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SoylentNews is people

posted by on Tuesday December 13 2016, @05:11PM   Printer-friendly
from the putting-ourselves-out-of-business dept.

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 news

If 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.


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday December 13 2016, @07:07PM

    by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Tuesday December 13 2016, @07:07PM (#440935) Journal

    This is a news-site. So, I must quit reading this site to feel better?

    There's a difference between "news" and "new information" in general.

    There are many things that typically part of MOST "news" that are problematic (e.g., sensationalism, "yellow journalism," dumbing down, oversimplification of positions, unnecessary polarization, repetition and focus on the same old stories -- sometimes which have no greater cultural relevance or meaning other than that the "news" keeps talking about them, etc.).

    The critique is NOT of learning new information. One sentence from the opening paragraphs from TFA makes this clear:

    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.

    That's why it's important to do things here like cite and link the original study or documents being discussed, rather than just a 3-paragraph media summary. The criticism is that most "news" and reporting is superficial and doesn't actually lead to being "better informed." Already, we're ahead of the game here if we have actual discussion on a story or topic (and not just trolling or flaming or "talking past each other").

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  • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday December 13 2016, @08:18PM

    by bob_super (1357) on Tuesday December 13 2016, @08:18PM (#440981)

    When I was growing up, in a place where TV's "news" were actually a continuous set of information, without the 15 commercial breaks that the US enjoys, it was known that the front page of the newspapers had more words than an hour of "news". They were also typically of higher quality, as the print journalist has to describe events, rather than loop a shiny explosion cloud.
    A typical TV news story is at most a few paragraphs long, and cannot accommodate detailed nuances and viewpoints, as it needs to include the man-on-the-street segment and a bit of redundant background for those people who have never heard of the West Anterior Spoingers of Ptolemnistan.
    Then it got worse.
    These days, US "news" is a mix of Reducto at Idiotum and tribal propaganda.

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Tuesday December 13 2016, @11:36PM

      by Thexalon (636) on Tuesday December 13 2016, @11:36PM (#441072)

      When I was growing up, in a place where TV's "news" were actually a continuous set of information

      I should point out that one reason that changed is that back in the day, news was considered a service done at a loss to fulfill FCC requirements for getting broadcast spectrum, whereas now it is considered a source of profit for dedicated channels dedicated towards satisfying the desires of some target audience. That shift brought with it a bunch of problems:
      1. Because news is now a revenue source, the news has to cater to advertisers just as much as, say, I Love Lucy had to.
      2. Also because news is now a revenue source, the goal is to gain as large an audience of the right target demographics. Lying, stirring up fake controversies, and sensationalism are all effective for doing that.
      3. News has gone from being 1 hour of broadcast a day to 24 hours of broadcast a day. If they were going to provide the same quality of coverage, the organizations in question would need to have a staff at least 24 times as large. They don't, because that would be expensive, and they're a profit-making business.
      4. Actual investigative journalism is expensive, difficult, and likely to offend advertisers. Even something relatively simple, like How much money does the Miss America Foundation really give out in scholarships? [youtube.com] takes hours of an educated person's time getting and reading through documents. So news organizations do what they can to stop reporters from doing said actual investigative journalism.
      5. What's cheap and easy, though, is inviting various talking heads on to shout at each other about some topic, without making any effort whatsoever to determine who was telling the truth. And, of course, it can generate those wonderful fake controversial moments, where "Pundit A DESTROYS Pundit B" which are always good for ratings. So news organizations like doing this.

      And that's all without even factoring the political axes to grind and undisclosed affiliations, which (as we learned thanks to Guciffer 2.0 and Wikileaks, among other sources) are extremely common.

      --
      The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
      • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday December 14 2016, @02:16PM

        by Phoenix666 (552) on Wednesday December 14 2016, @02:16PM (#441264) Journal

        I'd say that lays it bare, quite succinctly.

        The author in TFA did make a good point: Read a good book on a subject and you'll have a vastly better grasp of it than years of watching the news will ever give you. It makes sense on many levels, not least of which is the time investment. Think of all the hours of news watching you save by reading a book that goes into a subject in depth.

        --
        Washington DC delenda est.