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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: 4, Funny) by BsAtHome on Tuesday December 13 2016, @05:18PM
This is a news-site. So, I must quit reading this site to feel better?
That is some paradoxical information to digest. I guess I'd feel better when I can resolve this paradox, but that leaves me ambivalent as to be a supporter of this site and equally ignorant of the news.
Hm, head explodes (solves reading the news too, but does not feel as good as advertised).
(Score: 4, Interesting) by AndyTheAbsurd on Tuesday December 13 2016, @05:35PM
It's about watching TV news - a type of journalism so low that only clickbait can compete in terribleness. Reading news - which is what you are doing here on soylentnews.org - is fine. The article itself doesn't mention anything about newspaper, which are a far better source IMO, and may be available online. A commenter does mention that getting your news only from social media is as bad (actually probably worse) as getting it from TV.
Please note my username before responding. You may have been trolled.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @05:48PM
username does not check out
(Score: 3, Insightful) by AndyTheAbsurd on Tuesday December 13 2016, @08:44PM
In our current post-factual reality, nothing needs to check out. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Please note my username before responding. You may have been trolled.
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Thursday December 15 2016, @10:01AM
Yeah, I stopped watching tv news regularly after the 9/11 news cycle (which was months long). It's just too much of "we start with the 5 worst things that have happened on this planet".
When news started, it was similar, just "these are the 5 worst things that happened in this city/town", then it expanded to "in this state", then "in this country" and now "anywhere". And every day, somewhere, a bunch of people are having a really bad day.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Tuesday December 13 2016, @06:30PM
Considering the number of users here lately whose primary purpose in posting seems to be calling each other rude names and/or starting fights, I'm pushed in this direction as well.
The news these days is all about twats in power and mass shootings and various other things I can do nothing about, so why keep up with it at all? :P
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @06:50PM
> Considering the number of users here lately whose primary purpose in posting seems to be calling each other rude names and/or starting fights,
Versus the number of users here whose primary purpose is the banal rationalization of policies that do violence to and put deprivation on the weak and downtrodden. Calling a spade a spade is so much more horrifying. Gotta stay politically correct!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Tuesday December 13 2016, @07:12PM
I make a distinction between disagreeing with someone and starting a fight. You can disagree without calling someone names and insulting their character.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @07:14PM
There does seem to be a dearth of civil disagreement here.
Or even factual disagreement.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @07:38PM
> You can disagree without calling someone names and insulting their character.
And when they've shown zero interest in honest disagreement? What then?
Because what I'm hearing from you is that people selling repugnant ideas deserve a safe-space.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @07:42PM
Because what I'm hearing from you is that people selling repugnant ideas deserve a safe-space.
I think I've just isolated where much of the bile is coming from.
(Score: 4, Touché) by tangomargarine on Tuesday December 13 2016, @07:47PM
And when they've shown zero interest in honest disagreement? What then?
You probably start getting loud and angry.
Because what I'm hearing from you is that people selling repugnant ideas deserve a safe-space.
Nobody is forcing you to read the comments. Instead of screaming at them, you could, y'know, just skip over it.
I'd rather have a "safe space" where people are allowed to speak their minds and if we don't like them we can mod them down, than the normal definition of "safe space" where anybody who disagrees with the Approved Viewpoint aren't even allowed to speak.
If you hate SoylentNews so much "because we're all morons over here," why don't you just leave?
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday December 13 2016, @07:49PM
and if we don't like them we can mod them down
Er, you know what I mean. -1 Troll and -0 Disagree aren't the same thing.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @08:07PM
> Nobody is forcing you to read the comments.
You seem to have written that without even the slightest bit of intentional irony.
> than the normal definition of "safe space"
Sorry, what? You mean the definition used by people intending to denigrate the idea of being respectful? I think you are in danger of a fatal irony overdose.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Tuesday December 13 2016, @08:19PM
You seem to have written that without even the slightest bit of intentional irony.
If a particular post annoys you, you can skip over it. If our comment sections as a whole fall into the abyss of shit fits, stopping reading the entire site is somewhat less effective.
You mean the definition used by people intending to denigrate the idea of being respectful?
Well excuse the hell out of me for using the definition that you appeared to be using. How silly of me to argue you on your own terms.
If one spends too much effort being respectful to everyone all the time, one never ends up expressing unpopular opinions, and we become an echo chamber of politically correct viewpoints. Dissent is the lifeblood of democratic society.
And anticipating that you'll claim something else I'm saying is inconsistent,
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
I think you are in danger of a fatal irony overdose.
And I think you're a bit obsessed with fallacies and demonstrating you're smarter than everyone else.
P.S: Yeah, so I quoted a dead philosopher. I never said I wasn't occasionally pretentious.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @08:29PM
> If a particular post annoys you, you can skip over it.
Lol. My god you really have zero sense of irony, don't you? All you did was repeat your same point without realizing that you are contradicting your own position that there are too many posts here that offend you.
> Well excuse the hell out of me for using the definition that you appeared to be using. How silly of me to argue you on your own terms.
Holy crap! Maybe the reason your posts are so full of unintentional irony is because your irony detector is completely out of commission. You can't detect when someone is being ironic nor are you able to detect the irony levels in your own words.
Hey man, thanks for responding though. I mean it is disappointing as fuck when someone lives down to a stereotype, but at least you did it unabashedly!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @08:33PM
The most ironic thing: you proved their point.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by https on Wednesday December 14 2016, @02:35AM
Tango, it's OK for you to say you don't know what a safe space is around here. Nobody's going to beat the shit out of you or even firebomb your locker for admitting it.
Offended and laughing about it.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday December 14 2016, @03:12PM
How do I know whether I know what it is? :)
The first 2 google results
Safe space is a term for an area or forum where either a marginalised group are not supposed to face standard mainstream stereotypes and marginalisation, or in which a shared political or social viewpoint is required to participate in the space.
In educational institutions, safe-space (or safe space), safer-space, and positive space originally were terms used to indicate that a teacher, educational institution or student body does not tolerate anti-LGBT violence, harassment or hate speech, thereby creating a safe place for all lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students.[2] The term safe space has been extended to refer to a space for individuals who feel marginalized to come together to communicate regarding their experiences with their perceived marginalization, typically on a university campus.[3] It has been widely criticized for being contrary to freedom of speech.[4][5][6][7]
If I've got the terminology wrong, I guess tell me what I'm wrong about, specifically and civilly of course.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by https on Wednesday December 14 2016, @10:51PM
Because you seem to not have the time to do the research yourself, I'll summarize it for you: the first definition is mostly bullshit, promoted by those who want oppression to continue as usual and not be seen as antisocial conduct. The first part of the second one is close to the mark.
It's impossible to have a civil or academic discussion of feminism, for example, if you've got one fucker who insists, every class, that because his mom was happy to be a homemaker, any woman who doesn't submit to a husband is clinically insane. Or that other asshat who insists that homosexuals must be put to death because bible, but lesbian porn is awesome according to their browser history. Or that really polite and modern lady that insists niggers have it coming when cops shoot them in the back.
If you're not actually a member of an oppressed or marginalized group, it can be hard to appreciate just how fucking constant the attacks against them are. The answer is, constant, and from every angle. If you can't see that that would be stressful, and that it would interfere with civil and academic discourse, and that some kind of relief from it would benefit civil and academic discourse, you're going to have a hard time understanding safe spaces.
Offended and laughing about it.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday December 14 2016, @11:16PM
Not belonging to any oppressed minorities, I have to imagine what that's like. Fair enough.
Because you seem to not have the time to do the research yourself
Because doing research on such a hotly contested topic is so easy to find the conclusion you want me to, sure. For example,
Safe space is a term for an area or forum where either a marginalised group are not supposed to face standard mainstream stereotypes and marginalisation
the first definition is mostly bullshit
Er...I'm afraid I don't quite see what angers you about this definition. It doesn't go far enough in saying a safe space is a good thing? This must be one of those things in my "pragmatic blind spot" where people say "OF COURSE THERE'S A BIG DIFFERENCE!" when I get confused.
If you can't see that that would be stressful, and that it would interfere with civil and academic discourse
In academia, sure, you want to get stuff done. As long as halfway-reasonable cutoff points are being used, people are there to learn, not fight. I mean, we're having this conversation on a random public forum tech nerd website that lets ACs post, so not exactly the same thing...
Having a safe place you can go to unwind is good. Trying to make everywhere "safe" can get a bit sticky.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @10:36PM
Come on now, this whole "safe space" thing is stupid and it needs to go away. The idea of civil discourse is not a new one, and people asking for a civil discussion shouldn't be mixed up with people who want "safe spaces" where people aren't allowed to disturb whatever bubble they've created.
I'm very tired of telling people to stop being assholes and having them come back with "oh sorry didn't mean to trigger you in your safe space". The irony is that the assholes are the ones who want safe spaces, they get SO bent out of shape when you challenge their worldview. This isn't a partisan problem either....
So again, civil discourse != safe space. Its called being a decent human. If you have to resort to name calling then the civil part is over and we're on to emotional rantings for the entertainment of others. The best thing that can happen at that point is some random people are swayed by one side or the other.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 14 2016, @06:11PM
"I prefer coffee over tea" is an opinion. "Transgendered and coloreds are subhuman scum" is a delusion, and should be treated as such.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @07:46PM
Personally, I tailor my RSS feeds to be much more in other realms than the major National and World feeds, which are generally filled with exactly the kind of drivel you're talking about. Thankfully, most news sites now separate their feeds, so you can, say, follow the tech feed but not the politics feed. Couple that with the ability to have your software scan for keywords (say, blacklist "shooting", "election", etc) and you can really give yourself a much more pleasant news reading experience these days. Just my 2 cents.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday December 13 2016, @07:07PM
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").
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday December 13 2016, @08:18PM
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
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
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.
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Tuesday December 13 2016, @08:39PM
Easy, just wear a sand hat. You can keep your head in the sand as well as in a cloud.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Tuesday December 13 2016, @10:12PM
I still read this site but I consider myself to have "quit the news." I'm probably just lying to myself like a drug addict looking for a fix.
There's very little that I wouldn't rather read about here first than hear from some mainstream news source. And there's very little that I wouldn't rather see discussed here rather than by some mainstream talking heads.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 4, Interesting) by edIII on Wednesday December 14 2016, @01:14AM
Same here. I don't consider this a news site. There is a big difference between an article accompanied by advertising followed by astroturfed comments, and some of the science articles around here with perhaps 10 comments, but well written and information dense comments.
I've noticed the only time the comment count hits 80+ or something is when it has been political (EU and US being the bulk of discussion). Of course it gets nasty, that's been the trend for the last 18 months. The last two months have been particularly hard for many. I disagree about the echo chamber comments I see elsewhere because this site has quite diverse views being expressed from many countries.
It seems the gist is getting away from negativity that is found in the news, and this will make you feel better. Well I'll not quit this site because the comments are worth more than the articles. There are some very smart and skilled people around here capable of explaining something complex like LIGO. Immerman and Tathra for example are more interesting to read along with the science article than without it. Many others around here have quite the command of history, and our Grammar Nazis are some of the best well dressed there are. It's the most positive aspect of this site; The high likelihood that there will be a scientific article accompanied by insightful and interesting commentary.
We just need a Hell's Kitchen rule to disallow the politics, and get back to enjoying the science and technology together. Which is getting harder and harder to distinguish from the politics as well. I keep trying to stay away from the acrimony, but then an Elite power toady has to say something that just simply demands a response from organized labor, and then here we go....... That's not representative of just the site, but an entire society at the moment. We are genuinely hurting.
In the end I think I get more positive out this site than negative, and at least the discussions are lively.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday December 14 2016, @02:39PM
I concur that would be preferable. We all have to work together to make it happen, though. We've arrived at a moment of epochal historical change. The post-WWII consensus that kept the peace in Europe and America and other select parts of the world is crumbling before our eyes. In America the social contract that held the country together since the Civil War is evaporating, and the bedrock legal principles cast in the Constitution mean nothing anymore. Against that backdrop it's tough to keep bobbing merrily around on the top like a cork.
Even on topics of science and technology the Manichaean struggle the media is engaged in with the incoming administration will invade, because science and technology require funding and so much of that funding comes from the government.
I believe there's another reality that can rise from the ashes of the old system. I see it in FOSS, in knowledge sharing, in the Maker Movement, in distributed energy production and additive manufacturing. It's a massively multipolar world built on consensus rather than centralization, concentration, and domination. We'll still need government to do the big things we can't do alone or as small hamlets, but if we recast it according to that different ethos it will be better in essence than the one constituted to enshrine the power of centralized wealth.
That's utopian, but it's good to keep your eyes fixed on a glimmer of hope to get you through all the ugliness that is and will be around us for the forseeable future. Else, we might as well lay down in the mud and die, right?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 14 2016, @06:15PM
Me either, not anymore. Its become little more than a fascist circlejerk, its painful to read anymore. I almost never post under my username anymore because its fucking embarrassing to be associated with this toxic place.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by janrinok on Wednesday December 14 2016, @07:51PM
Yet here you are. We've enjoyed your company but you seem to think that it is time you left. Well, take care and good luck!
(Score: 2) by edIII on Thursday December 15 2016, @03:07AM
He will be missed. I was quite amused by the imagery of "fascists" in Nazi uniforms furiously masturbating in a circle to the Fuhrer's commands, whilst screaming, "Ya! Mein Fuhrer!".
It also reminds of me of:
He'll be back for more :)
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday December 14 2016, @02:21PM
That was always my attitude from the early days of Slashdot. I figured that if something non-technical that was really newsworthy found its way onto Slashdot, then it would be important and that the discussion around it would help me get to the heart of the issue much faster. So it was a screen that filtered out all the tabloid hyperventilating that is the main output of the media now.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday December 13 2016, @10:59PM
I consider SoylentNews to be more a discussion site than a news site. Just like its predecessor was.
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, @02:43PM
I do as well.
Also, if the discussion veers into politics at least no one here does the usual stupid things like conflate socialism with fascism. Our fascists are true fascists, and our socialists are true socialists. The ideological consistency and intellectual rigor are refreshing.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Hyperturtle on Tuesday December 13 2016, @05:19PM
You don't have to vote any particularly way to active avoid news you dont like. Ignorance is bliss no matter what side of the political spectrum you are ignoring. That is what the google and facebook bubbles do, and shape the narrative based on perceived biases one has... if perhaps too far in the direction of how they go about biasing your news.
Outright igorance is not a good strategy, but I leave it to others to figure out what can fill that gap and still leave one informed about the goings on in the world around them.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @05:59PM
Fox "News" created the journalistic echo chamber, everyone else is just trying to catch up to their innovation of only feeding their viewers bullshit opinions they wanted to hear disguised as news, with a few facts sprinkled in here and there.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 13 2016, @06:21PM
FNC would never have gotten any ratings if every other television news station and every program thereon were not severely tilted to the left. You lot that lurve to hate on FNC for its bias are the ones who made its existence inevitable.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Tuesday December 13 2016, @07:19PM
To be honest, I try to read the news presented by Fox and then something more left wing (I stopped even visiting CNN's website after the redesign--and then I made sure I didnt visit it on accident after I read the privacy policy. Maybe they are just being honest, but it scared me away more than their biases).
That is sort of reading between the lines -- if both sides of the spectrum agree on something or disagree vehemently on something -- then that's the news. (Well, I guess any agreement would be the newsworthy thing. The rest is just politics.)
I try to be a moderate, but not neutral. It can be really hard to be a moderate these days, and I can only hope I am able to read between the lines and spot propaganda pieces without being unduly influenced. (To that end, I can find something I disagree with in nearly all the options provided, helping me stay moderate!)
(Score: 2, Informative) by jmorris on Tuesday December 13 2016, @11:15PM
Could you explain the virtues of this "moderate" thing? I hear it a lot, nobody ever manages to explain why it is a good idea. We live in a society on the verge of Civil War 2.0, divided over real and deep philosophical questions such that it is hard to imagine one nation state containing both ideas peacefully. Pretending the problem don't exist and that some sort of middle path exists doesn't sound reality based, but a lot of people insist on it.
Progressives want Socialism and then Communism. Their only difference from revolutionary Marxists is the belief they can attain the goal through slow Progress, without the bloodbath of a Revolution.
Americans want the country defined in the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Bill of Rights and clarified in The Federalist.
How can both of these groups peacefully co-exist without a breakup of the U.S.? That is the question that drives every political debate, whether stated or left unstated, whether the speaker even realizes it themselves. The Progressives hold that it isn't solvable and have spent the last Century working to eradicate their opponents. I agree that peaceful coexistence isn't possible and believe it is they who should be driven out of all positions of responsibility and influence, both civic and cultural and seek the means to implement that goal. The moderate position is?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 14 2016, @04:44AM
Hmmm well this will almost certainly do no good, but i'll give it a shot.
I'm beginning to think you're actually sincere in your beliefs, beliefs which I consider to be mostly horrendous, but thats by the by.
I think sometimes, with questions like "The moderate position is?" you'd actually like to here the opposing point of view, I think you'd like the discussion, I think you're genuinely intrigued. And in truth it would be interesting to have that discussion, I've read moldbug et al (you're neo-rx right?) and whilst I dont agree at all, they do have some interesting points of view, some questions that are worth exploring.
But (you knew that was coming) the problem is that as long as you continue to troll so hard, venemously and obviously, the people who could have that thoughtful, respectful discussion with you (eg me) are just not going to bother.
So how about you ease up a little, let some air in and maybe fruitful discussion can be had?
Or you can continue to stoke the hate and get short shrift in return.
Your move.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday December 14 2016, @03:22PM
Well said.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday December 14 2016, @03:21PM
I agree we're on the verge of Civil War 2.0. But the sides in that coming war are not the sides you think they are. Your grasp of political reality are frozen in Cold War amber, unable and unwilling to adjust to what the world is today. "Left vs. Right," "Liberal vs. Conservative," "Communist vs. Fascist," etc, etc. They are terribly hackneyed, threadbare labels that don't fit anymore.
The real divisions are the ones that Occupy Wall Street framed as "1% vs. 99%." In the Drudge universe, they were all the countless comments rooting for Trump at the expense of the elites in the Republican party and in the country. Many of them borrowed Occupy's language to frame the conflict. The people who drove this election see themselves as part of the 99% and they come from both sides of the discursive divide you're obsessed with, and which you perpetuate. That's why your divisive labels have been emptied of meaning and truly impede progress in America as a society (that's "progress" as measured by greater opportunity, economic prosperity, and rising standard of living).
In terms of what "moderation" means, it means giving every man his due and listening to what he has to say rather than sticking his fingers in his ears and shouting nah nah nah nah nah, interspersed with slogans supplied by puppetmasters perched in seats of power. It does not mean that moderates believe in nothing or are wishy-washy.
If you really want to understand anything about the events unfolding around us, then you will cease repeating mindless slurs against others and listen to what they're saying and consider it honestly. I mean, I'm pretty sure you have no interest in doing anything but insulting as many people as you can, as harshly as you can, but if you wanted to understand the world better that's what you would do.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday December 14 2016, @02:57PM
That was my practice as well for a long time. I would read sources like Huffington Post and Drudge side-by-side. This election ended the reading of Huffington Post and its confederates, for me. The heights of self-delusion and propaganda they were going to to cram Hillary down everyone's throats, in direct contradiction of the principles they purport to support, was sickening. I know some others felt the same way I did, because I checked in with those sites just after the election to gauge their reaction and there were folks saying, "This is the result of rigging the primary game for a candidate like Hillary." I checked in again late last week to see if the initial shock had passed, if any of them had come back down to earth, and nope, they hadn't. They're spinning off into an ever more irrelevant and delusional tangential parallel universe.
I can read Drudge comfortably, though, because I don't expect those readers to agree with me. Their sacred cows and hobby horses are as plain as the nose on their face. It's easy to look past that and try to understand what their motivations are. Yes, some of them are motivated by evil. But most aren't, and are simply misconstrued as such by their detractors. It's more likely they're more comfortable with the discursive milieu on offer there, even though what they're talking about is essentially the same thing that their fellow citizens on the other side of the discursive divide are worried about.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday December 14 2016, @12:06AM
I agree completely that all news organizations have biases.
I disagree that news organizations' biases can be usefully placed on a simple left-right spectrum, though. There are all sorts of biases shared by both MSNBC and Fox News that leave both of them spewing total nonsense. And especially when you encounter a situation where you think *all* sources of information have a bias in a particular direction, you should make darn sure that it's not your own biases that are skewing what you think about what those sources of information are telling you. And the way to do that is to bypass the secondary sources and do your own actual research into the issue at hand, bearing in mind that "reading some guy's random rant on the Internet" doesn't qualify as research.
As an example, if you believed the sky was purple, and everybody around you was telling you the sky was blue, then you should doubt yourself enough to take a photo of the sky and figure out if it's closer to #8888FF or #FF88FF. When you can't do direct research like that, then at the very least you can go look at reputable organizations that show their work (i.e. their sources of information, and how they got from those sources to their conclusions).
Now, you might decide that sounds too much like work. Well, in that case, the proper conclusion is that you either don't really care, or don't know, and the wise move is to withhold judgment and keep your mouth shut until you know more.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday December 14 2016, @02:58AM
When over eighty percent of a profession self-identify as progressives, I'm inclined to take their word for it. Just saying...
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday December 14 2016, @02:51PM
The trouble with that thinking is that "progressive" (or "conservative", or "libertarian", or any other political label) has no bearing on the question of whether the information in question is either accurate or useful. And yes, that goes just as much for your own political affiliation as anybody else's: Progressives should be questioning the HuffPo or MSNBC just as much as they question the Wall Street Journal and Fox News.
A good example of this: Lots of news organizations have spent the last week reporting on how the intel agencies know, just know, that the Russians were behind the DNC hack. But the only technical evidence they've provided for that is a phishing email, an attack so simple that anybody could pull it off, with a defense so well-known (multi-factor authentication) that it should never have worked. Which means it could have been done just as easily by some random dude angry at Hillary Clinton because she started a civil war in their country as by Vlad Putin and friends.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Wednesday December 14 2016, @02:57PM
"When over eighty percent of a profession self-identify as progressives, I'm inclined to take their word for it. Just saying..."
Well, having difficulty confirming that statement without going to far right sights like MRC or The Federalist. But I did find a decent study that shows the breakdown of self-identified partisanship. Both D's and R's have lost ground to the middle here with the I's growing steadily over the years.
28.1% Democrat
7.1% Republican
50.2% Independent
14.6% Other *
I realize that party affiliation and even voting patterns don't equate equally to political leaning, (I think most of us had to hold our noses when we voted this year) and in my experience true Independents like and dislike portions of both platforms and have no real loyalty to either. This was the least biased study I could find on the subject.
Bias has always been a part of the news, it tended to lean right when I was a kid, (dirty hippies, draft dodgers, COMMIES) and has shifted back and forth just like the presidency and society at large has. Some shit don't work like they promised, everyone gets pissed, switch. Adding to that is both parties working hard to spread lies and hate about each other, (Heartless Republicans, Bleeding Heart Liberals, Rethuglicans, Libtards, Socialists, Nazis ), while doing nothing FOR US and blaming each others failed policies.
We are too busy fighting about small social issues while the surveillance state takes over in the background and things like The Patriot Act, Citizens United, NAFTA etc are all passed with bipartisan support while we take in the show of bathroom equality, security theater and marriage laws. Social Distractions are best as we get passionate about them while the stuff most people don't understand because the effects of such laws either don't affect them directly, or are so convoluted and misrepresented that they don't know what they mean anyway. But a penis in the vagina room, that they understand.
George Orwell thought too small.
Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one and they all smell the same. Except mine, as I eat potpourri so my farts smell like Christmas!
Ah, methinks my paranoid rant time is at an end, time to unwind, fold up the tinfoil hat, grab a cold one and a blunt, and play a little KSP....
* http://news.indiana.edu/releases/iu/2014/05/2013-american-journalist-key-findings.pdf [indiana.edu]
(PDF from the Bloomington, IN School of Journalism, Indiana University)
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 2) by TheGratefulNet on Wednesday December 14 2016, @03:47AM
hahaha.
there's no left left anymore.
what the fuck are you on about? just throwing conservative talking-points at us, again, buzzard?
conservatives have gotton much worse over the last few decades. and they all blindly chant the party line, calling anyone they disagree with 'libural' (sic) or even lib-tards if they want to show their true party affiliation.
they parrot back that the news on tv and print is all left-leaning. what I find funny is that there isn't a single leftist left other than, say, bernie, and we all know how well received he was.
you conservatives keep trying to redefine words and concepts. funny that.
(actually its not funny, its depressing. gotta go drink some more brawndo. its what I crave.)
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday December 14 2016, @11:16AM
You think it's just conservatives calling you libtards? Huh. Well, I guess anything looks conservative when you're that far off the scale.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday December 14 2016, @03:31PM
That has happened on that side of the discursive divide, but it has happened on the other side, too. "Rethuglican," "Morans (a DailyKos joke about Tea Partiers' signs)," etc. Sound familiar?
Many have sunk to that level, everywhere, because it's easier to react than to think. It's sheer mental laziness. The cheerleaders, on the other hand, have been doing it because it makes them a lot of money. They know that's why they do it, and they snicker behind closed doors at all the rubes that fall for it while they're doing business with their supposed dire enemies on the other side of the supposed discursive divide.
For me that has been the most depressing aspect of the last 18 months, to realize that reality has been hopelessly buried underneath layer upon layer of delusion, and that everyone has been piling them on. I keep hoping Ms. Marple will turn up at the end and calmly cut through the crap, saying it always comes back to money. Always go back to the money.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 14 2016, @06:17PM
Left of fascism isn't left, its just not as extremely far to the right. What you call "left" everyone else on the planet calls "far right".
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday December 14 2016, @11:04PM
Oh, so we don't actually have a left here abouts then. Check.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday December 13 2016, @06:24PM
Oh please, AC. They innovated to be somewhat right wing, sorta neocuckservative "We're you're second chance to vote for all of Mondale's policies, but today not 1984!".
The left has always had Pravda, NYT, Mother Jones, HuffPo... old time propaganda stuff.
When I was a kid I'd read NYT and laugh at the Pravda narrative, how could anyone believe that crap, and now its swapped around, if you want to be informed you have to view RT whereas NYT is just for laughing at.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 14 2016, @06:24PM
Fox News went on the air in 1996, long before any so-called "leftist" programs were thought up, and really, you're trying to compare tv infotainment to newspapers?
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday December 16 2016, @12:06AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @07:02PM
I installed this years ago: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/kitten-block/ [mozilla.org]
It's a firefox plugin that blocks the Daily Mail and replaces it with photos of kittens. My life suddenly became happier.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @07:31PM
Outright igorance is not a good strategy
Why not? The 'news' is little more than a way for the RNC/DNC to fill my head with whatever narrative they want. Evidence? Past year for CNN, MSNBC, WashingtonPost, HuffingtonPost, and FoxNews. So much downplaying of shit that would get normal people thrown in jail and the key thrown away. All to talk about trivial things.
Here is the thing. Can you *really* tell the difference between what is 'fake news' (e.g. the onion) or 'real news' (aka CNN, FoxNews).
Read these both. Then come back and say the 'news' helps you'.
http://blog.dilbert.com/post/154336783261/fake-news-versus-misleading-news [dilbert.com]
https://betterhumans.coach.me/cognitive-bias-cheat-sheet-55a472476b18#.uq25rzlwf [coach.me]
The thing is unless you have a lot of facts you probably can not tell the difference. Even with those facts that you have chosen to keep in your brain are could be and probably are wrong. Your brain can and does change facts to suit its needs. For example I remember 'kitkat' with a hyphen. There never has been a hyphen. So either reality changed (doubtful) or I am remembering things wrong. I am not alone in doing that sort of thing. There are thousands of things people misremember all the time. Our brains do this constantly even as we go through our days.
Given the fact that the DNC colluded with many of the news organizations out there. People were fired over it and the 'alt-right' has the emails to show it. They all did this to 'control the narrative' and 'walk back' anything that looks bad. Equally probable the RNC does the exact same thing. Why should I give one iota of credence to what these people say?
I read a great quote. 'If I dont read the news I am uninformed if I read the news I am misinformed'.
(Score: 2) by tisI on Wednesday December 14 2016, @02:22AM
Very true.
I've shunned "News" for years and don't miss it at all.
Usually if the co-workers get really worked up, I get to hear all about it anyway. Always more stupid, and the more political it gets, the more stupid it gets.
When I do want to check the nation's and world's damage on my handy Bat Shit Crazy O-Meter, I go off shore for my information. I can usually skip the political spin and find honest journalism.
"Suppose you were an idiot...and suppose you were a member of Congress...but I repeat myself."
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday December 14 2016, @03:35PM
I would recommend Al Jazeera as an additional source for someone looking to step outside the Narrative and see things from a different angle.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @05:25PM
I'm fairly sure some people know bullshit news when they see it, while others are totally ignorant. Personally, I don't believe anything unless there's absolute proof, but I'm that way anyway because of my analytical mind.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday December 13 2016, @05:43PM
Personally, I don't believe anything unless there's absolute proof,
sounds the same to me as if you had said:
Personally, I don't believe anything.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/06/24/7408365/
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 13 2016, @06:43PM
Which would be a very wise policy as applied to television news.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday December 13 2016, @07:50PM
a very wise policy as applied to television news.
Yep, this coming to you from a household which last viewed "television news" at home in 1994.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/06/24/7408365/
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 13 2016, @08:00PM
Nah, I hook up the rabbit ears every six months or so just to remind myself why TV sucks. It really doesn't take long to accomplish.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday December 13 2016, @08:08PM
We travel, flip through the cable channels in the hotel - that's enough reminder for us.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/06/24/7408365/
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @09:58PM
Always bring a book and laptop for emergency entertainment!
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday December 13 2016, @10:24PM
Same here. I'm (possibly) visiting another physical culture, may as well amp up the surreal with some more weird subculture and I watch CNN till I can't.
1) More commercials than I remember. Seems like 2010s TV news is all commercials.
2) In the 90s they had to show off their Amiga computers by putting on scrolls and occasional bugs but I remember seeing a near parody channel a couple years ago with a scroller on the top and two on the bottom all going different speeds and when they panned the camera I felt seasick. I've been thru some stuff in boats and planes and I never feel seasick but the TV got me.
3) When I was a kid "breaking news" meant the prez or the pope got shot, or a manned spacecraft exploded, or minimum hundred people on public transit (plane, whatever) died. Now it means nothing, all news is breaking. F you guys you get to trick me once or twice but I'm done now.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday December 14 2016, @03:40PM
Huh. Jesus. I pull up the channel guide, see all the same movies I already had seen 50 times 20 years ago, a bunch of reality TV crap I have zero interest in, and that's enough for me.
My kids happened to turn on the TV at the last hotel we stayed at. I was not really paying attention to it, being busy with other things, but after a good stretch my beautiful son proclaimed, "Daddy, when are the commercials ever going to end?!" When I told him they never end he switched it off in disgust and they entertained themselves playing with coasters instead.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Gaaark on Tuesday December 13 2016, @05:26PM
I used to follow, as a kid, the Ottawa Roughriders.
George Brancato (sp?) coaching/leading and grooming the farm leagues.
Tony Gabriel catching anything within a mile of him.
Then, the 'people who know' started saying "lets spend millions on big league players and win grey cups".
The people who know nothing.
They ruined the Ottawa Roughriders, and i stopped watching CFL.
Fast forward to modern times.
I got so tired of hearing "i'm only making 4 million a year, whine whine, whine": when Roberto Alamar spat on that umpire, i stopped watching Professional sports cold turkey. Just stopped.
And i couldn't find anything i missed.
I like taking the family up to watch the kids play baseball, soccer, etc up at the local sports locale, but prof. sports: don't miss it at all.
You don't miss what you realise was crap to begin with.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Tuesday December 13 2016, @06:03PM
Hey, another Ottawa human. Pleased to meet you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @10:20PM
The way things are going, athletes and soldiers are going to museum pieces doing all the things humans used to be good at. The rest of us can occasionally watch.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by tynin on Tuesday December 13 2016, @05:29PM
I do find it beneficial to take a break from the News every now and then. Sometimes it can be too much with the rest of the stresses of the day. I know when I'm driving home after some major outage at work, the last thing I need is to listen to any kind of politics. Getting off work and then getting seemingly accidentally depressed due to the channel you tune your radio to (NPR has been known to cause this for me, even on otherwise bright and happy days) is crazy but happens.
But I always end up coming back, if only for the science / tech news. Just learning about what cool new something we discovered / did / are doing, is worth it.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @05:47PM
Maybe you should listen to science/tech netcasts instead of the radio. This will enable you to be selective about which NPR programs you listen to (AFAIK they release many of their shows as netcasts) and you'll probably be able to find many other netcasts that you are interested in.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday December 13 2016, @06:30PM
On a side tangent a BBC show like "In Our Time" is kinda like a civilized 1700s version of a Sunday morning political talk show. Not specifically 1700 but generally historical. I donno maybe a quarter of the show topics are tangentially inspired by something in the news, on a very long term average?
Garibaldi and Risorgimento ... OK its a biiiiiiig stretch to go from recent votes in Italy to the unification in the 1800s but its kinda sorta in the news, sort of?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Tuesday December 13 2016, @06:38PM
Whoops forgot to mention "In Our Time" is well educated mainstream liberal arts classical education discussion, which has two effects: to meet diversity reqs they don't put the best on but they do have a village people theme playing so almost every episode has the token mandatory minority lesbian female Muslim academic, and you'll note the lack of STEM being mentioned in anyones qualifications because whenever they talk anything even vaguely STEM its agonizingly bad to listen to. Be sure to skip anything "quantum" or physics is general. Listening to them talk about math is rare but a mix of hilarious and annoyingly wrong.
(Score: 2) by tynin on Tuesday December 13 2016, @09:34PM
I'll check it out. Thanks.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday December 13 2016, @09:57PM
I made fun of it, but it is about 95% good. Its a "BBC Radio 4" production if that helps you find it. The URL appears to be:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qykl/episodes/downloads.rss [bbc.co.uk]
Warning its a large feed, contains every episode going back to 2009. Hopefully whatever you use as a podcast fetcher won't try to grab thousands of episodes.
I haven't used itunes in perhaps 5 years but from what I remember its searchable so just knowing "bbc radio 4 in our time" is probably quite adequate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @10:52PM
Some science netcasts:
This Week In Virology (there is also microbiology, parasitology, and evolution from the microbe.tv site) - http://www.microbe.tv/twiv/ [microbe.tv]
Radiolab (not always science, but lots of interesting shows) - http://www.radiolab.org/series/podcasts/ [radiolab.org]
Naked Scientists (very general science) - http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/podcasts/naked-scientists/ [thenakedscientists.com]
(Score: 3, Funny) by takyon on Tuesday December 13 2016, @05:37PM
My old RSS browser extension died. What do you use?
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @05:44PM
Tickr RSS
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @05:59PM
Tiny Tiny RSS, while a bit of a hassle to set up, has worked beautifully for me ever since G's Reader is defunct.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday December 13 2016, @06:07PM
I installed it and played around with it, but I don't think a news ticker is going to work for me. I grabbed Claws Mail [claws-mail.org] and added a few feeds.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @07:34PM
I have been using myyahoo.
Can get to it from any browser and it does not bug the hell out of me. I look at it when I want.
(Score: 2) by rigrig on Tuesday December 13 2016, @07:48PM
I use Nextcloud [nextcloud.com] with the News [nextcloud.com] app.
Probably somewhat overkill if all you want is a feed reader, but I like it enough that I felt like spamming it here a bit.
No one remembers the singer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @08:32PM
Newsbeuter. It's what I wanted all these years and finally found it this year. I quickly got over wanting it to be synced with my phone and other devices.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 14 2016, @07:01AM
If I had an account and mod points, I'd give you one. Newsbeuter is great, especially if you live on the command line.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 14 2016, @12:54AM
Pipedot.org
It has a great RSS function.
(Score: 2) by chewbacon on Wednesday December 14 2016, @02:19AM
Bazqux. Not free, but works really well. Syncs with Feeddler on iOS.
(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.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by ilsa on Tuesday December 13 2016, @05:56PM
The problem isn't reading the news, per se... It's the fact that there is so much bullshit news out there. For example, not a single day goes by where they don't report on someone dying. If no one in the immediate vicinity has died, they just open the scope further and further until they found someone who died. While we can analyze the whys of this behaviour all we want, the bottom line is that we are inundated with completely inactionable news to the point of overwhelming.
I stopped actively watching/listening to the news a long time ago because I realized that all it did was make me stressed and depressed for no purpose. I have similarly had to wean myself off Facebook, for basically the same reasons. Being continually bombarded by negativity has a significant impact on your general well-being, whether you realize it or not.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @06:13PM
Alternatively being bombarded with a permanent feed of "positivity" such as people on vacation or having the supposed time of their lives while you're stuck at work. Too much positive updates from the social circle can make your life seem inadequate. Negative news plus daily pics of people having exciting adventures (according to their selfies) can really impact a person's psyche.
Also, social media's "reward" system is like a videogame. Yay another uplikeheart! They winked/poked/emoticonned back! I'll take regular video games for my supply of digital "accomplishment" or whatever it is the brain is responding to.
Your brain is the ultimate firewall, and education plus training in critical thinking are the only ways to upgrade!
(Score: 1) by ilsa on Tuesday December 13 2016, @11:02PM
Your brain is the ultimate firewall, and education plus training in critical thinking are the only ways to upgrade!
What you say is very true. However, to extend your analogy, even a firewall still requires resources to operate, and a DOS attack will take it down and possibly take other stuff down with it.
I won't speak for anyone else, but for me personally, that's how I feel. There's just too much. Too much sensationalized bullshit. And wading through it all is bloody exhausting.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday December 13 2016, @06:36PM
I really enjoyed that period of time recently where they'd be talking about a bombing on the news, and when that finally wound down, there was another bombing or shooting a week later just in time for them to start talking about >:-
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday December 13 2016, @06:55PM
they just open the scope further
They broadcast both sports and weather the same way.
With sports you can tell the cultural pecking order of sports where american football coverage beats all, then baseball, then basketball, then hockey, then way down there when there's nothing to cover they start talking about college table tennis/ping pong championships.
Likewise with the weather, they'll scour the globe to find a rain storm, a blizzard, or a tornado blowing away a mobile home park and they'll roll historical footage if they have to, but they will have their disaster.
One interesting aspect of narrowcasting as fewer people participate by watching and jobs are eliminated in the field, things get weirder, less connected to social norms. Strange times are ahead for what remains of the TV news business. They've long since gone beyond "cultural escape velocity" WRT politics and I think you can anticipate strange stuff ahead as they exceed "cultural escape velocity" in other areas.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 14 2016, @11:59PM
"I get up each morning
and dust off my wits.
Open the paper,
and read the obits.
If I'm not there,
I know I'm not dead,
So I eat a good breakfast
and go back to bed."
From: Pete Seeger, get up and go
(Score: 2, Insightful) by TrentDavey on Tuesday December 13 2016, @05:57PM
They select for what’s 1) unusual, 2) awful, and 3) probably going to be popular.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 14 2016, @05:28AM
Hey, now. Watching Gilligan's Island is great fun. It's way more productive than watching modern day news. Everyone needs a good laugh once in awhile. Granted it's been about 3-4 years since I last saw one of their episodes, but reading about it still brought a smile to my face. The news never does that.
For those who don't know, Gilligan's Island is an excellent show about how to innocently and repeatedly keep people stranded on your island so you can force them to be your friends instead of living by yourself in a basement. It's a very valuable show that teaches you the art of innocently screwing up the plans of everyone around you.
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Tuesday December 13 2016, @06:01PM
A few years ago I very nearly became a shut-in, in large part due to mainstream news. Since then I've cut away almost everything that isn't tech, science or engineering (soylent and theconversation are my most "mainstream news" these days). In oart I boticed it freed up a lot of time, in part it mafe me calmer but the best thing is that almost everything about sports, celebrities, social networking and such are mainly something odd on the horizon..
Also - got me to the point where I started to participate in open source projects, considering reading up on my gaps in education and maybe moving away from cities (already drawn and calculated the house I want to build).
Quite frankly I can't see a single good point with the non-in-depth parts of mainstream news (also, not caring about the chrome but rather the nitty gritty will make you really cynical about the world)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @06:41PM
Thanks for theconversation, didn't know about that site. I'm glad you didn't go full shut-in, but I recommend the hermit life. You can socialize when you want and ignore the world when you want.
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Tuesday December 13 2016, @09:08PM
I only meet people 1-4 times every fortnight. Normally when going out to buy food, meet a very close driens or when something at work can't be telecommuted :}
Btw, theconversation, do fiddle around with regions - the US and the UK frontpages are very different
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @06:42PM
by Aiwendil (531)
A few years ago I very nearly became a shut-in
To be fair, a period of introspection every few centuries is to be expected from a pseudo-Egyptian deity.
*googles* Oh. No, that was Aiwass; this is some Tolkien thing.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @06:03PM
"Five Things You Notice When You Quit Online Discussions"
1) You feel better
2) You were never actually accomplishing anything by arguing online
3) Most current-events-related conversations are just people talking out of their asses (aka: mouths)
4) There are much better ways to "have discussions"
5) “Correcting the idiots” makes us feel like we’re doing something when we’re not
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday December 13 2016, @08:20PM
I'm pretty sure the majority of online-commenters use their hands for it.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @08:29PM
No, I actually use my ass.
Thus all the spelling errors sometimes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @09:52PM
At least two levels of irony here... one for my mistake of using a verbal metaphor for typing, and second you demonstrating the futility of online arguments :D I can't edit the post now, and as a pedantic point I am simply going to ignore it instead of learn a valuable lesson ;)
(Score: 1) by Weasley on Tuesday December 13 2016, @11:12PM
Having online discussions made me realize everyone is an idiot and not worth talking to. How would I have known that if I hadn't had online discussions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @06:33PM
It's like when I visit the in-laws, they want to discuss the finer points of geopolitical theory. Well, I say "discuss" and I say "finer" but really it's just vomiting out the outrage-porn from whichever TV channel they reluctantly managed to turn their attention away from for a few minutes. I don't even need to reply, just hem and haw until the craving for an instant answer in 140 chars starts to kick in. Conversation over, TV on full volume again. Win-lose for everyone!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by nobu_the_bard on Tuesday December 13 2016, @06:37PM
I do not see how this is a good attitude to have, though I can see why it would be appealing. Maybe if you live or work in a vastly different sphere than that which the news reports on, it won't hurt you, though "News" is a bit of a monolithic term these days. I could see maybe feeling totally disconnected from the sorts of news CNN and the like report on. I don't really follow them much either; I read NPR and Reuters a bit, sometimes National Geographic or a journal. I read a local newspaper at least weekly consistently though.
Locally, for example, there's been an explosion of interest among teenagers regarding racism. The local news has been covering various incidents. What I've read suggests that the teenagers don't really "get" what they are doing - they are just slandering people and repeating insulting nonsense. Some kids I see on facebook have been dabbling in this stuff too; most of them seem to have stumbled into it because some bad influence from a poor role model or as some kind of attempt to rebel against someone (my super uninformed opinion mind you). This is good to know about as a trend, since I'll be in a kind of "responsible adult" position occasionally with other peoples' kids- I sometimes go to monthly events and run into impressionable teenagers. I'll be less shocked if they say something racially insensitive and, I'll have done a little reading on how to deal with this appropriately (instead of just snapping at them). I don't feel "bad" about this per se - its just something to know about and deal with, like the weather. I think it is an unfortunate situation but I will do my small part to push back against the trend.
There's also been some local politics stuff- I won't get into details. This affects my work a fair bit. I know which clients might be politically sensitive and worried about waxing/waning fortunes in gov't contracts and such. Even if some of these politics don't affect me directly, they affect my clients, and I like to know what might be troubling them (whether to provide them better service or just understand their possible state of mind, or in one scary past case, get the hell out of town). The national politics cast a shadow over the local ones, so it matters too. Even if I think it's 50% BS, it still matters.
I could go on about examples but that's the gist of what the other things I'd say would be like, and was pretty dense reading probably.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @10:44PM
It sounds like you're a fucking automaton, incapable of independent thought.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @11:59PM
Except, as you've found out, there's a difference between paying attention to the news much like an intelligence analyst with a degree of detachment and dispassion, versus how most people seem to ingest it, where it turns into some form or another of "OMG! Did you hear the latest about..." story of the day.
The funnysad thing is seeing local and national news sources in many ways turned into "legitimate" forms of National Enquirer, People Magazine, etc., but for "serious" subjects. Just look at all the clickbait links they add to their "legitimate" information pages...
The (all) media is in it for their own lulz, lulz that they can go to advertisers with. So figuring that out should be useful. And it's not even a "bias" per se. it's just trying to figure out what kind of lulz they're trying to generate.
I listen to the sports radio yak jobs to and from work. Why? Well, it's sports. It can be entertaining to listen to, but I'm not going to get whipped up into some state of depression or angry frenzy. And, most important, it's really not going to affect my day to day life one way or the other, so it's kind of a safe attention sideshow, sort of like an "applied Seinfeld Show" (you know, like Applied Physics or Mathematics? granted, those are not topics about nothing). And, I can get a degree of schadenfreude/self-superiority complex out of the system too - Buffalo Bills or Cleveland Steamers lost again? Oh so sad, sucks to be you... but, good job on pulling down the curve, keep up the good work! But, hey, whatever...that's why you're a fan, right?
Plus, even in real life, it's easy enough to not be a fan of sports, but enjoy sports. not gonna get a punch in the face for being a San Francisco Dodgers fan going to a LA Dodgers baseball game, say, if you're not a SF or LA fan in the first place.
Anyhow.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday December 14 2016, @02:14AM
The few times I had some inside knowledge about a local news story, it was a little frightening how much the local reporting distorted the facts. Their bias was towards drama. A few broken windows gets magnified into Crime Spree Has City On Edge, Packs of Vandals Roaming the Streets at Night or some such. You can't take those papers at their word for anything.
The major newspaper in our metropolitan area has been messing with their subscription model. They no longer offer any subscription that does NOT include automatic renewal, at, of course, the sky high list price. When I inquired, they tried to tell me that canceling was a simple as making one quick phone call, as if that was some kind of improvement in service and hadn't always been that way. So I canceled it. Seemed a desperation ploy anyway. Didn't miss it much, and as the years went by, missed it less and less.
PBS News Hour is better than average, but still not worth watching. One story they botched badly was on copyright. They do a lot of debate style stories, in which they invite two experts, one from each side of an issue. On their copyright story, both experts were on the same side, differing only in how extreme copyright should be.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @06:41PM
The same things apply to here (especially noticing most people talk out of their asses).
It's true. Event watching a youtube vid about how to sharpen your chainsaw chain is more productive. Even if you don't own a chainsaw.
A while back I quit watching tv because after "EVENT", I noticed the coverage of the thing didn't match the experience on the ground at all. And it was completely surreal, having this talking head telling me about this thing that didn't match the thing at all.
And this went on for MONTHS, with newscasters dissecting the thing from every angle, "experts" called in to give legitimacy to the whole charade, and everyone talking seemingly just to have something to say.
What's worse is the broadcast reality started infiltrating meatspace. I was at the capitol for some official function, and commented that the response seemed completely disconnected from what was really happening. People were purposing the most asinine things, and yet no one seemed prepared to confront the incredulity of it all. "People are uneasy and want some reassurances" I was told. This would all blow over eventually and a sense of normalcy would return.
The official report came much later, but by then the damage had been done. So many agendas were laid bare by the report, but somehow that never made the news. And even today, i still get references to the broadcast reality, but never the reality as I understood it.
I get the same sense here time to time, with talking points being repeated, counter-talking points offered, and very little said overall.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @09:55PM
Its the best tactic, human beings only have so much time and attention to give. Suck up a portion of it dealing with inane bullshit and you derail a cohesive result.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by SomeGuy on Tuesday December 13 2016, @06:55PM
I turn on the TV news every now and then, but only to keep up with the witch hunt of the day.
But it is so insanely mindless. It is always the exact same thing "shooting, shooting, stabbing, fire, down tree, hot car death guy AGAIN, and now for the weather.!"
I mean there must be 1000 positive useful things going on in the world at any given time, but they can't be arsed to report on anything they didn't get handed to them over a police scanner.
And sadly, most internet news sites are global in nature and won't report on local events.
At this point I would pay for a good source of local news.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @07:17PM
WELL WELL WELL LOOK WHO HAS COME CRAWLING BACK. You put the local newspaper out of business with your "internet" and your "tubes" and now you want people to actually report on local topics. Now that you realize the internet is mostly full of morons you want the cat back in the bag. Well too late, the cat is out of the bag, you killed him and there are buzzfeed articles about it.
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Tuesday December 13 2016, @08:03PM
Yea, ha ha, very true. I have actually tried a local newspaper but after you get past the first two or three entertaining local-ish stories on the front page it is just a shell of anything useful.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @07:49PM
Maybe it's not too late, but you had your chance. There is no local coverage for the same reason there is no good national coverage. It is because there are so very few journalists. Everybody wants everything for free. Nobody wants to pay for the newspaper any more, nobody wants to see ads, so news sites had to change how they do business. Cut your costs by cutting the number of journalists, and increase your web traffic with the kind of stories that will bring in viewers (and it isn't going to be a lot of that "boring" stuff about the day-to-day doings at the state house).
People want to whine and bitch and moan (just look at this entire page of comments) about the "lamestream media" and crap, but if they want to know why things are the way they are, they should just look in the mirror. The funniest part (in a sad way) are to hear the "insightful" idiots bitch about the evil "slant" of the MSM, then go on to say to get the real story they need to go to XXXX site (because that site is "unbiased", and they know that because they like the slant that it has because it reinforces what they already believe).
(Score: 3, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday December 13 2016, @07:36PM
Back around the year 2000, I happened upon a little book called How the News Makes Us Dumb [amazon.com].
It was a provocative read, and I haven't really been drawn to watching "the news" on a daily basis ever since. And when I do, I recognize it for it is: entertainment. It's not about being "informed." It's about advertising revenues, and entertainment. Lots of books and stories have critiqued news on that basis as well as corporate and political influence, etc., but what made THAT book unique is the claim that it's the very necessity of a DAILY product that causes the news to make us dumb. It's simply a inevitable structural flaw created by the format, and it's only gotten worse as the 24-hour news cycle has expanded with the internet, blogging, Facebook, Twitter, etc.
TV news in particular is all a sham. It's all about keeping any segments as short as necessary to hold your attention -- any more than a 15-second soundbite, and people's eyes glaze over and they reach for the remote.
Anyhow, the book I cited above talks about how this mentality also infects things like newspaper reporting. Journalists feel like they have to exaggerate to hold your attention, which leads to oversimplifications, and polarization on issues where there actually isn't so much. I put a lot of blame on the media and the "news" for the fact that the U.S. is much more highly polarized today than in the past couple generations -- although I don't think it's necessarily deliberate, as some conspiracy theorists like to think. I instead think it's just a function of that "dumbing down" principle -- every story has to have two clear "sides" to get across in a few paragraphs. And having those "two sides" allows for ongoing coverage, which doesn't have to have any content -- just the meaningless back and forth of polarized folks talking past each other. There isn't room for nuance, hedging, or detailed argumentation.
The book left me with two main takeaways, though: (1) Go look at an old newspaper from years ago sometime. Realize how much ephemeral crap is there that no one cared about a month later. Take a break from the news now, and in a month realize how the "talking heads" are still ranting about the same crap, with no progress. It's all a waste of time. (2) My favorite anecdote was of a major reputable national newspaper editor complaining about a picture of a young Midwestern woman at a fair or something on the front page -- "Next time, be sure to get her tits above the fold!" That's really where the priorities of most news lies -- get the ad revenue by selling you something first... detailed information is only a bonus when it comes at all.
As other posts here have noted, the response is NOT to just abandon all knowledge of current events! But instead of watching that 30-minute news program with 15 superficial segments that tell you nothing and most of which you'll forget about tomorrow, how about reading one or two in-depth articles on a current event that you'll actually LEARN something from and get some nuance? Do that every day instead of watching TV news or reading nonsense in your Facebook feed, and you can choose a different issue each day. At the end of a month, you'll be better informed on 30 topics than the general public is on just about any "current events" topic. And you have a better chance of having developed an informed opinion, rather than just succumbing to the dumbed-down crap you're fed in 15-second soundbites.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @08:15PM
TV news in particular is all a sham. It's all about keeping any segments as short as necessary to hold your attention -- any more than a 15-second soundbite, and people's eyes glaze over and they reach for the remote.
I watch the CBSN streaming news via a kodi plugin. Not only can I watch the livestream, but it also keeps a constantly updated list of topical segments from the last couple of hours. Its quite common for those segments to be 3-5 minutes long, occasionally getting up around 9 minutes. Sure there are the occasional 30 second segments, but those are almost often the goofy feel-good stories. I'm looking at the list right now and "Exxon CEO Picked (for secstate)" is 7 minutes, "Oakland Fire Update" is 8 minutes, "Aleppo in Crisis" is 6 minutes and "Cures Act signing" is 10 minutes.
Also, for now at least, there are no commercials.
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Tuesday December 13 2016, @08:46PM
And on a side note about the "talking heads". They used to do that when they brought in "experts" and such from various remote locations, but if you look closely these days it is usually all done in the same studio.
For a while one of the local news channels used their newsroom as the background behind their new anchor, with some frosted glass so you could not quite see every detail.
So one day they were doing some split-screen interview between the anchor and some rather distinctive large sized lady in a very bright red shirt. All with a background that gave the impression of someone important from a remote locate and all that....
They finish and cut back to the anchor and a moment later YOU COULD SEE UNMISTAKABLY THE EXACT SAME LADY WALKING THROUGH THE BACKGROUND!
The weren't even trying to hide it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @10:07PM
I think this rule has been generalised to the extreme. Maybe if the person is high on cocaine, most people see the story, short cut the crap to find the message. If the message was poorly written then 15 seconds is about right. I see that that one statement has had the unintended consequence of re-writing all the news for the lowest common denominator who is also poisoned with lead.
So its their own fault if we all switch off and no longer read the MSM including soylent, because the number of fake news articles which make headlines here is incalculable.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @07:47PM
The movie 'A Christmas Story' sums it up best.
"Did you hear about this guy who swallowed a yo-yo? Swallowed a yo-yo? - On a bet. Some clodhopper down in Griffith, Indiana."
"They write the silliest things in the newspapers."
"What do you mean, silly? I mean that's real news. That's not like that politics slop. "
They were both right. The news is full of trivia that rarely affects me. It is designed to make me want to 'learn more'. For your next local news break watch the structure. Not the news itself. You will notice they have stingers up front (the big story). Then they string it along all the way up until the end. Why did they do that? They want you to sit through the commercials. The guys paying the bills. Most of the local news is actually pre bought news. They buy it from news aggregators, CNN, Reuters, AP, etc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TM8L7bdwVaA [youtube.com] Even the script, graphics are straight up read word for word.
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Tuesday December 13 2016, @09:53PM
It pisses me off when they spend more time promoting the teaser story than actually covering it.
For a while the kids' CBC has "CBC news reel": a current affairs program for children. Despite the 300 second time constraint, their coverage was about as good as the 30 minute "real news". About the only things they left out was Sports, Weather, local news, and Ads (and teasers).
The show was then ruined by increased funding that gave them more time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @08:29PM
Channel 2 News - Coverage You Can Count On: To totally misinform you!
Channel 2 News - Coverage You Can Count On: To report only what "they" tell us to.
Channel 2 News - Coverage You Can Count On: For absolute 0% usefulness!
Channel 2 News - Coverage You Can Count On: To make you embarrassed to live on this planet.
Channel 2 News - Coverage You Can Count On: To keep you scared and locked in your home. "Very scary stuff!" "If you see something, say something" "You cant be too safe! Pollywannacracker!"
Channel 2 News - Coverage You Can Count On: To report the obituaries first!
Channel 2 News - Coverage You Can Count On: To reduce your brain by 2 1/2 sizes, you will also like Family Guy and blue LEDs.
Channel 2 News - Coverage You Can Count On: To follow the party line.
Channel 2 News - Coverage You Can Count On: To not tell you a DAMN thing that is actually going on!
Channel 2 News - Coverage You Can Count On: To scare you in to buying products or services.
Channel 2 News - Coverage You Can Count On: To tell you who to HATE today!
Channel 2 News - Coverage You Can Count On: Oh, and there is a sale on torches and pichforks at WalMart!
Channel 2 News - Coverage You Can Count On: To be completely evil.
Channel 2 News - Coverage You Can Count On: Hey, at least we are not as bad as FOX... rofl lolsure.
Channel 2 News - Coverage You Can Count On: To report the EXACT same stories as the other networks.
Channel 2 News - Coverage You Can Count On: To make our sponsors a lot of fucking money!
And don't forget to download our free weather app so we can spy on you and send you more advertising!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jdavidb on Tuesday December 13 2016, @08:41PM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 2) by TheGratefulNet on Wednesday December 14 2016, @03:52AM
not only have I quit watching/reading mainstream media, I stopped with tv as a whole, too.
the commercials lower your IQ. I could feel it TRYING to make me dumber.
you really notice how far things have gone when you detach for a long time, then you travel, stay in a hotel, are bored and turn on the glass teat to see what its currently like. blech! turn that thing right off! and when you do, you feel a lot better.
entertainment has also taken a few steps downward. movies used to really interest me. now, its hard to find anything that I am willing to sit thru and watch.
perhaps I'm just getting older and sick of the same old shit. but I know I'm a lot better off by not polluting myself with mainstream media 'products'. not to mention how much money I save by not having to keep paying for cable/satelling/movie channels or papers.
if its worth knowing about in terms of current events, I find out about it via discussion forums. there (and here) we find all sides and we can actively take PART in the discussion. active vs passive. these days, passive is just too boring for me.
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Wednesday December 14 2016, @03:46PM
you really notice how far things have gone when you detach for a long time, then you travel, stay in a hotel, are bored and turn on the glass teat to see what its currently like. blech! turn that thing right off! and when you do, you feel a lot better.
Goodness yes!! I was in a hotel this weekend actually and had that experience. To show how out of touch I am I still don't understand the new TV channels that have decimal points in them. There was nothing I wanted to see. Fortunately I travel with a laptop with entertainment my family likes pre-loaded on it before the trip. I forgot to bring an HDMI cable, but a quick trip to Wal-Mart and we were hooked up and happy. No commercials. No drek that was not at least of our own choosing.
During the weekend I noticed that "Mary Poppins" was trending on twitter and wondered why. It turned out it was playing on a network station. I seriously don't get how that can have an impact on anything - who is still watching channels, and why on earth do they put up with it? If I wanted to watch Mary Poppins (not a bad movie) I'd get ahold of it and watch it, no commercials, when I wanted.
if its worth knowing about in terms of current events, I find out about it via discussion forums. there (and here) we find all sides and we can actively take PART in the discussion. active vs passive. these days, passive is just too boring for me.
Exactly. I want to talk to other human beings. It's actually more social rather than less, despite all the complaints Chicken Little is making about us spending time online.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 3, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Tuesday December 13 2016, @08:55PM
The summary is there to summarize. That's why it is called "summary" and not "teaser".
The point of the summary is that you do not need to go to the article if you are not interested in the details.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @09:15PM
Number six is, "You will not be relieved from the habit of writing click-baity titles to stories."
Now, someone please give me One Weird Trick for avoiding the news, please....
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 14 2016, @04:32AM
As Walter Cronkite pointed out, you can fit more words on one page of a newspaper than in a whole half-hour TV news program.
When watching TV of any kind, keep in mind, the show is not the product, and you are not the customer. You are the product, the show is the bait, and the customer is the advertisers. When you see an ad, you have been delivered to the customer. And don't think ignoring the ad is a victory. They work best when you're not paying attention. There's a real and serious science behind that. (It's why some products just seem more familiar than others, even if you've never bought it before.)
I own a small business, and I've noticed something. The more a person watches TV, the more likely that person is to stand around and talk about doing things, then expect the things to magically get done somehow, you know, just like the people on TV. I like to hire people who don't watch TV. Education level doesn't seem to matter much. Everyone can learn, but only the do-ers get anything done.
Kurt Vonnegut pointed out that we become what we pretend to be, so we should be careful what we pretend to be. Watching too much TV immerses you into a world where things just happen, major rock stars never rehearse or practice, etc. etc. etc...
TV (and any advertiser supported mass media) is like mental candy. You don't have to abandon it altogether, but a steady diet of that stuff will ruin your life.
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Wednesday December 14 2016, @05:30AM
And so is printed media. All media - news, soaps, music videos, movies - they work on tropes and finding the latest trope is how they make it "fresh". The freshness-cycle of news is on daily basis so it is easy for us to recognize it, but as long as freshness-cycle exists there will be room for tropes and powerful people will be paying to inject propaganda into those tropes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 14 2016, @02:27PM
Yeah, you millennial fuck, let's stay blissfully ignorance.