3 times
| already like on CP24 or whatever other news channel keeps
| blathering on while quietly promoting their hidden (or not so
| hidden) political agenda and gradually sapping at your will to
| live.
|
| I've cut off my cable/satellite TV. I don't listen to any other
| news sources. I read BBC's headlines once a day.
|
| Cutting off the "mainstream" media and advertising from my life
| has done more for my mental health than my gym membership,
| diet, meditation and fresh air combined. Not to say those
| things aren't important, but they didn't have nearly the impact
| that cutting off the constant drama, heightened emotion and
| propaganda have.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| My father tells me - "Why do you care what Andrew Cuomo is
| doing in New York city?" and it kind of was eye-opening. I
| really don't. I wish I paid more attention to local news, local
| politics, and perhaps check-in on international news on a
| weekly basis. The internet changed all this. When I was growing
| up, my dad read local newspaper daily. National and
| international news were briefly covered in the local paper.
| He'd delve into the Economist and the sunday edition to catch
| up with the rest. This is almost unheard of today.
| freedomben wrote:
| Your dad's broader point is a really good one, but the
| example of Andrew Cuomo doesn't seem like the best to me
| depending on _when_ it was said.
|
| For a while there Cuomo was being talked about very seriously
| as the heir apparent to the Democrat presidential nomination.
| I agree with OP that "civic duty" is a silly reason for
| watching the news, but when it comes to voting to give people
| massive amount of power, that really does matter.
|
| Now that Cuomo is out, I agree, for those of us not in NY his
| actions are less consequential.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| maybe but in the end it turned out Cuomo was not going to
| be a presidential candidate and what happened to him never
| really mattered at all. I think this can apply to most
| news. You think a topic is important because it could be
| important months down the road. I would bet that 95/100
| times what we think is going to be important ends up having
| no real impact on us at all and we would have been better
| served paying attention to our hobbies or families or
| friends.
| freedomben wrote:
| Great point. That seems to happen far more often that
| not.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| This falls into a trap of preparing for every possible
| outcome when you have finite time and attention. If Cuomo
| runs for president, there will be plenty of time to make an
| informed opinion then.
|
| The trap set by news is implying that something could
| possibly impact you when it probably wont.
| freedomben wrote:
| Indeed, good point. There's no shortage of coverage on
| presidential candidates long before you enter the ballot
| box.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Exactly. Now the major team sport is who you want for
| President, even though he arguably has the lowest impact on
| your life. As long as he doesn't hit The Button.
|
| IMO people ought to put down social media, put down the
| national news, and pick up their local newspaper. Read about
| their own mayor, city council, whatever. And maybe even get
| involved -- depending on the size of your city, an ordinary
| individual can actually get involved at a meaningful level.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| The president has a very significant impact on many
| people's lives via judicial nominees. The biggest this year
| is expected to be the effects of the 3 Republican Supreme
| Court judges installed by Trump on many women's access to
| abortions, but many other judges in the system are
| appointed by presidents as well that make decisions that
| affect many people's lives.
| ufmace wrote:
| To further clarify the sibling's point, the reason for
| this is that the Progressive wing of the Democrats
| couldn't convince people to approve abortion access
| through democratic means as soon as they would have
| liked, so they decided to get a rather dubious Supreme
| Court interpretation of the Constitution that declared it
| to be a Constitutional Right. Now they are totally
| dependent on keeping agreeable Supreme Court justices in
| order to preserve that interpretation.
|
| It didn't have to be this way. They could have left it to
| the states or local jurisdictions, and moved to a state
| with policies they agreed with. They could have (tried
| to) pass a Constitutional Amendment making it a clear and
| obvious Constitutional Right instead of a weird
| interpretation. Instead, they did this.
|
| Living in a Democracy requires us to consider the
| opinions of our fellow citizens and try our best to
| accommodate them, rather than steamrolling them.
|
| Consider the position of a Pro-Life activist. They will
| think that all abortion is murder, that the ruling is a
| grotesque twisting of the Constitution, and fight every
| inch of the way on every nominee. Does this sound like
| the way we were meant to resolve contentious issues? You
| may disagree with them, but they are also our fellow
| citizens, and will not be happy about steamrolling their
| positions.
|
| Consider also the position of a Gun Rights activist. They
| will be outraged at how the courts have ignored attacks
| on an actual enumerated Constitutional Right, and fight
| every nominee on those terms, not particularly caring
| whether they are also likely to be anti-Abortion.
|
| Maybe it's best if we resist using the Supreme Court to
| decide everything and try to pass clear Amendments for
| what's really important and broadly agreed upon. Though
| this goes back to how dysfunctional and useless Congress
| has become in their prescribed role.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| > Living in a Democracy requires us to consider the
| opinions of our fellow citizens and try our best to
| accommodate them, rather than steamrolling them.
|
| The majority of americans believe in abortion by a non
| trivial margin. The reason it's not guaranteed is
| precisely because the united states is not a democracy,
| but a democratic republic, giving significantly more
| political power to some voters based on where they live.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I think your example just highlights my point. Currently
| abortion rights are enshrined at the federal level. The
| SCOTUS is not going to ban abortions. They are going to
| throw it right back down to the state level. If you lose
| access to abortions, it is because your local politicians
| decided to ban them. This is exactly why you don't put
| your faith in the federal government and pay more
| attention to local government.
|
| Love 'em or hate 'em, the Republican Party appears to
| understand this very well. They made state and local
| government a priority because they know that is where
| politics begins. Their success at the national level is
| disproportionate to the size of their voting bloc because
| they know how to play the game.
|
| Anyone who opposes their ideals needs to remember that,
| and _get involved locally_.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Your claim was the President has the lowest impact on
| one's life. As I showed, it is a reality that the
| President's actions have a significant impact on people's
| lives, probably bigger than a mayor or state senator or
| state representative probably has in the recent past.
|
| Whether the President should or should not is irrelevant.
| The salient fact is that if the presidential election
| results for 2016 were different, then abortion access for
| millions or tens of millions of women would not be on the
| chopping block.
|
| > Their success at the national level is disproportionate
| to the size of their voting bloc because they know how to
| play the game.
|
| This is a trivial fact when the game is designed such
| that certain voting blocs in certain arbitrarily drawn
| boundaries have more voting power than other same size or
| bigger voting blocs in other arbitrarily drawn
| boundaries. Unless you live in a place that can be
| flipped to your candidate or party, there is not much to
| do locally.
| salt-thrower wrote:
| Personally, I've subscribed to several RSS feeds for
| local/state news outlets in my area. That helps me stay more
| in touch with local stuff. Then I just do a quick scan of AP
| News for international stuff.
| queuebert wrote:
| Since all the local TV stations and newspapers were bought
| out by conglomerates, they have been ruined. Local TV news is
| just random crimes and feel-good stories, and the newspapers
| are stories about restaurant openings and closures and
| sports.
|
| Feels like meaningless dreck to fill the gaps between ads.
|
| The Economist remains a good rag, and Wired is surprisingly
| good, albeit full of ads. But for true, long-form, thoughtful
| discussions I look to YouTube and podcasts these days.
| damnyankees wrote:
| > "Why do you care what Andrew Cuomo is doing in New York
| city?"
|
| In and of itself, I don't. Unfortunately, the local
| politicians toe the party line and ape the Big City / Big
| State politicians, the Cuomos and the Garcettis of the world.
|
| Suppose you could paint it at some level as "know thy enemy"
| (pardon the abrasiveness of the wording) because those states
| are something of a test bed for what to expect from the local
| folks, but a year or so down the line whether that's "You
| must wear a mask and cannot let your child use that swing
| set," or "policies that demoralize the police and undermine
| anything resembling a reasonable standard of rule-of-law, or
| "we must tear down statues of elder statesmen ("divisive",
| old, racist White men) while erecting statues of individuals
| that praised and sought to emulate the Haitian revolution and
| its genocidal outcomes."
|
| With that said, I can't stand that all of my local options
| routinely shove rage-bait National stories in your face.
| There is no true "local only" coverage.
| 1270018080 wrote:
| Self awareness and the phrase "rage-bait" could do you
| wonders.
| damnyankees wrote:
| Frankly, I don't follow.
|
| Perhaps of these issues the only one that could be
| construed as a non-serious issue is the topic of statues.
| At the same time, I find it rather queer that when I take
| a stroll through the local park I am confronted with the
| statue of a man who wanted to kill everyone with my skin
| tone in a time where we are supposed to be seeking some
| sort of harmony.
| LordDragonfang wrote:
| I think it's telling how your choice of news media
| consumption has affected you that your list of the worst
| things politicians are emulating are
|
| a) public safety measures,
|
| b) nebulous anti-police "policies" that either never went
| into effect or have been totally reversed in the wake of
| sensationalist coverage of a "crime wave" during the
| largest economic disruption of the decade, and
|
| c) pearl clutching over the removal of statues.
| damnyankees wrote:
| LordDragonfang wrote:
| damnyankees wrote:
| LordDragonfang wrote:
| You are describing a behavior that is directly in
| violation of the Hacker News guidelines
|
| >Throwaway accounts are ok for sensitive information, but
| please don't create accounts routinely. HN is a community
| --users should have an identity that others can relate
| to.
|
| If your comment is so divisive that you think it would
| get your account deleted, it probably doesn't belong on
| HN.
|
| >Eschew flamebait. Avoid unrelated controversies and
| generic tangents.
|
| >Please don't use Hacker News for political or
| ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| edit: If nothing else, I'm impressed by the sheer
| audacity of creating a second throwaway to continue this
| argument after your first got flagged, and then accusing
| me of being the flamer.
| hunter21b wrote:
| wonderwonder wrote:
| Is this satire?
| damnyankees wrote:
| No, you just have differing politics and beliefs. In my
| twelve years of browsing HN I've read many comments of
| that sort. Personally, I tend not to leave a comment
| unless I feel there is a substantive element to my reply.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| It has nothing to do with differing opinions, its just
| ironic that you chastise the media for posting rage
| baiting articles and then make a post that is pretty much
| only rage baiting and opinion based.
| Buttons840 wrote:
| As tossthere put it: "Who decided that this was important to
| you, and why did you let them decide that?"
|
| Can't help but think of this when I start forming an opinion
| about what Dr. Seuss should do with his old books, etc. All
| kinds of trivial issue the news and social media prompts me
| to think about. Why do I care? Especially since I'm not going
| to do anything about it. There are more important causes to
| fight for, and I don't have the time to take action for
| trivial things. If I'm not going to act, and cannot influence
| the situation, why bother even forming an opinion?
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23940090
| ren_engineer wrote:
| Mainstream news is worthless if you want to be ahead of the
| curve at all. Covid is a great example, I was stockpiled by mid
| January because plenty of places were talking about issues with
| suppliers in China in December 2019. Mainstream news was
| downplaying it until the first week of March
|
| 15 minutes per day in the right places and you'll be weeks to
| months ahead of the general population on major trends that
| actually matter
| BeetleB wrote:
| > Scanning Google News or a couple of the more professional
| international news services like BBC / Al Jazeera / Reuters I
| still feel pretty well informed
|
| I once spent several years diving deep into news, and one of
| the lessons I learned was that scanning headlines (or even
| summaries) is a very good prescription for being misinformed.
|
| There's the obvious selection bias - you only see the headlines
| they put on top. But it's fairly common that _the body of the
| article undercuts the headline_. The headline will be stated
| definitively, whereas the nuances in the details will make you
| doubt the certainty of the headline. In a few cases, it would
| even negate the headline!
|
| And this is from well regarded news sources (NY Times, WaPost,
| etc), not crappy click bait farms on the Internet.
|
| "It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's
| what you know for sure that just ain't so." - Mark Twain
|
| I'm a firm believer that one should either dive deep or not
| read the news. The moderate path leads to the most
| misinformation.
| chris_va wrote:
| Copy editors generally write the headlines, and reporters
| write the body.
|
| ... probably one of the worst industry practices of all time.
| throwaway09223 wrote:
| About a decade ago I started reading law blogs instead of the
| news.
|
| They're written for other lawyers, so they're well composed,
| often without excessive hyperbole. The writing is far higher
| quality than typical journalism. They're _actually_
| informational in terms of describing the mechanisms behind
| power in our society.
|
| In terms of focus, if something is truly important there will
| always be a legal analysis. Celebrity fluff and nonsense about
| talking heads doesn't make the cut. Meaningful conflict and
| hard questions do.
| SpringDrive wrote:
| Do you have any suggestions for blogs that you like? Would be
| interested in adding some to my info diet.
| Mezzie wrote:
| What types of news do you follow? Some suggestions are:
|
| - SCOTUSBlog
|
| - Law 360
|
| - Bloomberg Law
|
| - ABA Journal News
|
| - Courthouse News
|
| The primary benefit to using legal sources for your news is
| that the legal news cycle does not match up with the 24
| hour news cycle. For example, right now we're talking about
| SCOTUS's 2022-2023 case docket, and that doesn't even start
| until October. Also because lawyers like to cover their
| butts/believe in getting everything in writing, a lot of
| their back and forth is available to the public, which lets
| you get better context for arguments.
| harshitaneja wrote:
| In India, Live Law is pretty good.
| terr-dav wrote:
| Not a blog, but a (highly opinionated) podcast:
|
| https://www.fivefourpod.com/
| throwaway09223 wrote:
| I used to mostly read on my commute and it's been a few
| years, but the most approachable is probably
| https://abovethelaw.com/. It has quite a bit of fluff and
| humor mixed in.
|
| Popehat is usually quite good, especially when there's some
| kind of nonsense narrative going around. Good debunking
| explainers https://www.popehat.com/
|
| Volokh conspiracy has very good analysis of current events
| as well: https://reason.com/volokh/ (was at WaPo, was
| independent before that. I haven't read it in a while)
|
| There's a lot of other really great stuff around as well,
| like the lw blog collection: https://www.lw.com/blogs
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Popehat's Twitter is a really good source for "is legal
| issue x actually a big deal?" sanity checks on breaking
| news.
|
| Sometimes it's "yes, this is actually quite big"; other
| times it's "this is a breathless depiction of something
| that happens 20 times a day and is entirely normal
| procedure".
| tiahura wrote:
| If you're talking about Law 360 and similar sites for legal
| news, sure.
|
| If you're talking about political news, no. Some of the most
| hyperbolic, partisan, and bizarrely flawed takes on Trump,
| and the US political situation over the last 5 years, have
| come from lawyers. It's been embarrassing.
| boston_clone wrote:
| A fair counterpoint: some of the most hyperbolic, partisan,
| and bizarrely flawed takes have come from Trump's own legal
| team (looking at you, Giuliani).
|
| But I'm sure we could find bits of embarrassment anywhere
| we look!
| [deleted]
| balaji1 wrote:
| Why not let it filter through to you via a group of friends who
| are well informed? And will highlight whatever is interesting,
| funny, urgent or important. Kinda like HN front page.
|
| Each person in my group has slightly different sources they
| subscribe to: YT channels, Twitter, Insta, Reddit, HN. And
| slightly different topics. And they share stuff in the chat
| group.
| Melatonic wrote:
| Family member of mine wanted to turn on TV news the morning of
| Thanksgiving just to get an update on "the weather". The
| immediate and visceral negative reaction of everyone under the
| age of approximately 40 was pretty hilarious. After not having
| cable for 10+ years broadcast news just feels like an
| incredibly arduous waste of time compared to what I can read in
| just a few minutes.
|
| I started subscribing to a fairly large but local newspaper (as
| in, actual Sunday delivery) and I get a lot of weird looks but
| it is genuinely a mostly enjoyable experience. I tried to
| contact the newspaper to see if they could skip sending all of
| the extra junk adds (separate leaflet thankfully) but their
| support could literally not comprehend what I was talking about
| even after multiple reply emails. In their minds the only ads
| apparently are online.
| mynameishere wrote:
| I'm trying to imagine your state of mind when you asked a
| newspaper to quit sending advertisements. Why not give the
| number of a good law firm specializing in bankruptcy also?
|
| It reminds me of a guy who wanted to start a company that
| would "help" the USPS by allowing customers to filter out
| junk mail in order to improve overall postal service. Yeah,
| no. Junk is their core business, just like the news.
| gopher_space wrote:
| The newspaper makes a ton of money off of those inserts and
| agreements about them happen at the top of the org chart.
| Nobody you can reach has any power here. In addition, if
| their support was young enough they'd have no idea what
| you're talking about.
|
| "That crazy guy who thinks there's a conspiracy to print off
| ads and put them in his mailbox called _again_ today! "
| wholinator2 wrote:
| Well I would imagine any individual old enough to rent
| and/or shop at bed bath and beyond would be fairly familiar
| with the concept of receiving print ads in the mail. Those
| Valpack things are pretty common where I live and they're
| essentially exactly the same as the newspaper inserts, just
| like 50 of em in a branded envelope
| salty_biscuits wrote:
| That was really shocking for me the first time I went to China
| and watched their version on state sponsored television, around
| 2005. The contrast between the doom version of the news back
| home, to china's overly positive "15 people are missing in a
| coal mine but we are trying our darnedest to get them out" was
| really confronting. Made me realise that it has
| entertainment/manipulation as a goal, not providing
| information.
| jacquesm wrote:
| For me the real eye opener was this bit:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMDPql6rweo
| klft wrote:
| You might like "The Century of the Self" as well:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s
| ctoth wrote:
| I've been subscribed to Stratfor[0] for a couple of years now and
| have generally been pretty pleased. No fuss, no shouting
| headlines, just reporting of what's happening and a clearly-
| separated section for analysis and implications. Maybe yall
| should give it a go.
|
| [0]: https://stratfor.com/
| afterburner wrote:
| I used to read Stratfor, but in the 10 years following the Iraq
| War, I noticed some glaring blind spots and also a political
| agenda. I'm not sure I would trust them alone, but if you use
| them very skeptically for their background history summaries,
| they might have value.
|
| You can easily get lost in the weeds with something as detailed
| as Stratfor's reports though; sometimes you need to step back
| 10,000 ft to recalibrate.
| FiberBundle wrote:
| Five years ago or so I decided to study some history and I've
| been reading roughly 5-8 history books a year (mostly history
| since the industrialisation) and it has completely changed the
| way I read and contextualize news. I feel that I'm in a much
| better position to filter out the noise and to grasp the
| significance of some news that really contribute to major trends.
| This is on top of generally completely transforming my view of
| the world, can highly recommend anybody who wants a better
| understanding of our world to get into history.
| JimWestergren wrote:
| All news consumption could instead be replaced by reading this
| page a few times a week to stay informed about what is happening
| in the world:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events
| JSONderulo wrote:
| I haven't watched TV news in 6+ months now and don't intend to. I
| still read the news, but much more so blogs and writers on
| Substacks. I've subscribed to a bunch. I do like primary sources
| too.
| paulpauper wrote:
| You're not doing anything either when you are reading a book. It
| is just another form of information consumption.
|
| The news can be useful for finding out about new trends,
| specially in technology. Bitcoin was in the news, like Business
| Insider, as early as 2012. Simeone who reads the news could have
| acted on that and made a fortune. Many other examples. Imagine
| reading the news in 2017 about the iPhone and buying Apple stock.
| Or about the Google IPO in 2004 and buying Google stock. The news
| cannot tell you what to do, but it can make you at lest aware of
| something.
| kirillzubovsky wrote:
| I quit social media two years ago, and pretty much all the point
| about news also apply to social. It feels soooo good to not care
| what people say on the internet, it's remarkable. HN rocks tho ;)
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| What gets passed off as news and journalism too often isn't
| either. Just because something happened (e.g., it rained) doesn't
| make it news. News has to have relevance and importance.
|
| With that proper definition as a filter, a fairly high percentage
| of US mainstream media news is in fact fake news. This higher
| revenue fluff is used intentionally to marginalize things that
| qualify as legit news. Yet somehow these members of The Fourth
| Estate are shameless enough to cry about "threats to democracy."
|
| The problem is, we don't hear the news admit their definition of
| news is technically nonsense. Not one of them is willing to
| police the others. It's hypersonic bullshit that repetition has
| normalized.
|
| As for journalism...this is a solid filter. It's a handy bullshit
| detector.
|
| https://kottke.org/20/01/jim-lehrers-rules-of-journalism-1
| Syonyk wrote:
| I didn't write that article, but I certainly could have - I've
| noticed exactly the same things, and clearly have had some
| identical conversations with people about the value of "being
| informed."
|
| The way I describe it is that all you can ever hope for with
| "following the news" is eventual consistency with some
| representative subset of world events. I don't know what's
| happening as it happens, and I don't know everything that's
| happened, so I'm (by the requirements of reality) both behind and
| only updated on some events.
|
| I'm just happy being far longer on the "eventual" window and
| having a somewhat lower amount of representative content.
|
| What I've also learned is that almost everything _actually
| important_ will filter to me some way or another. It 's
| absolutely impossible to live under a rock if you interact with
| other people, because they'll ask you about XYZ event. And,
| often, enjoy updating you if you've not heard about it!
|
| I also agree with the "Read three books" observation - I'd rather
| someone recommend three books on an interesting topic to me than
| link me to some hour long video. The books take longer, but I'm
| likely to have at least some familiarity with the topic, from a
| few different points, with the books. YouTube will make people
| think they've got some understanding, when it's largely missing.
| dilippkumar wrote:
| > A common symptom of quitting the news is an improvement in
| mood.
|
| Anecdotal data point here, but I experienced more than just an
| improvement in mood. I had a completely unexpected blossoming of
| immense amounts of creativity.
|
| About three weeks into my total news cut off, I started to feel
| sober in a way that is similar to discovering sobriety during
| December holiday weeks with family after non stop drinking for
| months in College.
|
| Unlike the author in the linked article, I did a complete cut off
| from all "news-like" sources: TV news, Youtube channels, social
| media, reddit, podcasts that talk about current events, blogs and
| newsletters that discuss news - all of it.
|
| When conversations started to become awkward (about 6 months
| after being completely cut off and I could no longer infer/derive
| the common assumptions underlying a conversation in a group), I
| subscribed to The Economist, directed their Espresso newsletter
| to Feedbin and started reading that about every other day. I
| found that a handful of bullet points about what's going on in
| the world per week is sufficient for me to keep up with any
| conversation I find myself in.
|
| If there are any other news abstainers here, I'd love to hear
| your life hacks and tricks that you use to navigate the world.
| phoe18 wrote:
| I agree with what the article says about news but I think the
| same idea is applicable to a wider category of 'flash
| consumption'. One common example I can think of are the Twitter
| threads with clickbaity titles claiming to give you knowledge
| about something in 7-10 140 character chunks. They induce a
| certain FOMO as you scroll by but leave you with no lasting
| memory about the subject.
| kipchak wrote:
| I thought it was odd when YouTube started implementing a
| "Covid-19 News" feed to the home page that couldn't be disabled.
| I get why they would implement such a feed as a default, but not
| letting people turn it off and let people watch cat videos or
| whatnot in peace seems like a bad idea.
| throwaway284534 wrote:
| I'm glad I'm not the only one who finds this "feature"
| annoying. Most of the videos are the same polarizing guidelines
| we've heard over the past two years, only now they're
| regurgitated through a seemingly endless list of new channels I
| have to keep marking as not interesting.
|
| I've already gotten vaccinated thrice and still contracted
| covid. When can I stop being harassed about what I'm already
| doing??
| chiefgeek wrote:
| I was never a big news guy to begin with. Haven't had cable since
| 2009. For awhile I read the NYT and for a shorter while, Talking
| Points Memo. I've quit reading most world news and especially
| political news. His point that
|
| >"Being concerned" makes us feel like we're doing something when
| we're not<
|
| is what really drove it home for me. I can do more to improve the
| world if I am in a good mood and improving myself than I can if I
| walk around angry that X is happening somewhere.
|
| CNN and Fox are so far apart they practically touch.
| dageshi wrote:
| At this point, I glance at the newspaper headlines when I go into
| the local supermarket, I find that's enough.
| riazrizvi wrote:
| This thinking is the basis for the _Independent_ voter. The myth
| is that they 're some type of deliberate, open-minded voting
| demographic, in their wisdom they like to keep the door open to
| all possibility. The reality is that they just don't follow the
| news and instead base their opinions on sound bites and article
| ledes. The sad consequence is that, as pockets of our society
| work to unravel the institutions that make this nation great
| using just the weakest veneer of misinformation, those of us who
| take the time to read what's happening begin to realize that
| human-made ruin is largely avoidable. Only if more of us would
| pay attention.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| Following the news media (not just and not only the tellie
| news...) has been very useful for me the last couple of years
| because of Covid. Or rather Covid has made it useful. In any
| case: Covid has made the news something that I need to be
| "informed" about since it impacts my humble life.
|
| Most of the time, at least up until now, the news has not
| impacted me in any way that I would act on--I'm just an apathetic
| citizen like many others.
|
| Truly curse these interesting times that we are living through.
| burlesona wrote:
| I think this problem must be ancient. As Mark Twain said, "If you
| don't read the news, you're uninformed. If you do read the news,
| you're misinformed."
|
| As far as I can tell the only balance is to read the news with
| deep skepticism, more as a way to know "what people are talking
| about" than what really happened.
| ziroshima wrote:
| I think of 'the news' as a form of mind control. Whether or not
| is intentionally engineered as such isn't immediately relevant;
| ultimately, I think it's the effect on people that matters. There
| is no unbiased delivery of information anymore (was there ever?).
| It's an incredibly powerful system of information delivery that
| influences what people think about. I think it's interesting,
| with this in mind, to consider the origin of my own thoughts and
| opinions.
| jarjoura wrote:
| Jan 10, 2021 was the day I unsubscribed and/or deleted every news
| source I had. I just couldn't take it anymore. That week capped
| off a decade of alarmist content that seemed to start at the end
| of the housing crash, but continued to get angrier and nastier
| every year. I lost family members to the brainwash that is the
| "news" and it has been heartbreaking. It's honestly worse than
| losing someone due to death, because they're right there, in
| front of you, just a different, angrier, person that uses words
| and expressions that make no sense, and it replaces all those
| good childhood memories you used to hold of them.
|
| Honestly, I have never felt better being disconnected from it
| all. It really frees up the brain to ponder on things I can
| actually control in my life.
| Lammy wrote:
| > just a different, angrier, person that uses words and
| expressions that make no sense
|
| I've experienced this too and it's so depressing. HLN (CNN2)
| made my father racist again to the point of dropping casual
| N-bombs :/
| jeffbee wrote:
| The most interesting fact here is someone was still watching TV
| news as recently as 2016.
| aneil wrote:
| This is all solid. I would only add that it's our duty to avoid
| the news as its largely a source of propaganda serving the
| interests of concentrated capital and the two party system.
| GordonS wrote:
| I actually stopped purposely reading/watching the news some time
| around 2016 - and it's been a very positive experience for me.
|
| I had enough negativity in my life as it was, and it just felt
| like every media outlet overwhelmingly pursued negative stories -
| war, famine, corruption, FUD etc. I dwelt on such stories,
| fretting about what might happen. And it frustrated me greatly
| that I could do nothing about any of these events - technically I
| live in a democracy, but it counts for little if both main
| parties are 2 sides of the same coin, and the others have zero
| chance.
|
| So, I took the drastic step of stopping watching and reading
| news. I still inadvertently come across some small snippit from
| time to time, and events that directly impact me, like covid, are
| apparent without 24-hour death toll coverage.
|
| It's been great - I feel "unburdened", and definitely happier.
| redisman wrote:
| I had a very similar experience. I try to focus on my "circle
| of control". Great for lowering your general background stress
| and anxiety.
| earthboundkid wrote:
| Today the supposedly liberal NYT has a news article about Jews in
| Ukraine in order to whip up pro-war hysteria. (The implied
| premise that Putin is Hitler is too absurd to rebut. This is
| "Iraqi nurses kill Kuwaiti babies" for 2022.) And they're the
| best mainstream news source. :-(
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/21/world/europe/ukraine-jews...
| baybal2 wrote:
| FYI, Neonazis in Russia are fully in control of KGB
|
| https://editorial01.shutterstock.com/wm-preview-1500/7301783...
| mrweasel wrote:
| At someone point in the last two years I stopped watching the
| news, because it was just an endless stream of useless
| information about COVID. I'm not sure I felt better, but it
| certainly saves some time.
|
| Point 3 is spot on, most of the commentators have no idea about
| what going to happen. At best their guesses a marginally better
| than my own. Once you realise this, watching debates between
| journalist and political commentators becomes pointless. I simply
| don't see the point in some expert trying guess when Russia will
| attack Ukraine for instance. Tell me when they attack. Just
| report whats happening, not what might happen, because your going
| to get it wrong.
| bbarnett wrote:
| This is mostly what 6pm news was like, before the rise of 24
| news channels.
|
| Out of an hour of news, there was sports coverage in one
| quarter, local news in another with weather, national and then
| international news.
|
| Each segment had, after commercials, 12 to 13 minutes max.
|
| There wasn't time for all the speculation, and endless drone on
| about what if, and blah blah.
|
| 24 hours news half destroyed news first, then the internet
| finished it off.
| Syonyk wrote:
| But you can't fill 24 hours of "news cycle" without lots of
| nonsensical filler! Sometimes, the world just doesn't agree
| with that requirement, so they have to make material.
| MangoCoffee wrote:
| a lot of news is clickbait or junk. Buzzfeed is the pioneer of
| that.
|
| there's a reason why trust in media is decline
|
| https://www.pewresearch.org/2022/01/05/trust-in-america-do-a...
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > Buzzfeed is the pioneer of that.
|
| Ironically, BuzzfeedNews is pretty good.
| YATA0 wrote:
| Unironically, no it's not.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Given their strong track record, that opinion would seem
| to lack a solid foundation.
| reincarnate0x14 wrote:
| Buzzfeed is hardly the pioneer. Cable TV news has been doing
| it since the 1980s with constant "shocker!" bait segments and
| constant bullshitting between talking heads who make any
| banal thing they feel like sound like a impending disaster.
|
| And as was mentioned, it's no small irony that Buzzfeed's
| investigative journalism, while a limited part of their
| impact, is pretty good.
| speg wrote:
| I haven't checked the news since June 1, 2020. As part of some
| self imposed pandemic related health precautions.
|
| I'll ask Siri to read me the news and listen to the five minute
| overview which is all I need to make sure WWIII hasn't broken
| out.
|
| I'd still like to subscribe to a physical weekly. But not sure
| there are any good ones without a heavy slant in Canada.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| I hate how difficult it can be to escape non-stop exposure to the
| media. Too many restaurants and public spaces have televisions
| blaring, most set to a news channel. Even when not on a explicit
| news channel, political news and activism leaks through on sports
| channels and through political ads that no longer stop outside of
| election season. I can simply stop eating at restaurants what
| engage in this behavior but when it's the dentist or doctor,
| you're pretty much captive until you're called in. Thankfully not
| all of them do this (at least not yet) but it is disturbing how
| many do.
| teddyh wrote:
| https://ozyandmillie.org/archives/comic/ozy-and-millie-19
| floren wrote:
| The timestamp on that comic was about 20 years earlier than I
| expected :)
| brimble wrote:
| Timing's about right for the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, since
| that news broke at the beginning of '98. And we already had
| multiple 24/7 cable news stations by then. :-(
| the-dude wrote:
| It is a bird.
| jokoon wrote:
| Depends what kind of news you read.
|
| A lot of what I read makes me read Wikipedia, for verification
| and context.
|
| News are not just the latest events, they also remind people
| about the current state of world's history, and invites people to
| learn some actual facts.
| thenoblesunfish wrote:
| This worked really well for me: instead of checking "the news", I
| look at the front page of Wikipedia. That has some of the biggest
| (world) news stories, but it also has a bunch of other stuff.
| Often when I am checking the news it's really just because I want
| to read about something interesting, and Wikipedia provides that
| without trying so hard to get me to click on stuff.
| zw123456 wrote:
| I call it the "Fox Detox" for fun, but is not limited to Fox,
| although they are the biggest Point of view purveyor. I have
| challenged friends and family members to try eschewing all point
| of view media for 30 days and to instead do other things, oh you
| know, going for a walk, visiting friends, reading a book,
| watching a good movie, you know normal life. The regular 5
| o'clock local news and perhaps a few mainstream ones online, AP,
| Reuters or whatever, people know when they are consuming Pov
| channels, the confirmation makes them feel good, like drugs, is
| not good for your mind. When people try it, they report similar
| things like "I feel better" or "I am less stressed". Too much of
| anything is bad for you, including "News" and especially PoV
| news.
| Legion wrote:
| I like weekly publications.
|
| 24-hour news is all about reacting first, thinking never.
|
| Daily publications are better, but there's still not a lot of
| time to formulate thought.
|
| Weekly publications allow things to breathe a bit more. Allows
| some context to be established, some thought to be had before
| taking fingers to keyboard.
| davidkuennen wrote:
| So true. Now more than ever. Watching people around me talk about
| what's happening in Ukrain, obviously feeling miserable about
| everything while doing so is really just sad.
|
| Just by glancing at a news article the agenda of spreading fear
| for clicks/views becomes so obvious.
| panick21_ wrote:
| I very much avoid the news. Unfortunately twitter somehow forces
| it into my timeline but in a limited way.
|
| What I really hate about news is how you jump on a topic without
| context. The perfect example of that is the Iraq war of course,
| Ukraine now is such an issue. 99.9% of people barley know where
| the Ukraine or the Crimea was. You can't just jump into a topic
| without context think its a great way to get information.
|
| And that is even before you consider that a lot of the time a
| simple party line is adopted and endlessly repeated. Not even
| because of some conspiracy simply because its easier to report on
| what everybody is reporting.
|
| If you for example understood the Syria conflict only based on
| typical news, and I include even 'reputable' news papers your
| overall understanding would still be problematic. Much better to
| spend your time reading a history book on Syria and AQ in Iraq.
| einpoklum wrote:
| > To be clear, I'm mostly talking about following TV and internet
| newscasts here.
|
| Well, that was never more than barely following the news, and
| arguably closer to following distractions from the news.
| i1856511 wrote:
| If you want an extremely quick scan of the front pages of many
| world newspapers (less than 5 mins), check out "NEWS ACC" on
| YouTube.
| olivermarks wrote:
| Also excellent (and amazingly in the UK Guardian, probably didn't
| realize they were cancelling themselves by running this piece)
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/apr/12/news-is-bad-ro...
| Rolf Dobelli's book this is from is excellent too
| galaxyLogic wrote:
| Hey what's happening in Ukraine? If you don't follow news you
| probably won't know. No news is good news right?
| gretch wrote:
| Well it depends on where you live. If you live in California,
| okay what are you doing about it?
|
| "Knowing" about Ukraine does absolutely nothing - you know
| 'everything' and I know nothing we still have the exact same
| amount of impact on the situation -> Zero.
|
| Meanwhile you can spend the same time talking to your neighbors
| about what's happening in the community and actually have real
| impact. "Oh Tom is sick? Let me bring over some food for him"
| Dave_Rosenthal wrote:
| I quit the news roughly 20 years ago and never looked back. The
| way I explain it to people is that the news is simply a form of
| entertainment that I don't really enjoy.
|
| I'm sure it's been pointed out before, but the news is also a
| horrible way to actually understand the world around you. What
| gets discussed is the most novel/stimulating things that happened
| --if you attempt to fit a model of the world to these data
| points, you end up completely wrong. If I am interested in a
| topic (immigration trends in a country, covid statistics, what's
| happening with electric car subsidies, etc.) I just seek out the
| necessary information myself.
|
| You know what I really want? A version of 'the news' that is done
| quarterly and is just sampling of what's happening in the lives
| of 100 random people. Who are they, some basic statistics about
| then, and what's affecting their lives written up in few
| paragraphs for each person. Just an unbiased sample of the 'real
| world' from people outside my bubble.
| einpoklum wrote:
| > I quit the news roughly 20 years ago and never looked back
|
| Said an avid follower of Hacker News ? :-)
| Dave_Rosenthal wrote:
| Ha, you totally got me :) In my defense, my comments were
| meant apply to mainstream world/national news. If you have a
| specific interest that you want to keep up on, that's a
| somewhat different set of tradeoffs. But, even then, I prefer
| places like HN where an upvote/sorting is aligned with a
| someone thinking the content is useful rather than just
| making ad money for clicks.
| [deleted]
| favourable wrote:
| "If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed, if you do
| read it, you're misinformed."
|
| -- Denzel Washington,
| reincarnate0x14 wrote:
| I spent years without a TV at all and haven't watched any sort of
| broadcast or cable regularly since like 2004. As a result, I have
| a few distinct memories of "news events" that persist like visits
| to a carnival of madmen.
|
| The disappearance of MH 370 was on literally non-stop on CNN in
| particular, and we'd walk out of the hotel lobby to see the same
| group of people repeating that basically nothing had changed but
| oh my god maybe this personage or another will have something
| soon, walking back in the evening past the same thing, for days.
|
| It's really no wonder people came up with insane conspiracies
| about it, because for like two solid weeks multiple TV channels
| were going on about it as if the world had ended.
| mattlondon wrote:
| There are things that happen in the news that may affect your day
| to day life.
|
| Apart from the obvious things such as covid, there are a lot of
| things going on _all the time_ that may influence your voting
| decisions (not just in the run up, but the entire time someone is
| in office), purchasing decisions, where you go on vacation, who
| you want to work for, how you get to work today etc.
|
| I guess if that is fine for you, then please feel free to carry
| on and go book your vacation to the Ukraine, drive a Volkswagen,
| work for facebook, use too much water during a drought season,
| have your garden furniture blow through your windows when that
| storm rolls in, have a BBQ during a high-risk fire season, don't
| use condoms, and then just flat out are late to work today
| because you didn't know about the strike/accident/whatever on
| your usual route. Good luck.
|
| By all means, quit twitter or facebook or whatever but at least
| read the headlines from major journalistic outlets. Something
| might happen that _deeply matters to you_ and you won 't know
| about it otherwise.
|
| News does not always only happen to other people.
| jsight wrote:
| Those are true points, but I'll make some counterpoints.
|
| 1. I've found the news to be the worst way to get information
| about covid. My state health department website and other sites
| like it have given me much better details.
|
| 2. Yeah, I need to know if there are things that might block my
| route when driving. Google Maps does a better job of that than
| any local news that I've seen.
|
| 3. Plenty of people drive Volkswagens and are perfectly happy
| with them. They didn't let the news tell them how awful they
| were for this practice. For that matter, they didn't let the
| news tell them how awful Musk is or how wonderful some other
| execs in the industry are either. And you know what? They are
| just fine for that.
|
| Most of your other points don't seem to have much to do with
| the news being talked about. I don't think the article was
| telling you not to check the weather.
| mirceal wrote:
| this is a false dichotomy. I'm the textbook "i do not watch the
| news person" and when things like Covid happen you cannot just
| ignore them.
|
| Not only that, but there are many things where paradoxically
| I'm better informed than people "watching the news". You see,
| there is being informed and there is actually spending your
| mental resources on problems you don't have or you have 0 say
| in them.
|
| to debunk some of the things you brought up: - you don't decide
| to go to Ukraine and you book your vacation without at any
| point learning about this (you will learn about this from the
| booking agency, you will learn about this at the airport, you
| will learn about this from people around you). The odds of you
| landing in Ukraine are 0 unless you really want to go there.
|
| - if you drive a a VW you may not be in a position to stop
| driving it. Choosing your car based on a scandal screams
| privilege. You may choose to pick your next car based on it,
| but again: you will learn about this no matter way. Other car
| manufacturers will tell you, people around you will tell you
| about how crappy VW is when you bring it up (are you going to
| buy it solo without talking with anyone?).
|
| - work for Facebook: it's cool to hate Facebook and I have
| personally stopped using it eons ago. But not suspecting that
| some of the things that they are doing aren't exactly heavenly
| and ending up working there? again, the odds are zero
|
| - use to much water? how can you be in a drought season and not
| see the drought. Also: everyone likes capitalism until the fish
| from the lake is depleted. If you can afford to use the water
| and pay for it, why not? The pricing should be tiered in such a
| way that there is a strong incentive against you using the
| water - we should not expect people to just do the right thing.
| this rarely work s without economic incentives.
|
| - BBQ in during fire season? I think there are legal and
| economic things in place that should prevent this. - using
| condoms? really? really? you're gonna put the equal sign
| between the news and basic sex ed. really?
| jordanpg wrote:
| At the risk of sounding a bit hyperbolic, it's also important
| for citizens living under a representative form of government
| to monitor the government for encroachment on liberties. The
| news is how this happens.
| rurp wrote:
| > feel free to carry on and go book your vacation to the
| Ukraine, drive a Volkswagen, work for facebook...
|
| These could all be researched at the time of purchase though.
| There's nothing in the daily news about VW or Ukraine that
| can't be learned more efficiently by doing some research just
| before purchasing a vehicle or vacation.
|
| There's nothing wrong with keeping tabs on the latest
| headlines, I personally do so and am fine with it, but there's
| nothing essential about it either. A person who never reads the
| news will still find out about something like Covid from a
| hundred other sources in short order.
| webkike wrote:
| The post lists several other things along with those examples
| that I think DO make it essential:
|
| > use too much water during a drought season, have your
| garden furniture blow through your windows when that storm
| rolls in, have a BBQ during a high-risk fire season
|
| If you're going to check if there's a drought every time you
| use water - congratulations, you're reading the news!
| valachio wrote:
| I agree with your assessment.
|
| To completely quit news is not a good idea, unless you want to
| live under a rock, metaphorically speaking.
|
| Fact of the matter is, day-to-day events affect each one of us
| who live in a modern society. You don't want to be the guy who
| has no mask and 0 preparation for a pandemic when it hits. You
| don't want to be the guy who keeps buying/using a product when
| there's news circulating that it could be unsafe.
|
| The author mentioned reading a 5000-word report, which is great
| if you're into that sort of things. But the mass majority of
| people have jobs to work, kids to take of, important things to
| do. They don't have time to spend hours every day reading deep
| into all the issues going on in the world.
|
| Most people just want to stay up to date with the latest
| events, so they can plan their lives better.
|
| Of course you can get addicted to news and let it negatively
| affect you. But the alternative of having no idea what's going
| on in the world until it's on your doorstep is not a good idea
| either.
|
| A balance is good. Stuff like limiting yourself to spending 15
| minutes in the morning during breakfast quickly going over
| important news, and making a commitment to not waste more time
| reading news for the rest of the day.
| trophycase wrote:
| This is how the media and media addicted people convince you
| that you absolutely need to keep tuning into the madness. You
| can hear 99% of the news that will actually affect your life
| simply through interacting with friends and doing activities.
| s_dev wrote:
| Not sure why any of this news absolutely has to come from TV in
| an entertainment mashup in it's delivery.
|
| It doesn't. You can read a newspaper and get that exact info
| without the doomsaying that comes with TV.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Reading quality news and analysis is certainly better than
| watching tv news. But it still has the same flaws as other news.
|
| To me this is the money quote:
|
| > _Read three books on a topic and you know more about it than
| 99% of the world._
|
| There is a big opportunity cost to following the news! If you
| spend those X minutes a day educating yourself instead, you will
| be a far more informed citizen. You will also start seeing what
| ignorant garbage much of the news really is.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| As someone who just stepped back into pop culture after being in
| prison for years (so might as well been on the moon) my first
| shock was just how horrible it all is now. There is no news worth
| watching. Cable news is just a pile of filth excremented by a
| Labrador Retriever that solely eats baby diapers. I thought I
| will watch Bloomberg since if real money is involved it can't be
| too manipulative. Nope, wrong. The internet is just a fireheap.
| Let's check Reddit. Oh god close the browser window immediately.
| WTF? Slashdot? Um, what is this, someone wearing a Slashdot skin
| suit? How about the sites by supposedly rational academics on
| each side of the political persuasion to get some balance. WTF?
| Just hate and anger and toxicity on a crazy level otherizing any
| opinion not their own. People are once thought great intellectual
| insides making incredibly uncharitable frankly hate filled
| comments and self isolating in echo chambers. Google Discovery
| app... "here's some blog posts summarizing relationship posts
| made on Reddit". Huh? Why would anyone want to read this let
| alone have it further aggregated for them? Seriously, modern
| American discourse has less humanity, compassion, depth, and
| recognition of nuance THAN PRISON. Or maybe prison just made me
| less patient of bull crap and able to immediate horrible people
| by their mannerisms. Seriously this site is the only place I have
| found still sane and enlightening.
| syntheweave wrote:
| What really happened, I think, is that journalism stopped
| paying, so more and more of what's there became tied to career
| ideologues. Increasingly "the news" is just a summary of what
| blue checkmark Twitter accounts said yesterday. And it's easy
| to lie when you're only speaking to your own followers.
|
| As well, there's an unresolved demographic shift from an aged
| Boomer generation towards Millennials. Unresolved in the sense
| that assets haven't changed ownership, infrastructure hasn't
| been revised, and political leadership has done the bare
| minimum to keep up. So everyone now looks towards politics(or
| maybe tech) for a piece of the pie, unrest events have risen,
| and yet political disengagement is also high.
|
| I got on the cryptocurrency train years back, as somewhat of an
| exit to the madness. It has treated me alright, though it's
| also a faith.
| popctrl wrote:
| This is an interesting perspective. I feel like a frog in a pot
| of boiling water, the discourse in my life is just getting
| gradually worse and most of the media is happy to gaslight
| people into thinking...Well, anything that gets a click. I'd be
| interested to hear any more of your perspective.
| HiROTMetro wrote:
| Welcome back! You might find these better uses of your news
| time.
|
| * The Conversation - https://theconversation.com/us
|
| * Ground News - https://ground.news
|
| * sumi.news - https://sumi.news
|
| * Wikipedia -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events
|
| If you find yourself reading too much this can help too
|
| * LeechBlock - https://www.proginosko.com/leechblock
| gizzlon wrote:
| Thanks :)
|
| My favorite is _Delayed Gratification_ : A print magazine
| that writes about events after the fact. Deep dives into a
| few topics and great infographics
|
| _" The world's first Slow Journalism magazine.
|
| A beautiful quarterly publication which revisits the events
| of the last three months to offer in-depth, independent
| journalism in an increasingly frantic world."_
|
| https://www.slow-journalism.com/
| TootsMagoon wrote:
| This is a great find! Just what I have been looking for.
| Thank you.
| philovivero wrote:
| gridspy wrote:
| Specifically about covid - I think everyone knows that
| nothing is perfect. Arguing that other people think either
| vaccines or masks are perfect is a classic strawman argument.
| [1]
|
| Vaccines are less-bad than a Covid infection, training your
| immune system without actually exposing it to the dangers of
| Covid-19 itself. Masks reduce viral loads - mostly through
| reducing shedding and partially through reducing intake.
|
| Assuming lock-downs have impacted you personally, I'm sorry
| about that. We're all experiencing that pain together,
| personally I find most things about the lockdowns horrible.
| But still better than lots of people dying.
|
| Masks, Vaccinations and lockdowns only benefit society with
| high compliance. So expect strong social pressure to comply
| or you invalidate everyone else's efforts.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man
| ROTMetro wrote:
| I can't post on his comment as it's been flagged. Sorry to
| hijack your comment. I can relate where you are coming
| from. Protecting your livelihood, providing for your
| family, that would get me so friggen worked up, and I can't
| even imagine the stress, I just can't even begin to. The
| worst part about prison is the failing your family aspect,
| so I can imagine how frusting, trapped feeling anything
| like that and it being outside of your control, through no
| fault of your own. And seeing that humanizes that this
| isn't just financial numbers, those financial numbers
| represent people that are deeply suffering from the
| lockdowns, those financial numbers represent a human cost.
| For me, I listened to my mother on the phone worry as she
| spent her last days in fear because she was dying of cancer
| and chemo killed her immune system and she was in a no mask
| state. So it's understandable I might be pretty protective
| of her and her fears. Or my daughter that has an immune
| condition and might never be able to live normally now that
| COVID is a thing. I as a son, a father, hold on to some
| little sliver wanting to protect my mother, praying my
| daughter doesn't have to become some bubble girl. Wanting
| people to wear masks might be irrational, but it isn't out
| of maliciousness or wanting to hurt, but out of a sense of
| powerlessness to protect those I love. It's even harder
| because I am a libertarian who doesn't think the mandates
| provide enough benefit for the costs nor should they be
| mandates on a logical level, but hearing the fear in my
| mom's voice, multiplied by so many people, I just don't
| know. Their fear has a consideration aspect too. This is
| the sort of humanizing of others experiences that I think
| we need and I just don't see anywhere else on the internet
| right now.
| anthk wrote:
| Check https://synchro.net. You can access thru BBS's
| (telnet/SSH) or NNTP too, and you'll have night convos at
| FIDOnet and DOVEnet, both tech and non tech.
| gridspy wrote:
| A fair perspective. It's also possible that your isolation from
| media has let you return to see what was wrong with that media
| all along. Possibly you were simply blind to how bad it was
| before, or just used to it.
|
| I concur that it is worse than it was, but I would say 10-30%
| worse not "completely different."
|
| It would be nice if there was a little less hate generally.
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| MBCook wrote:
| If you don't mind when did enter prison? Basically what time
| period are you comparing against?
| MBCook wrote:
| Come to think of it have you considered writing an article
| about this? You have a very unique perspective since most
| people experienced it as it happed (proverbial frog in the
| boiling pot).
|
| I bet a number of outlets might be interested in publishing
| it, or you could DIY on Medium or Substack or something.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| Yeah no. Already have a heavy load and my life is already
| F'd enough, I can't be putting any more rocks into my load
| by amplifying attention on me in any way thanks. Plus a guy
| six months out still has a lot of mental issues, not back
| to being human yet :) A year living in a space smaller than
| an elevator with another person, a bunk bed, and desk with
| no out time because COVID doesn't help. On the plus side
| when you read the same magazine cover to cover 50 or so
| times you get a different take on it and feel expert enough
| to spout nonsense about it :)
| MBCook wrote:
| I understand. Thanks for what you posted above.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| Entered in 2017 and got back to "the World" six months ago.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| Pretty sure things were just as shitty in 2017
| butwhywhyoh wrote:
| Seems like OP would disagree with you strongly and had a
| rather intense reaction to the state of media in 2022. Do
| you have anything to offer a counter opinion?
| ROTMetro wrote:
| Maybe sites like Twitter were, but it wasn't EVERYTHING
| like it is now. There just wasn't so much hateful
| speaking. There wasn't so much tribalization,
| otherization. Sure Reddit sucked but it wasn't hateful.
| Now it seems everything is full of unnecessary snide
| comments about whomever is perceived as the out group or
| other tribe with no self awareness of the ugliness of the
| comments. Educated conservative university professors I
| once admired, supposedly compassionate liberal
| entertainers I once enjoyed have all been infected by
| ugliness. Even music making websites with zero politics
| in the discussion just full of hate for no reason.
| Everything is just gross. It seems no one sees each other
| as human anymore. You know you are missing something when
| Liberals are hating a pot smoking, Bernie Sanders voter
| because he has pot smoking Art Bell type discussions with
| people and Conservatives are adopting him as one of their
| own. It's just pure tribal at that point. Seriously, WTF
| world is this?
|
| I think it's strange and sad that I should find the
| society I've returned to more full of anger and hate and
| with less compassion than prison.
| nervousvarun wrote:
| Agreed...The Joe Rogan thing is crazy (assuming this is
| what you're talking about).
|
| He gets lumped in with Conservatives because EVERYONE
| must be lumped in to the left or the right these days.
|
| You can't be in the middle anymore.
| [deleted]
| alxndr wrote:
| > You'll find that your abstinence did not result in any worse
| cabinet appointments than were already being made, and that
| disaster relief efforts carried on without your involvement, just
| as they always do. As it turns out, your hobby of monitoring the
| "state of the world" did not actually affect the world.
|
| Obvious counterpoint: Trump, who appointed awful judges and
| secretaries, and denied disaster relief aid, was sworn in to
| office a month after this was published
| nathias wrote:
| I've been trying to avoid the news for my whole life, but there
| really is no escape from the US news cycle if you are online.
| Still, it's probably a huge quality of life improvement if you
| stop actively seeking it out.
| logicalmonster wrote:
| Quitting the mainstream news is probably the best approach for
| most people, but I think critically paying attention to the news
| is also very illuminating and it's something that I don't think
| enough people do. Pay attention to how they advertise and
| monetize and operate.
|
| Here's just a few observations off the top of my head.
|
| * Fox News and CNN often get compared as being the opposites of
| each other, but there's one big difference in journalistic
| integrity that I can see. With Fox, you know who the straight
| news people are and who the opinion people are. With CNN, the
| line is blurred beyond any recognition.
|
| * Particularly when it came to Trump, many news headlines during
| the last 6 years or so have been literal mind-reading about his
| mental state, thoughts, and goals, and I'm not even joking a
| little. If you start paying attention to this, you'll notice that
| so much of the news literally involves mind-reading.
|
| * Paying attention to the advertisements made during the news is
| also critical because all humans have bias. Every other ad is for
| some damn pill, cream, or suppository from Big Pharma. Any news
| report involving health should be viewed through this lens as
| news agencies know who butters their bread.
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| I have zero trust in media anymore. Watching un-edited videos of
| certain famous events, then reading what well-respected,
| reputable news outlets wrote about it... it was basically at
| tabloid level how misrepresented it was.
|
| Best I can do - if particularly interested in a current event and
| there's no video footage - is sample wide range of news sources
| and see if there's any common strand of truth between the lies.
|
| But more often than not, I don't care anymore.
| VLM wrote:
| Quitting pro sports has the same effect as quitting news.
| mhardcastle wrote:
| My favorite way to demonstrate the news's general irrelevance is
| to go to archive.org and look up the front page of your favorite
| news source from, say, 10 years ago. In hindsight, paying
| attention to nearly anything on the news a decade ago gave you no
| useful information to date. Why would today's news be any
| different?
| giobox wrote:
| Because "news" by definition is only really useful or
| interesting at the time it occurs?
|
| The Miriam-Webster definition of "News" is literally "A report
| of _recent_ events ". A report of events a decade prior is not
| "News" anymore and of course likely to be irrelevant. To visit
| a decade old front page of any paper expecting it to be
| directly applicable somehow to your life today is bizarre logic
| to me.
| mhardcastle wrote:
| It's not a test of whether it was "news" at the time - it's a
| test of its relevance to you.
|
| If you look back at the news from a particular day and see
| now that reading it didn't convey information you've used
| since, then that is a good indication that the news you're
| reading now probably won't convey anything you find useful
| going forward.
| giobox wrote:
| This is demonstrably nonsense. People make investment
| decisions for one, based on events in the news. The news
| every day is not required to be relevant specifically to
| you alone, that's an absurd notion, but it will from time
| to time be relevant to you, as it will be for anyone who
| exists in a given polity.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| It is a signal to noise issue. If you are a day trader,
| daily financial news may be relevant.
|
| 99.9% of news isn't relevant or actionable for most
| people.
|
| If I can't answer the question "how will this inform a
| decision I have to make?" the news is purely
| entertainment. If entertainment doesn't make your life
| better, don't consume it.
|
| There is no value in having an "informed opinion" about
| topics that don't change your life.
| giobox wrote:
| > 99.9% of news isn't relevant or actionable for most
| people.
|
| This is what news is supposed to be though! To expect
| otherwise is the problem. Just because something isn't
| immediately actionable or entertaining that day in some
| measurable outcome is a poor test of "value" too, and
| would eliminate many other things people consider of
| "value".
|
| Continuing my previous single example, financial news can
| affect anyone who owns a home or has retirement savings,
| whether they want to admit it or not, the scope is vastly
| beyond financial professionals and day traders. If I know
| interest rates are likely due to rise in March (I do!
| Thanks news!), I can take steps to lock a low rate now
| for any debts I have, like a mortgage...
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| >This is what news is supposed to be though! To expect
| otherwise is the problem. Just because something isn't
| immediately actionable or entertaining that day in some
| measurable outcome is a poor test of "value" too, and
| would eliminate many other things people consider of
| "value".
|
| Where do you think the value of news comes from, if not
| helping people take better actions to navigate their
| lives?
|
| >Continuing my previous single example, financial news
| can affect anyone who owns a home or has retirement
| savings, Whether they want to admit it or not, the scope
| is vastly beyond financial professionals and day traders.
|
| My point is that information doesn't matter _even if_ it
| will or could affect you, unless you will take some
| action based on it. If someone realistically thinks they
| might sell their family home or cash out their
| retirement, then by all means, pay close attention to
| financial news. If not, they would be better off ignoring
| it entirely.
| giobox wrote:
| The list of things that can affect me and _many_ others
| and appear in the news is pretty much limitless; new
| legislation, interest rate changes, changes to my school
| district, tax rate adjustments, rebanding of my property,
| changes to what animals are allowed on a leash in local
| parks, road or business closures, the list goes on and
| on. We do not exist in a vacuum of one and decisions of
| others will from time to time affect even the most
| introverted of individuals.
|
| All of these things can be actionable, and all of them
| require paying attention to a news source of some kind to
| take that action in time. That is the value! And yes, it
| means very often I have to flick through a paper that
| doesn't entertain or inform me at all, but that has
| always been the reality of the news.
|
| There are even really positive things that enter my life
| too, it's not all misery; news of exhibitions or bands
| coming to town that I love for one. There are huge
| interests and hobbies I have only discovered because I
| read about them in a news article - there can be a
| "discovery cost" for many people to reading no news at
| all too. "Value" is a tricky concept and benefits are
| often indirect.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| >The list of things that can affect me and many others
| and appear in the news is pretty much limitless; new
| legislation, interest rate changes, changes to my school
| district, tax rate adjustments, rebanding of my property,
| changes to what animals are allowed on a leash in local
| parks, road or business closures, the list goes on and
| on. We do not exist in a vacuum of one and decisions of
| others will from time to time affect even the most
| introverted of individuals
|
| 100% agree. As I said, many things can have an impact on
| you, but that doesn't mean they are worth paying
| attention to proactively unless you are even slightly
| likely to do something about them.
|
| >All of these things can be actionable, and all of them
| require paying attention to a news source of some kind to
| take that action in time.
|
| Again, 100% agree, assuming you might actually take
| action. I think most people are not honest with
| themselves about what might actually lead to action.
|
| My point is not that news _cant_ be actionable, but that
| for most people it rarely is. People would be better
| served if they curate their news consumption based on
| what may actually be relevant and likely to lead to
| action, and _gasp_ perhaps spend some more time actually
| taking actions.
|
| If you feel you already do that, then great. Based on my
| experience, the vast majority of people don't. They spend
| dozens of hours following local elections for states they
| will never visit, building "informed opinions" about
| protests while never attending one themselves. They track
| stocks they don't own and will never buy and read crime
| exposes for locations they will never visit.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| Watching the news used to keep you meaningfully informed back
| when it was a thirty minute thing once a day. Now that we have
| internet and can google up just about anything, I only need the
| occasional tsunami alert or whatever.
|
| The world was also smaller back then. With eight billion people,
| you can't track everything of importance on the world stage
| anymore. You need to pick and choose.
| rr808 wrote:
| What I'm amazed is how the news directs people's attention and
| forms agendas. From Covid, the Southern border migration, Police
| shootings, Venezuala, Syria etc they're all multi-year ongoing
| problems but suddenly reach crises then a few days later you
| never hear again. The Media has so much power to influence what
| people care about.
| bambam3000 wrote:
| I would go as far as to say "The Media controls what (most)
| people care about."
|
| Once you step outside and look with fresh eyes it really is
| quite terrifying.
| ignacioaal wrote:
| It's been about 8 years since I've completely stopped watching tv
| news or reading newspapers but this post made me realize that I
| still browse reddit and r/worldnews sometimes.
|
| This is just to say that quitting everything might be close to
| impossible considering that in some cases we even get news
| reports via unsolicited SMS messages but we can still reduce
| input and have a more focused, calmer state of mind.
| agumonkey wrote:
| I really wonder how it feels for farmers in small places. They
| might be able to live with near no news.
| zh3 wrote:
| A great way to quickly catch up is to use something like the BBCs
| "What's the papers say" page [0] or similar alternatives. It
| gives both a broad overview and also an opportunity to see
| different perspectives on the same news.
|
| [0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-60457518
| Jaruzel wrote:
| There's also the daily 'The Papers' front pages:
|
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/cpml2v678pxt
|
| Which is a great way to see all the points of view (in the UK)
| on one page.
| zh3 wrote:
| Thanks, that was the link I meant to post (the BBC should add
| a fixed link that points to the latest, as well the daily
| links).
| landa wrote:
| The only news source I follow is bloomberg.com. I was introduced
| to it through the Bloomberg Terminal, and continue to follow it
| after leaving the industry. It seems to me like the only news
| service that reports without any bias.
| nautilius wrote:
| Spoiler: He did not actually quit the news, just watching news on
| TV as opposed to reading articles.
|
| > _I'm mostly talking about following TV and internet newscasts
| here. This post isn't an indictment of journalism as a whole.
| There's a big difference between watching a half hour of CNN's
| refugee crisis coverage (not that they cover it anymore) versus
| spending that time reading a 5,000-word article on the same
| topic._
| chrisfosterelli wrote:
| I don't think it's specifically against TV so much as against
| junk news. There's lots of junk news in article form. TV is
| just a really bad offender as far as junk news goes.
| afterburner wrote:
| Yeah, TV News is the real issue, it only gives a completely
| surface level understanding of anything, such that you will be
| forming political opinions based on emotional impact and
| nothing else.
|
| And that, btw, is the reason to stay informed: to come to
| accurate conclusions that inform your political opinions.
| Because at some point, decisions need to be made about things,
| and your vote is part of that process. Not just your own vote,
| either, but the votes of anyone else you can communicate with.
|
| Of course, for many, the emotional impact is all that happens,
| which forms the basis of all propaganda and advertising.
| redisman wrote:
| Most web based news is not any better. Just because someone
| wrote it down doesn't make the analysis any deeper
| cpach wrote:
| Yeah enormous difference.
|
| It is indeed a good idea to avoid TV news.
|
| My suggestion: Go to a news stand instead and grab a copy of
| The Economist. One who does that will learn much about the
| world. About countries one rarely hear about in other media
| outlets. About advances in science and technology.
|
| In my opinion, time spent reading The Economist is not wasted.
|
| Well that's my 2C/ anyway -\_(tsu)_/-
| mahogany wrote:
| > My suggestion: Go to a news stand instead and grab a copy
| of The Economist. One who does that will learn much about the
| world. About countries one rarely hear about in other media
| outlets. About advances in science and technology.
|
| To play Devil's advocate, why is it useful to spend time
| learning about these types of things -- world politics,
| economics, even current scientific developments? Is it mainly
| because it's interesting (so that it's primarily
| entertainment)? Or is it to better yourself in some way? I
| think a lot of people implicitly think that this type of
| knowledge falls into the "bettering yourself" category, but I
| wonder if it's mostly for entertainment. Of course, if you
| are actively involved in international politics, then things
| look different, but I'm mainly talking about the
| "everyperson".
|
| I bring this up because I go through phases where I get
| really into world "happenings" as described above, but then
| after a while I feel as though I have gained little or
| nothing, except emotional responses and opinions about these
| things, which causes no noticeable positive effect in my day-
| to-day life (and in fact, often affects my mental state
| negatively, given the amount of fear-mongering in media).
| Instead, I have the suspicion that all of that time would
| have been better spent focusing on things local: myself,
| friendships, family, hobbies.
| telchior wrote:
| I pointed out that the Economist isn't that great in
| another comment, but turning around and leaping to its
| defense:
|
| It tends to give an overview of geopolitical events that do
| have some meaning. For instance, your entire idea of the
| Philippines may be that it's a US ally, has a lot of
| beaches and happy people. The Economist (or something
| similar) may then clue you in that no, actually, the
| country is on the edge of falling to dictatorship and in
| bed with China. That info is slanted, and may not be useful
| for you taking any substantive action; but on the other
| hand, it gives you a starting point if, say, you ever had a
| Filipino coworker. It also tells you something about the
| broader world, such as the fact that a lot of democracies
| are starting to look fragile enough that you might want to
| consider learning enough to decide whether that could
| actually be a local problem. (This isn't a screed, just an
| example; the Philippines may be fine and your local
| democracy may be strong!)
|
| If you already knew a decent amount about the situation --
| well, maybe just skip that particular article, or give it a
| quick skim and move on. Maybe look at the Economist as a
| sampler, rather than something to read cover to cover. It
| also has stuff like the Technology Quarterly, which
| actually covers a much broader range of tech concepts than,
| say, HN.
| afterburner wrote:
| If you like to understand things, understanding things is
| its own reward.
|
| However, there is also voting.
| consumer451 wrote:
| > It is indeed a good idea to avoid TV news.
|
| I was in the original wave of "cord cutters," it's been 20+
| years. I have also spent many of those years abroad. My
| exposure to TV news is around 1-2 hours per year, in various
| countries.
|
| When I visit my family back at home there is normal American
| news on the TV. I can only last a few seconds before I have
| to leave the room because the news is presented as if the
| audience consists of people with a 5th grade education. It is
| beyond insulting. I never felt this until I left TV's
| influence for a few years. This phenomenon is extremely
| exaggerated in the USA.
| xattt wrote:
| I'm waiting for someone to jump in and shit on The Economist.
| However, I don't think a person that doesn't have any sort of
| social standing to uphold will have anything bad to say.
| thescriptkiddie wrote:
| I'll bite. The Economist is a right-wing publication. The
| quality of the writing is usually pretty good so it's not a
| bad choice if you're in to that sort of thing, but it is
| propaganda.
| ghostpepper wrote:
| It's right wing on many economic issues (free trade,
| globalization, etc) but don't expect them to fall in with
| typical USA Republican Party lines on social issues (gay
| marriage, abortion, guns, etc)
| cpach wrote:
| I guess that depends on how you define right-wing.
|
| But sure, the publication is in favour of capitalism. Is
| that really so controversial though? I thought it was
| pretty obvious that The Economist is neither Social
| Democrat, nor socialist or communist. On the other hand,
| a Social Democrat could probably agree with much that's
| written there.
| kibblesalad wrote:
| Clearly you don't have any sort of social standing to
| uphold and have disqualified yourself from the
| discussion!
|
| Citations Needed has a decent episode on the publication
| and its history:
| https://citationsneeded.libsyn.com/episode-98-the-
| refined-so...
| cpach wrote:
| That seems like a quite opinionated podcast indeed. From
| the blurb it sounds like the old proverb _"som fan laser
| bibeln"_ (don't know if you have it in English but it
| means "like the Devil reads the Bible").
|
| The book discussed could be interesting though. I might
| pick up a copy!
|
| https://www.versobooks.com/books/3090-liberalism-at-large
| cpach wrote:
| There are of course things one could criticize them for. I
| still believe it's a useful and interesting publication.
| And quite unique, dare I say.
| telchior wrote:
| I agree, it's a great magazine. But don't forget that even
| the Economist is only providing a shallow overview of any
| given topic (despite the apparent depth); has a specific
| partisan viewpoint / world philosophy; and is frequently
| wrong.
|
| Most people know that at an intellectual level, of course.
| But it's all too easy to read something like an Economist
| article and come away thinking "oh, I learned a lot / have a
| decent understanding of this issue". A lot of that comes down
| to the editorial style and self-assured tone of the writing.
| It helps to remember that even something like the Economist
| is largely written by people in their mid-20s with no
| particular expertise, and edited by people who may be older
| and wiser but also cover many different topics.
| cpach wrote:
| Good point. To really get to know a field / question, one
| needs deeper sources.
| deltaonefour wrote:
| My suggestion is don't even bother with the economist. It's
| news in more pretentious and intelligent packaging. It's
| honestly better than some other sources for sure, but that
| isn't the point.
|
| The point isn't to find good sources of news. I think the
| point is that most news, no matter how good it is, is largely
| pointless.
|
| I'll pick up the economist if something in it interests me.
| Otherwise I largely ignore all news.
| foo92691 wrote:
| The Economist is also like 100+ pages per week. Very hard
| to consume without significant dedication.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Don't read every article?
| ROTMetro wrote:
| And it definitely is biased. It sadly very much "informs"
| you towards having the opinion it wants to promote which is
| what I think we are discussing getting away from.
| cpach wrote:
| If I may ask, what other publications do you recommend
| that you deem more objective? Do they also cover large
| swathes of the whole world, like The Economist does?
| XorNot wrote:
| I'd advise against the news stand. Classic intelligence
| fieldwork ploy: if you make someone work a little for a bit
| of information, they're more likely to assign it a higher
| value.
|
| Adding friction to your news consumption makes it feel higher
| quality, but is of course actually totally independent of
| that.
| JSONderulo wrote:
| Love The Economist. I have a subscription.
| rovek wrote:
| It feels like some of the more agile publishers reacted to this
| sentiment some years ago, in that they started publishing 5,000
| word articles about EVERYTHING and subsequently even long reads
| are self-indulgent garbage.
|
| I personally would extend this article in today's world to be
| more like "scan the headlines every 2-3 days and go read books
| instead". That way you know "what" is largely happening, e.g.
| geopolitics, floods, murder trial, but you don't waste time
| consuming a few thousand words of garbage from somebody who
| knows no more than you do.
|
| A friend of mine started doing this way before me and a take of
| his was that any sufficiently big news will make its way
| through to you via social circles anyway, use people who don't
| value their time as your filter.
| [deleted]
| every wrote:
| My goto source is the text version of NPR, much of which is
| directly from the AP: https://text.npr.org/
| seaman1921 wrote:
| "Being concerned" makes us feel like we're doing something when
| we're not"
|
| - yes! just stop saying "we are there for you and we support you"
| - well no you are at home on a phone typing things to make
| yourself feel better and useful.
| TrueGeek wrote:
| I've uninstalled Facebook and stopped reading / watching the
| news. I read HN and a few local subreddits via RSS. I do feel
| much better mentally.
|
| I would, however, like a way to be informed of breaking news. I
| tried a few apps but their idea of "breaking" news often involved
| celebrity gossip. I really only want to know if its MAJOR: war
| breaks out, aliens land and make contact, fusion is finally
| perfected and we're all no longer required to labor 40 hours a
| week.
|
| My current solution is basically: if something major happens my
| wife tells me about it.
| [deleted]
| redisman wrote:
| Wikipedia current events page is your friend. It has a
| executive summary of about the last week or two and then a
| daily breakdown if you want more detail
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| I sort of took your route but I do get an axios "news in 5
| minutes" type of email every morning. I also get a similar one
| for local news which I do feel a need to stay on top of
| chaircher wrote:
| I had this exact issue. Over time your irl social network (like
| your wife) cotton on that you're not in the loop and they'll
| contact you to tell you about things they think you're
| interested in. So not only is there better curation going on
| but you're also strengthening your bond with real people around
| you.
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