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This story might be helpful to those tearing their hair out about the news lately:
I grew up believing that following the news makes you a better citizen. Eight years after having quit, that idea now seems ridiculous—that consuming a particularly unimaginative information product on a daily basis somehow makes you thoughtful and informed in a way that benefits society.
But I still encounter people who balk at the possibility of a smart, engaged adult quitting the daily news.
...
A few things you might notice, if you take a break:1) You feel better
A common symptom of quitting the news is an improvement in mood. News junkies will say it's because you've stuck your head in the sand.
But that assumes the news is the equivalent of having your head out in the fresh, clear air. They don't realize that what you can glean about the world from the news isn't even close to a representative sample of what is happening in the world.
...
2) You were never actually accomplishing anything by watching the newsIf you ask someone what they accomplish by watching the news, you'll hear vague notions like, "It's our civic duty to stay informed!" or "I need to know what's going on in the world," or "We can't just ignore these issues," none of which answer the question.
...
A month after you've quit the news, it's hard to name anything useful that's been lost. It becomes clear that those years of news-watching amounted to virtually nothing in terms of improvement to your quality of life, lasting knowledge, or your ability to help others. And that's to say nothing of the opportunity cost. Imagine if you spent that time learning a language, or reading books and essays about some of the issues they mention on the news.
Read on for the rest of the list.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by drussell on Tuesday December 13 2016, @05:51PM
This just especially shows the sorry state of the vast majority of the traditional "Main Stream Media" outlets....
If most people had access to quality news that didn't have the ridiculously heavy biases and "let's-just-spout-the-party-line-press-release" and actually DID get the REAL news about what is happening in the world around them, they WOULD be better for it...
Alas, this is not what most people get from most of their "news" outlets...
... and I lament that fact, for the good of society in general! :(
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @05:57PM
This is why I only read BBC news. CNN and the rest of them are only interested in yellow journalism and marketing.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Tuesday December 13 2016, @06:15PM
BBC DW and RT is adequate. Day to day nothing much happens so its not that hard to skim the big three. Today for example, Aleppo is a rotting oozing sore on the planet, that's about all that qualifies as news. Its hard to even say that is news, unfortunately.
Never trust a countries propaganda piece to report accurately on itself or a spat with another country. So don't waste time on RT or DW if the Russians and the Germans are arguing about natgas trade deals again, but the BBC optimistically will be pretty good. BBC usually has a good rep but they had terrible agit-prop about brexit, scotland independence, anything on the topic of the UK itself is very questionable WRT BBC. Both RT and DW like to shit on Poland, which I guess isn't all that historically surprising, but the Beeb to the rescue...
Also pay attention to the infotainment fluff or filler... RT is balanced and somewhat fair, DW is left leaning but occasionally balanced, BBC is as progressive and leftie as the DNC puppets in the USA like the NYT, the leftward bias is extremely strong with the BBC with respect to the infotainment fluff. Some of the attitude WRT fake news fluff bleeds over into the real news, turning it fake. The BBC is far more likely to publish fake news than RT or DW, for example.
Also it pays to kind of keep a record... has, say, the WashPost ever predicted anything correctly about, say, Trump? Oh, no, you say? They're always consistently wrong? Well you can extract "news" from them by simply reading everything backwards. So if the WashPo goes insane agitprop slant about Trump appointing a Homer Simpson-esque character to the nuclear division of the DOE then you can rest assured he did a great job and everything gonna be OK.
(Score: 2) by el_oscuro on Tuesday December 13 2016, @11:02PM
It used to be that you could read both the Washington Times and the Washington Post and by combining them get something like news. But both have gone so batshit crazy lately that there isn't any point.
I mostly read their sports pages.
SoylentNews is Bacon! [nueskes.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 14 2016, @11:50PM
I'd like to say that, if you read BBC articles where they've allowed comments, just skip those comments. It's 99% pure drivel. You wouldn't believe how bad it is. Comments on the Guardian are usually good, though. Varied, opinionated, informative even sometimes.
(Score: 2) by archfeld on Tuesday December 13 2016, @06:37PM
Oddly enough I watch/read BBC and Aljazeera and get a pretty clear picture of what is going on. The general opiniotainment crap spewing from the networks is not worth the time it wastes.
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
(Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 13 2016, @06:46PM
How? No, seriously, how?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @07:32PM
They might be able to see through the BS spewed by commentators on both sides?
I honestly can't believe there are people pushing for ignorance here on soylent. Ignorance is never the right answer.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 13 2016, @08:07PM
I'm not pushing for anything but it's a legitimate question TFA raised and I'd like an answer from all the pro-informed folks. I mean is the claim that they can do something about the horrible shit they're being fed every day? Is some public service accomplished by them being pissed off all the time? Seriously, what's the up side?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @08:26PM
The general sense was so you could get a lay of the land (whether cultural or political) and whether you should bring an umbrella tomorrow.
If no one was paying attention then things like TPP, CISPA, etc. would have passed with little problem. The most egregious of lies (lead up to the Iraq War) wouldn't have been questioned.
News still holds the same function back in the day: to hold power accountable. It's a bit distorted at the moment, and for the most part I agree with you, but somebody has to be minding the fire.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 13 2016, @08:49PM
Fair argument. Tragedy of the commons in reverse then. If everyone abstains we're in trouble but it's in everyone's best interest individually to abstain.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Tuesday December 13 2016, @09:29PM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Tuesday December 13 2016, @11:49PM
Which is of course the American solution. Too bad we let the Progressives rise to power and "fundamentally transform" us.
Let us look at how a Republic solves these problems. If most decisions that impact your life are made at the town council / borough level then it becomes possible for a good fraction of the "responsible citizen" types to kinda know what is going on, attend a few of the meetings, follow events in the local paper (now websites / blogs) and be informed enough to do the only thing they need to do. Pick a candidate from the options offered in their Party Primary, for the mostly part time job of making the laws for their community.
Now that more decisions are local, the State Legislature is doing a small enough task list, that those same "responsible citizen" types and the local elected official (acting as taste makers / tribal elders) would probably be able to pick a Representative close to their views. This Representative can be paid enough to allow them the time to devote to understanding the more complex issues that need addressing from a Statewide level. The would have to go home and be prepared to explain why of course.
Same for electing a Representative to Congress. If the National government were returned to the original duties the members of Congress would have the time to fully understand the few issues that require a National solution. And with the Senate restored to a body representing the States, they would be mostly elder statesmen selected directly from the State Legislatures and thus actually know what is going on.
That design allows a People who don't have time to be a domain expert in a hundred different fields to still crowdsource up fairly effective government. The more we have drifted to universal franchise direct democracy the worse the results have been.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Tuesday December 13 2016, @09:20PM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Tuesday December 13 2016, @09:19PM
I honestly can't believe there are people pushing for ignorance here on soylent. Ignorance is never the right answer.
Specialization has value, though, and it also has a cost. A lot of what is considered to be "news" is only important to some people. Spending time learning information that is of no value to you has a huge opportunity cost; you could have been spending that time learning other information that is valuable to you.
I doubt very many people on soylentnews are in favor of ignorance; they are just in favor of better spending your time. (Which in the end is going to have a subjective component.)
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @07:13PM
The public couldn't handle real, unbiased news. It would be too boring, and thus unprofitable in an ad-driven media economy.
Imagine if the local news in major cities ran identical segments (or even just slides) for every homicide with a picture of the victim and the murderer. You'd see a constant string of black, male victims and black, male murderers. It would get boring, and people would stop watching.
Instead, the news focuses only on a few, rare instances of cops or white men killing blacks. This is much more rare and much less boring, as evidenced by the evening excitement that it stirs in poor neighborhoods burning across the country. The media augments this excitement by perpetuating disproven "fake news" like the "hands up" slogan.
Excitement, with the fear and anxiety the accompany it, brings in advertising revenue. Boredom drives people away from the advertising.