News consumption is down. The reasons appear to be multiple from that the readers don't trust the sources anymore, disinformation, journalistic agendas, AI (fake-) news or that news in general are just downers and sad to read.
This year's report reveals new findings about the consumption of online news globally. It is based on a YouGov survey of more than 95,000 people in 47 countries representing half of the world's population.
The report looks at the growing importance of platforms in news consumption and production, including more visual and video-led social media such as TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. It explores audience attitudes towards the use of AI in news, the role of creators and news influencers, how much people pay for news and more.
[...] There is no single cause for this crisis; it has been building for some time, but many of the immediate challenges are compounded by the power and changing strategies of rival big tech companies, including social media, search engines, and video platforms.
https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-report/2024/dnr-executive-summary
https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-report/2024
(report available as pdf or read to you or in various summaries)
I guess I have entered the porch phase of my news consumption. I don't care for video news, or having someone read the news to me. I much prefer to just read it.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by drussell on Tuesday June 18 2024, @06:55PM (7 children)
Perhaps if the "people on the news" returned to doing proper journalism, doing real investigations, asking the tough questions, holding those in power to account and truly explain themselves, people would once again look to them as a source of news.
The vast majority of the "talking heads" are simply parroting some narrative, usually a corporate, status-quo-based agenda instead of DOING ACTUAL JOURNALISM!!
The worst offenders are intentionally misleading their audience doing the shtick with the likes of a Tucker Carlson "just asking questions" instead of doing their job of actually answering questions by providing actual facts and informing their viewers instead of stirring up nonsense, which leads to complete mistrust when you're obviously pushing your narrative of complete and utter bullshit.
This regurgitation of bullshit is extremely dangerous. People have all seemingly forgotten that one of the most important foundations of democracy is maintaining a functional, truly free press, with real journalism!!!
Very little of this necessary, actual journalism based on demonstrable facts currently exists, and it is downright scary!!
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Snotnose on Tuesday June 18 2024, @07:53PM (4 children)
The problem is the people able to do that sort of thing aren't pretty, and those deemed pretty enough to be on TV aren't able to do that sort of thing.
I watch a lot less news than I used to, mostly because the bias is too obvious. They love abortion, hate guns, love gay/trans/whatever, hate Trump, look down on Christians, etc etc etc. Note I made no indications of which of those I agree with or, disagree with, because it doesn't matter. The news should be informed and unbiased. If you want to wear your bias on your sleeve then go to Meet the Press, The Daily Show, or any talk show. And stay off my news.
Mistrust is also a big issue. It amazes me when they do a story on something I'm very familiar with, and they bork the basics. Consistently. Makes me wonder how reliable they are on stuff I don't know well. Sometimes it's because they aren't capable of understanding the basics (see my point above), others it's because of their bias.
The fix starts with, IMHO, breaking up the big media conglomerates. One person/company can own 1 TV station, 1 radio station, and 1 newspaper, pick any 2, in any metro area. Nuke Sinclair, Live Nation, Clearchannel, and all their ilk from orbit.
Of course I'm against DEI. Donald, Eric, and Ivanka.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 18 2024, @08:28PM
Didn't you though? I'd reread what you wrote and reassess that very particular statement.
Besides, it's fine for you to (dis)agree with any (combination) of those. Just be mindful that if you make a bed...
https://xkcd.com/1357/ [xkcd.com]
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 18 2024, @08:43PM
Yep, consolidation has happened in the big media companies, see for example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_conglomerate [wikipedia.org]
From the beginning of a long article,
(Score: 4, Insightful) by owl on Tuesday June 18 2024, @09:07PM
You've just recognized what has come to be known as Gell-Mann Amnesia [epsilontheory.com].
They (the news) are just as wrong "on stuff [you] don't know well" as they are on the items "[you are] very familiar with".
But, you don't recognize the wrongness for the things you don't know well, because you don't know those things well enough to recognize their wrongness.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by gtomorrow on Wednesday June 19 2024, @04:37PM
The fix starts with reinstating the Fairness Doctrine [wikipedia.org]...and of course, saner politicians than these [archive.is] examples [jezebel.com].
(Score: 3, Interesting) by aafcac on Tuesday June 18 2024, @08:00PM (1 child)
My first thought was that the supply of news was down. This was pretty much inevitable when the rules were changed back in the '80s to allow corporations to own more outlets across the country and in the same markets. To make matters worse, the standards were changed as well to allow for sides with no leg to stand on to be treated as if their views had equal validity to those with a bunch of actual credible support from the facts.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by owl on Tuesday June 18 2024, @09:13PM
That is not likely the cause. At least part of the cause is the fact that the web allowed the 'news' to measure engagement with a story to a level unheard of when "the news" was printed news papers and broadcast TV and radio. And what they discovered is that clickbait sells, very well, and proper journalism, not so well, and so, over time, in the chase for ever more ad revenue (which is metered out based on engagement) their stories shifted from proper journalism to emotional manipulation (i.e., clickbait) to increase the revenue stream year on year.
Of course, once they were too far gone down this rabbit hole, they realized that this engagement based ad revenue source paid pennies on the dollar vs the old faux measurements of the "broadcast" versions, and so, suffering from lower real revenue they then started seeking out ever more engagement. Leading us to where we are now where some stories on supposed real news sites look a lot like a front page story from "The National Enquirer" in the early 80's.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by canopic jug on Tuesday June 18 2024, @06:55PM (3 children)
I'd say there are at least two major factors behind the latest downturn.
Of course it's down, because there is little to no news collected and published nowadays compared to say 20 years ago. Those newspapers and magazines which are left are mostly the victims of consolidation and have been gutted to provide for temporarily improved quarterly (long term for an MBA) profits. They end up not collecting news from the local communitu but instead disseminating national, corporate material into a hyper local market.
Also, in recent months, too many titles have been serving slop [simonwillison.net] instead of news. If you're in a hurry it can be hard to tell from the headline or even the summary but it becomes clear a bit into such an article. Once you have clicked on one or two instances of slop [nytimes.com], you become reluctant to get burned again and begin to mistrust all news or news-like sites.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by HiThere on Tuesday June 18 2024, @07:24PM (2 children)
"Slop" is a reasonable name for "AI" generated news, but you should describe it rather than just linking. Links have a tendency to break after aging.
FWIW, I'm not sure whether it intended as an acronym or not, and if so, for what.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Ox0000 on Tuesday June 18 2024, @08:10PM (1 child)
It's not intended as an acronym. It comes from "pig slop": something barely resembling a worthwhile thing that's being shoveled into the trough so that the gullible and hungry animals, conditioned to wanting the slop, can gobble it down without thinking or even breathing. And short while later, they want to be 'fed' again because there's no substance to the slop, at which point you shovel some more of that dreg into their troughs for them to gobble up.
This AI generated content tracks that description to the dot, with one difference though: pig slop is more nutritious than this AI slop.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by hendrikboom on Wednesday June 19 2024, @02:35PM
Very similar to the highly-processed "foods" sold in supermarkets.
I've seen entire cans of chicken soup with almost no protein.
One of my children was a vegetarian. When he saw chicken soup on a restaurant menu, he asked the waiter to check whether it was really made from chickens or was completely artificial. The waiter checked with the cook. It was completely artificial.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by GlennC on Tuesday June 18 2024, @07:32PM (5 children)
I stopped watching any televised news in 2016. I only occasionally look at BBC News or Reuters' home pages and get weather reports and forecast directly from the National Weather Service.
I see no reason to look any further, especially since I realized that there's really nothing that I can do with the information that I was being given.
Sorry folks...the world is bigger and more varied than you want it to be. Deal with it.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Tuesday June 18 2024, @10:00PM (1 child)
I stopped watching television quite some time ago. I watch it on occasion if I'm stuck in a hotel room or something. It just doesn't offer anything worthwhile anymore. The 24-7-365 news cycle is pointless. They are just repeating things. That said I guess one isn't really supposed to watch it around the clock but still. There isn't enough interesting news to go around. So the novelty of the 24-7 news channels died a long time ago.
I sort of miss good radio, I have gone back to reading the local paper instead. I don't care that it's a day old news in some regard. It's good enough. I can read it on the bus, train or if I just sit on a bench out in the sun. Then the national papers at work, I don't subscribe to them. I check the websites or have them in a tab. If something big happens. Most of the time nothing interesting happens or as you put it -- what am I going to do with this information? It doesn't concern me, I can't do anything with it or it's happening on the other side of the earth in a country I don't really care much about. I sort of keep up to date on the big things and headlines and such but not in detail. They rarely offer any beyond guesswork or speculations and as noted what am I going to do with it. This isn't just things from abroad. It could be local or at least national news to.
In some regard I think that most of the journalists and media outlets brought the news apathy on themselves. They have nobody to blame but themselves. They chose to sell agendas and opinions instead of reporting the news. Ruining decades worth of trust and reputation to gets clicks and likes. Zero sympathy for them in their plight and decline.
For fun and science I went to the largest national newspaper and checked the daily feed. What stories did they push today. Don't really care about any of it. I clicked on the story about the Train and the Bear. The rest of them? Not interested.
(Score: 1) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday June 19 2024, @01:28AM
How has that changed from 200 or 300 years ago? Editors pushed ideas they liked, back then, too. The reason the freedom of the press is enshrined in the US constitution, is because newspapers were instrumental in fanning the flames of revolution. Without newspapers and their warmongering editors, the colonists would have mumbled and groaned about the taxes on tea - then gone about their business. Editors took that grumbling, and turned it into a revolution.
Ever since the revolution, newspapers have backed one political party, or another. They do not, will not, never have, just reported the news.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Wednesday June 19 2024, @02:39PM (1 child)
I listen to news on the CBC radio broadcasts (which are also available online worldwide, except where the internet is censored).
I read news from the online edition of the Globe and Mail, a newspaper that still tries to present actual news.
Back when I still had a cable subscription I would also watch PBS news and sometimes BBC news.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Wednesday June 19 2024, @02:42PM
I pay for the Globe and Mail.
The radio is free/gratis, and free of commercials, being tax-supported.
One of the political parties in Canada wants to defund the CBC, ironically the party that once, decades ago, created it. I suspect because the CBC tries to be fact-based, but that party no longer is.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 20 2024, @08:13PM
BBC is disgusting anti-White, and therefore anti-British, scum. It's amazing to me that in a nation so small there are no men left to drive 30 minutes away and put these Shabbos Goy traitors and invasive subversives where they belong.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 18 2024, @07:42PM (4 children)
say what you want, but im pretty sure that switching to a boring president had a lot to do with that.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday June 19 2024, @01:37AM (3 children)
If Biden wants excitement, he'd go with "My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We began bombing five minutes ago."
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 19 2024, @11:01AM (2 children)
Or he could sleep with a pornstar, then steal campaign funds to pay her off. This sort of behaviour seems to win votes in the US...
(Score: 1, Troll) by ElizabethGreene on Wednesday June 19 2024, @02:01PM
Mr. Clinton had two terms and a thriving influence after he left office, so I grant your point does appear to indicate a pattern.
(Score: 5, Informative) by drussell on Wednesday June 19 2024, @02:33PM
Trump didn't "steal campaign funds to pay her off," he used his own money to re-pay Michael Cohen for the original payment. None of that is illegal.
Cheating on your wife by sleeping with a porn star is not illegal.
Paying said porn star to keep quiet about it is also not illegal.
You apparently fundamentally misunderstand what the crime is. 🙄
Trying to disguise the payment as completely fictitious business expenses and the related shenanigans are crimes, especially when the methods used were designed specifically to influence the outcome of the 2016 election.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Tuesday June 18 2024, @11:07PM (13 children)
Here's what I learned a long time ago: the world as a whole is actually a happy place.
The vast majority of people go about their daily lives in their peaceful community and live good things every day. You know, small things like a compliment from their supervisor at work, a good harvest, a nice evening out with their girlfriend... Things of that nature.
The world is overwhelming filled with good news. But a small minority of people live through war, hardship and overall terribleness. And a vanishingly small number of people - some of the world's power that be, military honchos and such - create that terribleness.
That's what makes the news. The news is a distillate of the worst possible things that happen in an world that's mostly positive on average. Generally speaking, there is no "journal of good news": there's no news outlet dedicated to reporting people's wins and joys - unless it's something extraordinary like someone winning a huge pile of cash at the lottery, and even that usually ends up badly, which is probably why news outlets pick it up.
Just remember that when you read the news, you don't read about the world in the news: you read about the absolute worst of the world. Use the information for your enlightenment but don't let it get you down.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by mhajicek on Wednesday June 19 2024, @03:06AM (7 children)
The world is a happy place if you're out of visual and audio range of the evil and suffering. Look under the rug and it isn't so clean and shiny.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 3, Informative) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Wednesday June 19 2024, @03:45AM (1 child)
Your comment illustrates my point exactly: you totally misread my post because you're biased by how the media understands events worthy of note.
You're saying the world looks happy if you make yourself unaware of the existence of evil. I'm saying it looks happy when you're aware of the existence of both evil and good.
My point is, evil, while absolutely terrible for those who live it, is not what goes on the most in the world as a whole. But good is massively unreported because learning that people had a good day doesn't make money.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by mhajicek on Wednesday June 19 2024, @06:58AM
Whether or not you can be happy while others are subject to torture and oppression depends on your personal values.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by deimios on Wednesday June 19 2024, @03:48AM (1 child)
If the world was even half as bad as the news paints it, civilization would cease to exists. Remember that the news only portrays the ends of the bell curve, per definition the extremes that are low in number.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Wednesday June 19 2024, @03:48PM
Oh, I don't know. Give it time... ;)
Welcome to Edgeways. Words should apply in advance as spaces are highly limite—
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 19 2024, @08:57AM (2 children)
Yeah, the OP probably never even looked closely at the farms where most people get food from.
There are billions in the world who are suffering, and I'm one of the culprits partly responsible.
But hey, "the world as a whole is actually a happy place, because I got a compliment from my supervisor".
🤣
On the bright side, it's great that life is unfair and a lot of the bad stuff isn't happening to me (yet).
See also:
~ Marcus Cole, Babylon 5
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ElizabethGreene on Wednesday June 19 2024, @03:24PM (1 child)
I'm not a pollyanna, but I do see the grandparent's point. Clicks and eyeballs are the currency of modern journalism. Fear and anger drive clicks and eyeballs. This creates a perverse incentive for journalists to drive fear and anger. It's tiring to hear the constant proclamations of doom and gloom after a while, so self-preservation drives you to tune it out.
Case in point, right now Cnn is squawking endlessly about the extreme heat wave across the US, and I have the utmost sympathy for the people in Manchester, NH that are suffering a shocking 97F degree high today. That's hot. I know, it was 98F and 70+% humidity when I mowed the grass on Saturday.
There is a finite human capacity for catastrophe. Once you hit that limit it's just normal.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Wednesday June 19 2024, @06:04PM
The news doesn't talk about the worst things that happen.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Wednesday June 19 2024, @03:56AM (1 child)
Generally speaking it's rare, but goodnewsnetwork.org is out there.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Thexalon on Wednesday June 19 2024, @10:42AM
Although an awful lot of the "good news" out there is actually incredibly depressing if you think about the systemic failures that led to the situation in the first place. "First graders raise money to pay for their teacher's surgery" sounds like a feel-good story, until you realize that what it's actually saying is that a bunch of 6-year-olds, with help from their parents, had to take responsibility for an adult's survival because that adult's employer, system of government, insurance company, and hospital network all refused to do so and got away with that.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 4, Touché) by Thexalon on Wednesday June 19 2024, @10:37AM
While that is (somewhat) true, it also is a lot easier to remain blissfully ignorant when it's not your own butt or your family and friends being targeted by the minority of people trying to make it awful for everyone else.
For example, I have friends who have had to move their homes because the combination of their state's laws and the fact that the police do not protect them from hate crimes makes it physically dangerous for them to stay where they were. I know someone who has been beaten in the street for not sharing the majority religion. I know a guy who was arrested for being the victim of an assault with a deadly weapon, because he fit the stereotype of "violent brute" (he was denied medical treatment while awaiting a hearing, and while his case was dismissed the person who assaulted him faced no consequences at all).
So, for example, do I pay close attention to whether, say, the people who want to use the power of government force to make the United States into a "Christian Nation" have the power to do so as well as the inclination? Absolutely, because while I'm not at the top of the list of the people they would be targeting with those policies, I'm definitely on it, and would have to think about things like seeking asylum in another country.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hendrikboom on Wednesday June 19 2024, @03:17PM
To promote good, you need to be aware of evil.
To fight evil, you need to be aware of good.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Thursday June 20 2024, @03:53PM
Happiness is difficult to quantify. Undoubtedly you do not have to look far away to find great suffering and hardship as well as moments of joy.
But I have always said when they compile the evening news they must say something like "OK, what have we got today in murders and violent crime? Right, we'll have that one, that one and that one!"
Welcome to Edgeways. Words should apply in advance as spaces are highly limite—
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Wednesday June 19 2024, @03:58AM
I believe my critical thinking works better with print than with video. Plus I can read faster that most people can talk.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by pTamok on Wednesday June 19 2024, @06:26AM
I find it difficult to take a news medium seriously when (the equivalent of) a front page headline is about the minutiae of a so-called celebrity's life. I include 'news' about a monarch or their family in that too. Many outlets have simply become branches of the entertainmet industry. As other people point out, it is good for engagement: but I regard good journalism as being more than performative entertainment.
The huge problem is paying for good journalism. People don't want to: preferring the swift hit of 'news as performative entertainment', especially when it is 'free' (paid for by advertising).
And there's a thing: news has always been, if nothing else, quite heavily subsidised by advertising. The front page of 'The Times of London' (as non-British people put it) used to be the classified advertisments.
Historic Newspapers: Why old copies of The Times front pages have no news. [historic-newspapers.co.uk]
I'm certainly willing to pay a small amount each day towards good journalism (one of the foundations of democracy), but how to funnel it to consistently good journalists is a conundrum, as is ensuring such people can do their job without fear of consequences from criminals and 'the authorities'.
There is an old idea, often attributed to Oliver Wendell-Holmes Jr that: "Taxes are the price of civilisation [quoteinvestigator.com]". Given the importance of the fourth estate in exposing the conduct of business, both public and private, for inspection by the populace, I would suggest it is important to keep good journalism funded. We need such independent oversight.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 19 2024, @08:45AM
OK but seriously, who could have predicted that firing all the journalists, hosting rubbish websites littered with irrelevant advertising and malware such as tracking cookies and putting what little real content that is still being produced behind paywalls would result in a decrease of consumption? We're talking about a venerable institution here! They are the only thing that stands between the people and despotic governments, surely they can do whatever they want and we should still support them?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ledow on Wednesday June 19 2024, @09:12AM (7 children)
I'd be interested in news, if it was handled like news.
I have no interest in news that's literally all strongly biased to a political party. No interest in news that's sensationalist. Irrelevant. I'm not interested in news that's poorly researched or written, or assumes that it can "persuade" me that what I know isn't true or just skip over things. News that doesn't ask the question I'm most interested in (hey, UK political parties, what are you doing about Brexit?). I don't care about news that's not news - celebrity, sports, etc. I'm not interested in news that can't criticise itself and its past (FULL 7-PAGE ARTICLE ON CELEBRITY SCANDAL, two lines of apology on the back page when it turns out it was all a lie).
I'm not interested in 24 hour rolling news, in the same "news" five times in the same day, news that requires me to part with money specifically to read / watch it. I'm not interested in news from politicians themselves ("GB News"). I'm not interested in news that's not brave enough to actually break stories (who is that young woman that absolutely nobody knows, who was given a life peerage, aged 23, into the UK House of Lords by the former PM?)
Journalists have completely forgotten: "One side says it's raining and the other side says it is not raining. Our job is to look out the window."
I stopped consuming newspapers and TV news decades ago. I now "keep abreast" but mostly ignore 99% of the stories that are present on the news sites as they fall into one of the above categories. The interesting stories I wander off and research myself because apparently NOBODY ELSE is doing that on those sites.
News is just ratings-chasing nowadays, and I have no interest in it, and don't understand how anyone does. My parents are still a newspaper generation but they don't read 50% of the newspaper at all. They buy it "for the crosswords". Buy a damn puzzle book and stop rewarding the media with money for their dross.
When you water down the news so badly, and then pollute it with dross and bias, it's not news any more. It's not even entertainment.
I stopped watching the news, and watching adverts, decades ago. I can't imagine that the younger generation understand it at all.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by pTamok on Wednesday June 19 2024, @10:04AM
Maybe we can have a poll here: what sources do you use for news? Much like the question posed to potential jury members in Trumps recent trial in New York. One of the eventual jury members claimed to get all their news from TokTok.
I get my general news from -
Deutsche Welle (in English) [dw.com] RSS feeds available here: https://corporate.dw.com/en/rss/s-31500 [dw.com] - difficult to track down.
EL PAÍS in English [elpais.com]. RSS feed here: https://feeds.elpais.com/mrss-s/pages/ep/site/english.elpais.com/portada
The BBC online 'World' news [bbc.com]. I think the BBC has worsened over time. RSS feeds listed here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10628494 [bbc.co.uk]
There's a few non-English language websites, which I won't list as they are likely not useful to the readership here, plus some more specific sites, like this one.
I don't watch video news, including broadcast television, streaming, Internet video sites. I will occasionally run a video in an article from one of the above sites, if I think it will be pertinent and worthwhile.
I used to listen to BBC Radio news at breakfast, until they moved to a new streaming protocol incompatible with my 'Internet Radio'. It pretty much coincided with me thinking that the quality of the presentation and content had taken a significant drop. If I had thought it was worth it, I would have made a greater effort to find a new, compatible, 'Internet radio'.
(Score: 3, Informative) by janrinok on Wednesday June 19 2024, @03:03PM (5 children)
While not wishing to turn this discussion into a political debate:
The UK actually had quite a good deal with the EU before Brexit, but if we try to rejoin we might never have such a good deal again. So, despite all the bad things about Brexit, it is almost impossible politically to paint rejoining the EU as a good thing for the UK at the moment. It will cost more, we will have less influence than we had previously, and they might demand that the UK now adopt the Euro. Just because we negotiated opt-outs the last time doesn't mean that they will be granted if the UK applies to rejoin.
Originally, the UK joined the 'Common Market' which was seen to be a good thing. Not everyone liked the way it was changed in to a "European Union" which could enforce its own laws and financial policy on member states and the implications that had for the UK.
The UK still does not want to be told how many immigrants it has to accept, or which terrorist it cannot expel because of EU rules, or which countries that cannot even balance their own books must now be supported by the UK tax payer, or what shape a banana must be, and other similar issues.
Various political parties say such things as rejoining "is a long-term goal" and "no intention of rejoining in the near future".
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hendrikboom on Wednesday June 19 2024, @03:24PM (1 child)
A way of straddling the fence without having to do anything.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Wednesday June 19 2024, @06:37PM
Yep - you saw through their cunning plan...
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 2) by ledow on Thursday June 20 2024, @08:09AM (2 children)
"The UK still does not want to be told how many immigrants it has to accept"
Strange, then, that (illegal, I presume you mean) immigration has absolutely exploded since Brexit in an unprecedented manner because we have absolutely no control over anything but our own side and curbing it requires international co-operation in some form, which we simply don't have. Also, it appears our "control" over our own side is so terrible that it's effectively worthless. How do we explain that "leaving" that kind of EU control resulted in orders-of-magnitude worse illegal immigration without using words like "UK incompetence"? Did we Brexit "wrong" again, as is the usual excuse?
Also... the EU didn't just happen. We actively participated in changing it and signed up to it.
The EU also doesn't dictate "what terrorists can be expelled", that would be an issue for the ECHR at best, a completely separate and unrelated organisation that... we're still part of!
Also, you know the banana thing is basically completely made-up over-hype, not obligatory, and merely a trade categorisation ("this one is more bendy than this one"), right? It's like saying this is olive oil, this is virgin olive oil, and this is extra virgin olive oil. Ohmygosh, these impossible EU-wide standards being enforced on us!!!!!
If anyone shouldn't be getting their information from the news, it sounds like it's probably you.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Thursday June 20 2024, @09:00AM (1 child)
Don't get excited.
I am not supporting Brexit - in fact I live in France. I have permanent French residency. The UK has completely messed up what it originally claimed it would do regarding trade agreements etc. We are still chuckling about it.
The huge influx of immigrants has increased all over Europe because of EU rules. The ones arriving in the UK are leaving Europe, not paddling all the way to Dover from N Africa and the Middle East.
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 2) by quietus on Friday June 21 2024, @04:51PM
Only a small fraction -- a bit over 30,000 people -- arrived by small boat into the UK last year. The large majority of immigrants into the UK in all likelihood [www.gov.uk] do not swim over though.
Last year alone, 315,018 people were granted a working visa, and 290,246 people were granted a stay visa because they were dependent on people working in the UK.
And that's not even counting the number of foreign students or people falling under the EU Settlement Scheme (I guess most of the last group are expats who have been living in the UK for many years already).
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday June 19 2024, @10:22AM
Network news has been in a long decline since their peak years. Flog the drama too hard. Been showing for some time that they believe their audience are the oldest generations, what with all these commercials for heart and digestion meds in the breaks. I have no reason to think they're wrong about that, but I sure found it offputting. The formula is very tired. Jon Stewart showed the world a new formula, a way that seemed less serious, yet was often better at getting the facts correct and being more relevant.
As for print, the whole industry has done poorly at adapting to the new reality of the Internet. When many tweaked their subscription models to force auto-renewal, along with trying to give us bull that it was for us, for our own convenience, I dumped them all. I have better things to do than track a bunch of subscriptions. I also saw one of the most craven panderings to what the newspaper editors clearly thought their remaining customers wanted to hear, when they endorsed Huckabee over McCain for the Republican nomination for president. Other rags made similar adjustments to appeal more to the far right. Most of all, I see no reason to pay extra for an obsolete medium just because they want to cling to it. Distributing printed copies was obviously way more expensive than running a website, but they were refusing to pass some of that savings along.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday June 19 2024, @01:26PM
disintermediation is the word. Nobody needs middlemen to propagandize at them and shove advertising at them, if they can just open a browser.
Narrowcasting is another problem; if viewership falls, hyperfocus on satisfying the superfans. The problem is superfans tend to be weirdos the general public cannot relate to, resulting in lower viewership, demands they're not narrowcasting hard enough. "We repelled all the normies I don't understand why our profits are so low". This applies not just to political news but capeshit, arts, music, everything. True, the individual profit margin off fanatics can be high, but the total revenue is usually very low.
The demand for attention is ... excessive. If watching one hour makes $X then desperate attempts to get them to watch for two hours makes them 2 times $X so the pressure on the middlemen is intense and the intensity warps their personality and interests. This leads to interesting tribalism effects; I'm happy and fun at parties I'm not the type who watches propaganda or capeshit or other pop culture stuff. The pushers make money pushing at the addicts. So they end up producing content for an ever-shrinking tribe of mentally ill hyper-addicts.
Finally, there's competence. Nobody goes into the propaganda middleman field unless they don't mind being poor and underemployed or have wildly inflated opinions of their chances at making it to the top of the pyramid (probably easier to get on a NFL team than become a "famous news personality"). If the middlemen provided value along with their propaganda they MIGHT be worth it anyway. But their industry self-selects for incompetence. Dire warnings are provided that the populace is too stupid to think for themselves and they "need" propaganda to tell them what to think; however once its well known that the propaganda pushers are, on average, dumber than the population, nobody needs them. If a journalist were skilled enough to add value to a report of a school board meeting, they would be too skilled to working journalism, and as they're incompetent, the people who form their own opinions by watching public access TV on Youtube of the school board meetings will form better opinions than the available stock of journalists can provide. I will admit its a mixture of competence and time pressure. Must fill dead air on the channel with something all the time.
Overall the propaganda industries are like if band-aid and bactine (tm) manufacturers inevitably ended up pushing heroin because they gotta chase that profit margin, then wondering why everyone hates them and their addicts.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Wednesday June 19 2024, @03:31PM
The political news is so deeply depressing and the reporting on it is always so absurdly biased that I try to limit how much I read the stories now. I only look to keep informed about changes to legislation that may affect my life. 19 times out of 20 if they do affect me they are taking rights away or making things more expensive for me or lower quality. I will also occasionally look at which politicians are supporting or opposing these policies so I have some clue who to vote for.
I don't watch news on TV. I only read it. I also figure that the really big, world-changing news will show up here on SN or on one of the other tech sites.
I do read environmental news but that is even more depressing.
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