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Ask HN: What are your thoughts on the rise of “explanatory journalism”?

1 points by personlurking ↗ HN
In the past decade or so I've seen a huge uptick in explainer articles, videos, and podcasts (in part due to the rise of the latter two types of media and also partly due an increase in the availability of data). A decade ago, I used to partake, to an extent, in creating these kinds of articles and I'm a long-time consumer as well.

The other day I was watching a random video where tattoo artists were commenting on facial tattoos and one of them said it could signal a down-trend in getting tattoos since "where do you go from there?", if you've already reached the extreme of something.

It reminds me a bit of the proliferation of explainer journalism and the like. Everything has been explained to death which seems to mirror a "just Google it" attitude vs. how one might have visited the library to research a subject in previous decades/centuries. That is, an easy to consume vs a critical thinking approach. 'Curious about something complicated and/or nuanced? The answer is one click away.'

I've got a bit of cognitive dissonance on the subject, so I'm wondering what HN thinks.

2 comments

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jos_s
My theory is, this is why Google doesn't care abt search anymore. It doesn't matter what is on the second result page.

Let the arms race for the first couple results on any subject sort search out init?

The rest will putrify away with time and the entire useful internet will shrink back to something that will likely fit on some future multi terrabyte drive. Just like DNA. Data centers/the cloud will shutter and rust away just as most manufacturing plants have... Already today most of the largest text datasets available anywhere fit easily on your grandmoms iPad and fully searchable.

You can see the guys who run search at Google or Facebook or Amazon or Microsoft etc don't have as much influence on these firms as they once did.

We went from info scarcity to info overload thanks to the info age. Now we are going through a period where we work out what we don't need and never have needed.

Journalism and news in an environment of info overload are incapable structurally of reducing the amount of info in the world. Therefore their end is near.

terry8
Learning, education etc doesn't just require access to info. It requires guides/mentors/the right environment that produces discipline and struggle. Without that whatever learning happens is superficial.

This is why the entire eli5 trend whether it's on Reddit or done in a newspaper by a well intentioned journo or by an expert breifing a CEO or president it doesn't really produce great outcomes.

Everyone feels good doing it though :)