[HN Gopher] News engagement plummets as Americans tune out
___________________________________________________________________
News engagement plummets as Americans tune out
Author : shaburn
Score : 49 points
Date : 2022-07-12 21:50 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.axios.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.axios.com)
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Yes, some of us have had enough, and we decided to walk away from
| it. Enough people now realize that it's all BS for clicks.
| bsenftner wrote:
| We placed trust in News outlets, and they abused that trust to a
| criminal, near civil war. Let them all go bankrupt.
| spread_love wrote:
| Glad to hear you don't read any news, presumably including the
| link to CNBC you submitted.
|
| What's your alternative?
| betwixthewires wrote:
| Not who you're asking, but my alternative is simply
| interacting with people around me. I'll hear about basically
| everything from someone running their mouth, half the time
| it's their biases and bullshit spewing out, the other half
| it's actual pertinent information. That's significantly less
| biases and bullshit than if I followed news, and much less
| time spent pretending to care, so it's a win for me.
| spread_love wrote:
| Oh, so hearsay. It's much less efficient to have to ask
| multiple people for their summaries of the news every day
| instead of reading a newspaper.
| betwixthewires wrote:
| The news is hearsay with a veneer of officialness.
|
| I don't ask. You don't have to. If it's important you'll
| hear about it passively. You'll also hear about
| unimportant things, but far fewer unimportant things than
| if you actively looked for pertinent information.
| loudmax wrote:
| Who do you trust instead?
| overtonwhy wrote:
| NPR and PBS
| daveslash wrote:
| I second this. I don't understand why you were down-voted.
| Somebody asked a question about who _you_ trust and you
| answered it directly. You didn 't ask, but I too trust NPR
| & PBS.
| djohnston wrote:
| Generally long form content
| 99_00 wrote:
| >In some cases, engagement has fallen below pre-pandemic levels
|
| In other words, in many cases it is back to normal levels.
| georgebarnett wrote:
| Once you realise that the "bad news" is not current events, but
| rather a poor experience driven by chasing clicks instead of
| quality, the reasonable response is to disengage from the machine
| and go elsewhere.
|
| A simple example is the number of new orgs still running daily
| live blogs of current events trying to generate hype.
|
| I expect if we looked elsewhere, there would be an uptick in
| engagement in moderated, thoughtful sources such as podcasts,
| substacks, etc (and of course plain social).
| yomkippur wrote:
| It's almost like people no longer trust the mainstream news
| outlets and its not tough to see why:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fHfgU8oMSo
| hahaitsfunny wrote:
| AzzieElbab wrote:
| all I see on news twitter is journalists engaging with each
| other. no civilians are getting involved/harmed
| ohiovr wrote:
| There are few news stories I find worthy to open. "If it bleeds
| it leads". For the most part, if isn't someone I know bleeding,
| I'm skipping it. Also the share of so called news posing as
| editorials makes it unworthy to open the vast lot of them. Also,
| editorial or not, Its often about how unfair the left is treated
| and I'm not interested in that any more. Tech wizz bang stories
| aren't as interesting to me as it was in the past, mainly because
| I've heard of it all (almost). Not interested in scandals of the
| so called elite anymore because nothing ever comes from it,
| usually.
|
| Other so called news stories like that about inflation, isn't
| news at all, we all know already. The stuff that is really news,
| and really important, and really imminent, isn't covered because
| it embarrasses the establishment. Should you point that out, you
| are censored.
|
| Funny how a business can survive without customers.
|
| But that is just me.
| tenpies wrote:
| > "If it bleeds it leads".
|
| Post-2016, the updated version is "If it bleeds and doesn't
| make Democrats look bad, it leads".
|
| See for example, the near-absolute muteness about the recent
| Hunter Biden iCloud leak[1]. This is the son of a sitting POTUS
| - who was just last week at the White House - demonstrably
| putting himself in positions that are ripe for blackmailing and
| corruption.
|
| The same son sitting on Boards of private companies with huge
| international exposure, and directly benefiting from the
| terrible decisions being made at the White House.
|
| It would be scandalous even in the most Banana of Republics -
| but not in the US when its about the Democrats.
|
| ---
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_Biden_iCloud_leak
| rr888 wrote:
| While I prefer boring politicians, Trump made for some
| spectacular news headlines. I guess we're getting back to normal.
| thenerdhead wrote:
| I wonder if this is the beginning of the post crisis "high" using
| the terminology of the fourth turning book. Perhaps the
| generational shift are having people looking to be self-reliant
| until those strong communities are rebuilt on trust.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| > The war in Ukraine, a series of deadly mass shootings, the Jan.
| 6 hearings and the Supreme Court's revocation of abortion rights
| haven't been able to capture the same level of attention spurred
| by the onset of the pandemic and the 2020 election.
|
| Did anyone see those comedy sketches on Instagram/TikTok about
| the fake army draft guy standing around NYC recruiting people?
|
| He got some pretty honest opinions from people about the idea of
| going to the Ukraine, that mostly matches all of our
| representatives actions.
|
| Basically "fuck that"
| mappu wrote:
| Just a casual heads-up - https://time.com/12597/the-ukraine-or-
| ukraine/
| SnowHill9902 wrote:
| If it's important enough it'll reach you.
| ohiovr wrote:
| Yes this is really true. One time a friend told me 3G was being
| eliminated. 4 days later my phone stopped working.
| phabricator wrote:
| Exactly, why check for cars before crossing the road?
|
| If it's dangerous enough, it'll hit you.
| JoshCole wrote:
| Ironically, crossing roads is an example of a time where
| people tend to feel checking the news is stupid and
| reckless. The reason being that it calls into stark
| attention how a lack of awareness of your _actual_
| surroundings impacts your safety.
| phabricator wrote:
| ...and a lack of understanding that your phone won't work
| tomorrow can impact your safety. Presumably the phone was
| near GP's _actual_ surroundings.
| ceeplusplus wrote:
| How much of this is just TikTok eating everyone else's lunch? You
| don't post articles on TT as much as 15-60 second soundbites, so
| presumably it wouldn't be included here. There's also more
| "alternative" solo players as opposed to the big newspapers and
| channels, since TT has better discoverability than YT and FB.
| itqwertz wrote:
| People miss Trump, even if they hated him. Biden has just been a
| disaster and the news is no longer about the never-ending drama
| that Trump could generate at will. Instead, we are given a
| geriatric old man whose news headlines make the US look weak.
| phabricator wrote:
| Yes this is covered in the article, except with nuance.
|
| > Instead, we are given a geriatric old man
|
| You understand that Trump is a geriatric old man right? Well
| over 65 when he got his first government job and nearly the
| same age as Biden.
| nervousvarun wrote:
| Surely you understand the context though right? The
| perception?
|
| Trump was/is a pompous, bombastic, blow-hard, ignorant fool
| but he's not falling off of bicycles and slurring his speech
| like a stroke victim.
|
| Well he probably was...but he managed to be lively enough
| that when he did that wasn't the lasting impression he left.
|
| Maybe Biden's milquetoast persona is what the country
| needs...but it's not as newsworthy (which again is the
| context here).
| phabricator wrote:
| In attack ads for Trump prior to the first time he lost the
| popular vote, they just played clips of him being himself.
| The clip of him mocking a disabled reporter, for example.
| It didn't help our perception.
|
| We had the most deaths-per-capita to COVID of any first-
| world nation. I find that more embarrassing than falling
| off a bike, and leaving of a lasting impression.
|
| Trump didn't need to slur his words; when he said "bigly"
| or misspelled "hamberger" on Twitter for the world to see
| it didn't help our perception either.
| betwixthewires wrote:
| There's some pretty spicy news coming out about him and his
| family right now, significantly more saucy than anything that
| came out about Trump, but you won't see it on the news. And
| there's proof of it all too, interestingly enough.
| mberning wrote:
| News isn't news anymore. What you get most often is activism,
| propaganda, and doomsday blackpill bullshit. I don't need that in
| my life.
| ALittleLight wrote:
| I like this simplified format that Axios has. Reading this
| article I actually thought "This is good, I should check out more
| from Axios." I then went to their homepage and by scrolling down
| counted 11 out of their top 20 articles were about the January
| 6th riots and an additional 2 or 3 were about Trump. Maybe this
| is a problem the news has?
|
| My neighborhood experienced rioters. They burned cars near my
| house, broke windows, ransacked stores, vandalism, looting,
| attacked people, my neighbors were on the streets with drawn
| guns, the national guard was deployed, and on the same day our
| police chief was literally kneeling in solidarity with the
| rioters. Yet this incident, and countless like it across the
| country, receded into the far distance almost immediately as far
| as the media is concerned. An hours long protest turned riot at
| the Capitol, where the only people killed were protesters by the
| police? This dominates media coverage more than a year later?
|
| What I'm really getting at is that media coverage seems
| politically and ideologically driven to me. They want to shape
| the opinion of their readers to match the political agenda. That
| seems like a turn off to me.
| bandyaboot wrote:
| Did you actually see the people kneeling with the police chief
| actively rioting?
| spread_love wrote:
| The seventh Jan 6 select hearing committee was _hours_ ago, why
| wouldn 't a US-focused news site be running stories about it
| today? It's the hero story for Newsmax, is that because of
| their "ideology?"
|
| It's all over Fox News too (granted they're also covering _'
| The View' Hosts React to First Lady Jill Biden's Taco Comments_
| which sounds very important).
| lcuff wrote:
| A senior trainer for a method of dealing with trauma once said he
| didn't think the human nervous system has evolved to be able to
| deal with the quantity of bad news that is pushed at us.
|
| Thinking about it, evolutionarily we probably dealt with bad news
| from within a 20 or 40 mile radius (two day's walk...). We are
| inherently disposed to pay attention to bad news (the creature
| that ate or mauled a guy in the next village may come this way).
| Put stronger, it's an evolutionary advantage to pay attention to
| bad news. But here in 2022, the bad news from thousands of miles
| away is 99% irrelevant to my life or survival, but my eyeballs
| get pulled in, and my nervous system gets overwhelmed unless I
| make a conscious choice to pull away, which I personally do.
| TechBro8615 wrote:
| > We are inherently disposed to pay attention to bad news
|
| Most of us, sure, but not all of us. Some people don't care
| about bad news. You might argue that's not who we want to
| select for, but in a noisy information environment, apathy is a
| fitness function.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| A senior commentator at Hacker News (me) does not believe that
| false beliefs are more prevalent today than in the past.
| epolanski wrote:
| > the bad news from thousands of miles away is 99% irrelevant
| to my life or survival
|
| You reminded me of something. Before the latest US elections
| me, an Italian, found myself in few discussions about Trump,
| Biden at dinners with friends and family.
|
| I then realized I've never found myself in a discussion about
| elections of our city's mayor or province governor which were
| infinitely more relevant to my daily life. Some of my friends
| didn't even knew who the candidates were or the ideas they had.
|
| Quite telling.
| pcorsaro wrote:
| There's a quote from this article under the Cable Viewership
| section that I found interesting. "Cable viewership across the
| three major cable news networks -- CNN, Fox News and MSNBC -- is,
| on average, down 19% in prime time for the first half of this
| year compared to the first half of 2021. Those losses skew
| heavily toward CNN and MSNBC, which are down 47% and 33%,
| respectively. Fox's ratings are up 12% in that six-month span."
|
| That's a very weird, biased way of phrasing that. The two left
| leaning news organizations are down quite a bit, but the right
| leaning organization is actually up, but we're going to lump them
| all together and make it look like they're all down at first
| glance.
| fullshark wrote:
| When your team has control -> stick your head in the sand. When
| the other team has control -> bathe in outrage.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Where does the bias come in? You would have to stop reading
| literally mid-paragraph to be mislead.
| computerphage wrote:
| Sounds like it comes in the first half of the paragraph then
| JoshCole wrote:
| It? That? The? What are you talking about? It seems
| hypocritical to imply that meanings ought to be understood
| divorced from context while your own post doesn't meet the
| standard.
| pjbeam wrote:
| The point of a paragraph is to thread together sentences
| into meaning beyond that contained in them individually.
| bee_rider wrote:
| That every given sentence, when extracted from context,
| should be totally free of bias, is a ridiculous
| expectation.
| V__ wrote:
| From an outside perspective, I always have to chuckle when
| someone calls CNN, MSNBC left-leaning and FOX right-leaning.
| One is a full-blown conspiracy-theory right-wing "news"
| network, and the other two are just regular sensationalized
| news channels. Does the US even have left-leaning news?
| jquery wrote:
| The overwhelming power of rural voters in America forces us
| to pay respects to a lot of nonsense we could otherwise
| ignore...
| forinti wrote:
| From the little I know of US media, I would guess The Young
| Turks and Democracy Now! are probably the furthest left you
| can go.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > Does the US even have left-leaning news?
|
| Nothing mainstream. The right wing is fond of calling the
| other side communists, though in reality you could probably
| fit every actual communist American into a single stadium.
| America is a right-leaning country, there is no left to speak
| of.
|
| Though I suppose it might be fair to say that such constructs
| only really matter within a single political system, so
| "left" and "right" don't automatically have to be a
| particular definition.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| How can you defend MSNBC for being anything other than
| left-leaning?
|
| It's not always as _progressive_ as American progressives
| would like it to be, but not being progressive[?] not left
| leaning.
| carbadtraingood wrote:
| MSNBC fundamentally believes capitalism is good and
| right. They are absolutely left of the Republican party,
| but they are hardly left.
|
| This is unfortunately a consequence of the two party
| system in the States. We equate Democrats with Left and
| Republicans with Right. Anything supportive of Democrats
| gets labeled "left" even if the policies are really
| centrist, pro capital ones. Because we don't really have
| the language here to differentiate the Left and Democrats
| in mainstream American parlance.
| nsxwolf wrote:
| American leftists have always shared the same view as you.
| The left-leaning news networks are simply straight news,
| unbiased, doing it right... and everything their ideological
| opponents watch is far-right propaganda.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| Which is hilarious because that's how everyone feels about
| their particular taste (taste for bias) in their news.
| nsxwolf wrote:
| Self-identified conservatives understand that Fox News is
| intentionally aligned with their ideology.
| V__ wrote:
| This is not my view at all. News can be
| biased/sensationalized, even when it's neither left nor
| right. CNN and MSNBC are (as far as I can tell) the tv
| equivalent of clickbait. They are just (compared to the
| extremes of FOX) centrist about it. The only thing I would
| call straight news in the US would be PBS.
| carbadtraingood wrote:
| As a leftist who feels the Democratic party is a center-
| right party, networks like CNN and MSNBC come across as
| deeply biased but not particularly "left". Maybe Liberal,
| but certainly not "Left".
| OrangeMonkey wrote:
| Who defines what bias a news organization have, and what
| defines if that is a good call or a bad call?
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| Yes, I'm sorry if you don't agree but there's no reasonable
| way of characterizing MSNBC other than "left-leaning".
| carbadtraingood wrote:
| Capital L Liberal leaning, maybe. Deeply biased and
| sensationalist, absolutely. Not particularly leftist.
|
| A Left leaning news source would be much more interested in
| discussing the demands of workers, pushing for strong
| labor, nationalization of corporations, etc. When Slavoj
| Zizek becomes a newscaster somewhere, and the news is
| talking about how important it is to eliminate landlords
| then we can talk about left leaning news media.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| They are back to back sentences. Pretty bad attempt at
| obfuscating. The first sentence claims data "across" all
| channels, and the following sentence breaks it down.
| starkd wrote:
| But they included Foxnews in the first sentence where they
| claimed it was down "across the board".
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Is that not what across the board means? There are 3 news
| channels, all of them have to be added together for an
| across the board measurement.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| Not at all - in my opinion.
|
| "Across the board" means something closer "true in every
| case". Though as I type this, I realize some people my
| think of it as "in total."
| bee_rider wrote:
| Note that "across the board" does not actually appear in
| the article.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| You are right, that is what across the board means. I was
| mixing up what the person who replied to me wrote with
| what I wrote. Oops!
| carbadtraingood wrote:
| "Across the board" means "in every instance" not "in
| aggregate", at least in my experience.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Yes, that is correct. I was misremembering what I read.
| It was
|
| "across the three major cable news networks"
|
| Which I paraphrased as
|
| "Across all the channels"
|
| Which the person replying to me changed to
|
| "Across the board".
| bee_rider wrote:
| Note that "across the board" is not actually a quote here
| (despite being in quotes).
| spread_love wrote:
| No, they said it is down "on average." That is true, and
| immediately clarified in the following sentence.
| datalopers wrote:
| CNN and MSNBC quote viewership. Fox quotes ratings. Not the
| same thing.
| jquery wrote:
| Hmm, I just noticed that. Can you elucidate the difference?
| yablak wrote:
| I stopped reading the news starting this week, and created
| another Twitter handle for all politics and news related
| follows... And I don't read it. The news is all depressing. The
| options are either focus on daily life & donate to Dems/Ukraine
| or... go out marching with antifa? There's no middle ground I can
| see.
|
| I can't listen to this but will just leave it here:
|
| https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-it-could-happen-here-307...
| robryan wrote:
| It is pretty easy to keep on top of news, just occasionally
| browse the headlines and pickup more narrow interest stuff via
| social media.
|
| Most things are just part of the 24 hour news cycle and don't
| mean much of anything, certainly not worth sitting there with CNN
| or similar on to get fed to you at a very slow pace and full of
| ads.
| imgabe wrote:
| How many of the "news" articles are just worthless manipulative
| clickbait and people have figured that out?
|
| Check out r/saved your lick to see the nonsense headlines that
| often have nothing to do with the story, which is then spread out
| over 50 pages to show more ads.
| carbadtraingood wrote:
| I feel like "r/saved your lick" is more likely to be run by
| deer who have opinions on where to find the best salt licks...
| beckingz wrote:
| Nature is healing!
|
| And by that I mean everyone is just done with it all.
| gumby wrote:
| Those bars should have been left aligned. Right-aligning them
| made them hard to read, due to convention.
| godshatter wrote:
| > News Engagement crashing 50% on Social
|
| Thank the gods is all I can say. You could replace that headline
| with "News Enragement crashing 50% on Social" and still be close
| to the truth.
|
| Anything that shows that we might someday be able to communicate
| without toxicity is a positive sign.
| spicymaki wrote:
| I guess I am not the only one. I know it is ignorant and
| irresponsible, but I have to tend to my mental health. I can be
| of no help if I completely loose my mind. I now mostly get my
| news from word of mouth sources. Wikipedia front page has a
| decent low key summary of the news.
| notjustanymike wrote:
| We get the NYTimes weekend edition delivered, and that's been a
| really healthy way to consume news. I read it over the course
| of the week, often with a nice cup of coffee.
| Dave_Rosenthal wrote:
| If you think of world/local news simply as form of
| entertainment that you don't enjoy, you'll feel no moral pain
| from abstaining. I quit ~15 years ago and have no regrets.
|
| However, I do think it's important to build a larger mental
| model of the world than you get by just sitting in a room by
| yourself. But I'd argue that the news is a terrible (biased,
| emotional, and inefficient) way of building such a model. Far
| better, for example, to spend a bit of time each month looking
| into the large scale trends that are shaping your world,
| country, and town.
| georgebarnett wrote:
| Its certainly not ignorant or irresponsible and if you feel
| that way, I suggest its because that's the message the news
| dealers want you to feel.
|
| Dobelli sums it up best:
|
| https://www.gwern.net/docs/culture/2010-dobelli.pdf
| haolez wrote:
| I'm doing exactly the same.
| kodah wrote:
| > I know it is ignorant and irresponsible
|
| It's impressive that, as a society, we've conditioned people to
| this. I don't read the news, I don't participate in social
| media outside of forums and IRC, I don't donate, and I don't
| vote. All things are things I used to do with regular
| frequency. I was constantly stressed, tired, and depressed. It
| was difficult to relate to people who had experiences outside
| of what I was being fed on social media, it was hard to even
| say I was happy at times because _someone_ wanted to remind me
| that world was going to end.
|
| All along the way you get these happy coaches who will tell
| you, "It's a marathon not a race", "empathy exhaustion is a
| thing", etc while also feeding you a machine of reactions to
| make sure none of that was true. Even when you're disengaged on
| purpose, there's societal pressure to stay engaged, and the
| system knows how to wield that pressure with some level of
| plausible deniability. It's far easier to tell someone who is
| saying, "This is too much" that their choices put them at
| fault; after all, they didn't _have_ to read that next
| reactionary opinion.
|
| These are all experiences with my hypothetical in-group, not
| even the categorical "threat". Yet, I wasn't ignorant. In fact,
| I would read on events - just not as they're happening, and not
| at a news website. You'd be surprised at the number of people
| who focus on writing thoughtful post-hoc analysis on actual
| collected facts - Wikipedia is one such source, as you
| mentioned. As for irresponsible, your ultimate responsibility
| is to keep yourself healthy. If you are not here, you cannot
| affect the world in any positive way - regardless of your level
| of input or listening. Anyone that tells you to do something
| detrimental to yourself on purpose is not _actually_ looking
| out for your best interest.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I follow the news but don't get it from social media or read or
| engage in comment sections (except here).
| Zanneth wrote:
| Wikipedia's "Portal:Current events"[1] page is a relatively
| good source of news that is boring/balanced.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events
| icelancer wrote:
| > I know it is ignorant and irresponsible
|
| I am guessing you're just saying this so you don't get flamed
| by the concern trolls of the Internet who say you must be
| engaged, but in the case you actually feel this, it's not true
| at all. You don't owe your attention and reaction to the news
| to anyone.
|
| Do any good in life for others less fortunate or in need and
| know that's more than thousands of hours of watching CNN
| coverage of Ukraine-Russia conflict or Roe v. Wade being
| rehashed the 76th time.
| konschubert wrote:
| In a democracy, citizens have a moral obligation to be
| informed enough to make a qualified decision at the ballot
| box. There are also other ways than voting to influence
| political decision making in a democracy, which requires
| citizens to be informed and educated.
|
| This doesn't require checking the news daily, but maybe at
| least once a month?
| ajdegol wrote:
| Laudable, but being informed from any source is fraught.
| blix wrote:
| > In a democracy, citizens have a moral obligation to be
| informed enough to make a qualified decision at the ballot
| box.
|
| Even if you accept this is true, I have a hard time
| believing that 'following the news' actually achieves this
| in any substantial way. If anything, it may have the
| opposite effect, as ad-driven sensationalism selects for
| disjointed, short-term stories with large emotional impacts
| over those which enable readers to form far-seeing,
| rational, coherent world-views.
| icelancer wrote:
| It's also generally not how people vote anyway. People
| primarily vote based on their virtues, morals, and issues
| that they perceive to be important and correct. The news
| certainly has an impact, but not that much after they're
| adults.
|
| At some point watching the news is purely entertainment
| at best, and a way to feel better than others by being
| more informed at worst.
| epolanski wrote:
| > primarily vote based on their virtues, morals, and
| issues that they perceive to be important and correct.
|
| You wish.
|
| People have always voted with their guts and feelings,
| much less with their brain.
| enumjorge wrote:
| Imagine a scenario where one the local officials you
| voted for is caught misusing city funds. I'd imagine you
| want to know this come election time. How else does
| democracy work, if voters don't know what happened?
|
| I'm not saying that what currently passes for news is a
| good solution, but I feel like a lot of people sort of
| throw the baby with the bathwater and justify completely
| detaching themselves from what's happening because news
| are heavily flawed. They are, and I don't blame anyone
| person from taking a break, but it doesn't scale. If a
| large percentage of the population does it it causes
| problems.
| christophilus wrote:
| I can't think of anything useful I've ever learned from a
| major news outlet. I generally feel like they actively
| drain my IQ points.
|
| NPR or a good magazine, yes. The news described in this
| article? No.
| tomrod wrote:
| I mean, maybe? What about our gerrymandered system (edit:
| in the US) is democratic? Senators and governors? Most of
| those have a lock on their votes, both among expected and
| registered.
|
| I have voted every election that I can physically do so,
| but at some point you hit the margin described in the myth
| of the rational voter.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Following some news is important, but nationally things are
| so ridiculously polarized that a majority of the population
| could get by with just checking in once a month or so.
|
| Locally -- most people live in solid red or blue states, so
| if they want to go the extra mile, they could check if
| there's anyone worth voting for in their local red/blue
| party primaries.
| prettydeep wrote:
| The only moral obligation a citizen has in a free republic
| is to not violate the rights of fellow citizens. Beyond
| that, you should be free to live your life as you choose,
| including being apolitical and ignoring the news. It may
| not be the smartest position to take for maintaining your
| freedoms, but it is a morally valid one.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| Most of what's in the news isn't really news though. It's
| analyses of news, that turn out to very often just be
| speculation. Newsworthy events come around like, a couple
| of times a year. Most of the rest is just gossip.
|
| Last couple of years, I've seen talking heads projecting
| among other things:
|
| * Covid has a 10% mortality rate
|
| * Covid will blow over by march 2020
|
| * Covid is just a flu
|
| * Covid will blow over by summer 2020
|
| * Covid will blow over by fall 2020
|
| * Trump will join the QAnon protesters
|
| * Trump won the election by a landslide
|
| * Trump will refuse to step down and become a dictator
|
| * Covid will blow over by 2021 when the vaccinations get
| started
|
| * Covid will blow over by summer 2021
|
| * Covid will blow over by fall 2021
|
| * Covid will blow over by winter 2021
|
| * Putin is just saber rattling, he will not invade Ukraine
|
| * Ukraine will fold like a house of cards
|
| * The Russian convoy will be stuck in the mud forever and
| it's all Putin's got
|
| * Sanctions will defeat Putin any moment now
|
| * The Russians will turn on Putin
|
| * The Russian Oligarchs will turn on Putin
|
| * Putin will be defeated by April 2022
|
| * Putin will be defeated by Summer 2022
|
| If this is where you get your understanding of the world,
| I'm not even sure it's a net positive. You might just walk
| away with a less accurate understanding of things than if
| you simply weren't told about these things.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| There's many other ways to make an informed choice.
|
| Books, develop a moral compass, talk with experts or even
| trusted friends, observe what is happening in your area and
| act in good faith to become involved.
|
| IMO I'd trust the vote of someone who volunteers with the
| poor over someone who just watches $BIGNEWS each night
|
| Making a good choice is more than having data, it's about
| having wisdom of what even matters in life and which data
| even matters for moving towards that good life. The news
| cannot tell you what is Good.
| robryan wrote:
| Efficiency wise you could probably just put in a day or 2
| of catch up before going to vote. Would probably actually
| get a more impartial view on candidates not tainted by
| whatever the latest controversy is that will be forgotten
| in a week.
| icelancer wrote:
| > In a democracy, citizens have a moral obligation to be
| informed enough to make a qualified decision at the ballot
| box.
|
| Millions of people are ignoring that advice currently, and
| unlike action - say, giving to those in need or
| volunteering your help - a single vote doesn't spur any
| change; lost to the margins of error.
|
| I personally think many people hide behind voting as their
| civic duty as a way to get out of action and helping those
| in need, especially those who are local.
|
| Sure, voting is fine. I do it. It doesn't much matter given
| the city, county, and state I live in (Seattle, King
| County, Washington State) since you can guess how issues
| are quite easily litigated and voted upon, but I'll learn a
| little bit about the stuff on the ballot and cast my vote.
| I also don't really think it does much; I mostly do it to
| silence those who think not voting is some cardinal sin.
|
| Helping those in your neighborhood with food security,
| transportation, or access to information/services makes an
| impact that day for that person. They don't much care who
| you voted for. Little Free Pantries and Little Free
| Libraries are a great way to get started with hyperlocal
| giving, if anyone is looking for a way to help locally and
| disconnect nationally/globally from events that you have
| vanishingly little (I'm being generous) control over.
| flobosg wrote:
| > Wikipedia front page has a decent low key summary of the
| news.
|
| Then you might like Legible News (https://legiblenews.com/),
| which uses Wikipedia's Current Events portal.
| epolanski wrote:
| There's a high correlation between following news and feelings
| of anxiety and depression.
|
| At the beginning of 2022 I decided to quit reading news, I
| realized that it took between 3 and 7% of non-sleeping time and
| added nothing to my life.
|
| Spent two great months, then Russia invaded Ukraine and I went
| back to norm.
| shusaku wrote:
| I really like Tangle News. I get a 10 minute summary of
| political happenings in the US every day. Reading through that
| keeps me in the loop but doesn't try and pull you down the
| outrage rabbit hole.
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