Ezra Taft Benson: "One must select wisely a source of news; otherwise it would be better to be uninformed than misinformed."
My own view is that you should reduce consumption dramatically, but still read some publications. And realize that in software, we have our own form of “news” that this missive applies to.
FWIW sharing my primary global non-tech news source while we are at it: The Financial Times to me is all the important news without the fluff and very much worth the subscription price. Obviously there is a heavy focus on economic news (but not exclusively).
I especially like the News Briefing which I can listen to conveniently with a "Hey Siri, play the FT News Briefing" while doing my morning routine. These podcasts as well as Alphaville (https://ftalphaville.ft.com) are actually free.
I probably should read more widely but I had been disappointed by traditional outlets like the BBC or The Economist for a long while now. It also feels like the world's balance of power is shifting heavily at this time so I'm not sure where I can get high quality global news without our natural western bias (our perspective increasingly feels like wishful thinking to me).
I will second Financial Times as a great news source. It's also a great conversation starter if you subscribe ("why is your newspaper pink"?).
Financial news, in general, tend to be my favorites because their biases don't tend to fall strongly along political lines, so you get fewer outrage-of-the-day stories, fewer what's-trending-on-twitter stories, and less politics in general - unless it's a really meaningful story that can affect markets.
I always remember what Chomsky said about this: Business newspapers actually tend to be as true-to-reality and BS-free as possible, since they need to present information as accurately as possible for businesspeople to make the right decisions.
FT is fine as far as it goes, but it ignores most of the world's news except for business/finance stuff and the same mostly-useless "headline" stories you see everywhere else. Unless all you care about is the finance markets, it doesn't have much to say that is important your life and the world.
That filter is exactly what makes it valuable to me. Financial news still has to report political news if it has real-world impact on the economy, or a company or a politician of sufficient import.
So watching CNBC, for example instead of NBC Nightly News, you'll still know all about the government shutdown or the possible resignation of the governor of Virginia or a winter storm shutting down half the country, but you won't have to endure endless, excruciating segments about a kid smiling at a guy beating a drum.
I've noticed that ever since the blockade of Quatar began, Al Jazeera has been slowly starting to push soft propaganda. The Best thing about AJ is that has stories from places that other news outlets ignore.
There is always western bias. You are in the U.S., with your U.S. perspective, probably reading a piece by someone with a U.S. perspective. How can you possibly write accurately about Malaysia if you've never grown up there, don't know the social customs, don't know what people do there, don't know the slang, don't have friends or relatives there, never had a job there, never went to school there, never eaten the food there, never cooked the food there, etc. Bias exists because you can't possibly write about something you have no perspective on, and you can't find a good writer with relevant perspective on every single event in the world; there will never be unbiased news because it is impossible to get perspective on every event.
What I find fascinating is how we can quantify this bias. Here are two examples of my research on the NY Times with terrorism coverage by region + general coverage by country:
If you want more alternative perspectives, especially about the East, South China Morning Post could be an interesting choice. IMO they do a decent job in presenting opinions from both sides (definitely nothing similar to the CCP propaganda newspapers).
That's a great article about how toxic media is. I skimmed but didn't see the part that helps me find good media, just a guide that will help me reject bad media (which is all the media I can find)
I'll add my daily list here if anyone is looking for other sources. I mostly use it as a 'headlines' method, but if something catches my eye, I'll dive in. If you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them! Please excuse the wall of text:
For the last 4-5 years, Hacker News has been pretty much my only source of any kind of news outside of the topics that I work with on a daily basis. This is true.
Before that, I did not read newspapers or follow any kind of journalism. I still recall being around age 12 or 13 and making a conscious decision not to watch TV anymore. It has been around just as much time since I last saw a TV news report.
Maybe it has something to do with mentality? Is the new generation reading news? I highly doubt it. I think the new generation is caught up in quizzes that stir up emotions, and psychological tests that determine whether a giraffe is your spirit animal.
I'm not even sure if that makes sense, but I know that newspapers don't make any sense whatsoever; despite it being the livelihood of so many folks.
How can anyone justify reading news that only talk about negative things? I don't have time for that kind of nonsense in my life. I know the system is broken, corrupt, beyond repair -- why remind me about it every day?
That's the same reason I don't watch news on TV, they're always covering negative stories about how politicians are corrupt, big organizations cheat the system, etc. I just don't feel like being more pessimistic than I already are.
> I think the new generation is caught up in quizzes that stir up emotions, and psychological tests that determine whether a giraffe is your spirit animal.
Given the activism they're showing in, eg, the US, I think if you read the news, you'd be surprised how wrong you are.
> How can anyone justify reading news that only talk about negative things?
The number of people who perform some kind of activism is way lower than voter turnout. What makes you think there are lots of people who are doing "performative" activism that isn't translating into them voting or otherwise participating in the system?
I consider it a little dangerous to rely on a single news source. Granted HN as an aggregator is better than relying on a single paper but it's still a bit unhealthy to read all news in a HN framing (assuming you read comments+newsitem). Even if you just use it as an aggregator it's still fairly selective.
Additionally, HN is very "high level". I don't know how involved you are in the community you live in but I always consume at least one "hyperlocal" paper (+local radio) to stay up to speed on the things that happen in my immediate neighborhood.
> but I always consume at least one "hyperlocal" paper (+local radio) to stay up to speed on the things that happen in my immediate neighborhood.
I use FB in order to stay up-to-date with news from my childhood town, of which I moved out 18 years ago. It kind of gives me a feeling of belonging, even though almost all of my friends and even my parents have moved out of that town.
HN is my news feed for tech, but I have realised that my news feed for "rest of the world" has reduced down to radio / TV weekly comedy shows. Things like BBC news quiz or Mock The Week, (similar to US's John Oliver/ Steve Colbert) actually do a fairly good job of capturing the headlines and providing concise updates. As well as enough cynicism to keep me on my toes.
The only time it failed me was a few years back when a disgruntled Tory party donor spread rumours that the then PM David Cameron had put his dick in a pigs mouth as a university hazing ritual. As no mainstream media would ever dare print that, but people slowly got the right twitter link from friends, there were two weeks when a "oink oink" joke would cause half the country to convulse in laughter and the other half (me included) to wonder what the hell was going on.
You have just stated that your source of news is comedians who were doing standup routines in nightclubs before their current TV gig and, in fact, still do comedy at night clubs (John Oliver for one).
That's OK. A lot of people aren't aware of that. You can fix that.
Same. HN is the only stream of "news" I consume. And I kind of miss the older HN where non-tech "news" was immediately flagged to oblivion. So now I have to consciously skip irrelevant stuff (arguably like this one).
There was never such a time. pg himself (the creator of the site), who left in 2014, submitted way more liberally than just tech stuff: https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=pg
> I know the system is broken, corrupt, beyond repair -- why remind me about it every day?
Perhaps only having Hacker News as your source of news has led to that mentality. That's not to say it isn't broken, or there isn't corruption, but I don't think things are beyond repair, and they can certainly be worse.
Wow you just shat on people who read the news and people who don't in a single comment, while elevating your own head-buried-in-the-sand preference as the elite choice.
> Is the new generation reading news? I highly doubt it.
Instead of doubting it, try doing some research.
"Age does not impact people’s attentiveness to various news topics. Even the youngest adults are as likely to pay attention to news [...] as older adults. Further, they are no more likely than older adults to follow news on lifestyle topics."[1]
> I think the new generation is caught up in quizzes that stir up emotions, and psychological tests that determine whether a giraffe is your spirit animal.
This is incredibly condescending and seemingly not based in any statistical reality.
> I know the system is broken, corrupt, beyond repair -- why remind me about it every day?
Because knowing how "the system" is broken today (which differ from yesterday or last week) makes you an informed citizen. When enough informed citizens vote, the system is significantly less broken.
If you don't inform yourself and vote, you are one of the reasons the system is still dangerously broken. I hope well-run governments are not a matter of life and death for you, because they are for billions of other people.
This is assuming the vote actually has a significant impact on the state of things. I vote, but I'm not sure I could justify that belief with evidence.
> For the last 4-5 years, Hacker News has been pretty much my only source of any kind of news outside of the topics that I work with on a daily basis. This is true.
Why?
Hacker News is a content aggregator, no different than Reddit, Twitter or Facebook. The posters here are not unbiased, nor are they likely to be experts in every subject they comment on, unless it's about tech, and then only maybe.
I can understand preferring Hacker News for technical news, or to avoid mainstream news, but as a primary news source? I think you're letting HN's elitist cultural bias cloud your sense of objectivity if you think this one internet forum is a better a news provider than any other.
I'm with you, though I sometimes supplement it with news.google.com which at least mentions when certain articles are commentary. If a story interests me enough then I go ahead and research it from all major media sources, especially opposing sides and do my best to form a conclusion that makes sense, usually keeping those to myself since others will only have familiarity with one source or the next. Of course sometimes I land on the not-so-major media sources like blogs that call out mainstream media issues too.
I'm what the mainstream media calls a millennial (only discovered I had that title after 10 years of being one apparently, shows how much I buy into the Media). I have seen time and time again how toxic the media can be even for democracy. During the last election where Ron Paul was a candidate they gave him the least amount of air time on television[0][1][2], and thus he became irrelevant to most Americans because they are glued to the TV and the news organizations, he wasn't the kind of person that would of sold advertisement eye balls I guess. I guess if you want a solid candidate to be president buy all the ad space most major news organization will offer? He was a rare gem I got excited to vote for but couldn't.
HN is a good filter. If it makes it to HN and happens in the real world then it probably is worth taking note.
Regarding your choice not to watch TV at age 12-13, this reminds me of reading tabloid newspapers at that age or possibly earlier. It all seemed so much below me and for people that must be thick.
HN is NOT a good filter though it's better than some. Judging by the person's statement, he is around 18 years old. For all I know, so are you. And so are 80% of anonymous "news" sources posted here.
Anonymous postings on the internet, no matter where, are the worst thing that has happened to civilization since anonymous reports to the police of wrongdoings of a neighbor.
The comment you are referring to was made by someone considerably older than eighteen.
> Is the new generation reading news? I highly doubt it. I think the new generation is caught up in quizzes that stir up emotions, and psychological tests that determine whether a giraffe is your spirit animal.
When people write of the 'new generation' they tend to be a generation older and slightly out of touch with this 'new generation'. I think you are allowing your assumptions to cloud your judgement somewhat.
80% of this so-called 'news' that you are seemingly quite assertive in defending is the creation of PR agencies. Not sure what relevance your comments on 'anonymous news' has to do with my comment.
I stand by my original comment, there is no point getting engrossed in the Punch and Judy Trump show, Brexit or anything else of that ilk. There is also another question that has to be asked of news - 'does this affect my life or the world I live in?' This applies to sport too, following with a passion the comings and goings of sports celebrities is a waste of time unless you play the sport yourself.
Hence HN is a very good filter. A normal news source will have stories that are clickbait, hard to not be interested in at an entertainment level.
This attitude does not mean passivity, a lack of interest in the world and a lack of engagement in politics. On the contrary, people that shout at their TV to the tune of the latest Trumpisms are stuck on their sofa and not doing anything.
I am NOT defending television or radio as a news source. Far from it. I am very aware of its creation by PR and ad agencies. Not only did I work in the TV and radio business for 10 years but my nephew's fiance is a producer for a large TV station. I think she's great so I bite my tongue.
I've done the same, but only for the past few years. I grew tired, emotionally exhausted even, of being bombarded with strongly biased negativity, images of war, brutality, poverty and injustice, NIMBYism and fake outrage - and most of all, at my sense of helplessness against it all. I could do nothing about any of it, and resolved to remove it from my life.
Since I did so, I've been much happier. I can't avoid all news - for example, I see non-tech stuff on HN sometimes, or see Trump's latest nonsense in my Twitter timeline - but with the exception of technical stuff on HN, I never seek it out.
> Is the new generation reading news? I highly doubt it. I think the new generation is caught up in quizzes that stir up emotions, and psychological tests that determine whether a giraffe is your spirit animal.
I think that you would know more about the information habits of the new generation if you actually researched it, instead of relying on HN as your only news source...
This community definitely has a lot of biases of its own, no matter how much it tries to deny it, so really, I think that for anyone, getting news from multiple sources makes it easier to come up with a more holistic interpretation of current events.
> I think the new generation is caught up in quizzes that stir up emotions, and psychological tests that determine whether a giraffe is your spirit animal.
You're definitely wrong on this point (and as others have said, it's a condescending sentiment).
This has always happened. I'm 28 and online quizzes and tests were _very_ common when I was school age.
My parent's generation also took lots of quizzes and tests, albeit they were in newspapers and magazines (and you had to tally up your own results).
“To read a newspaper is to refrain from reading something worthwhile. [....] The first discipline of education must therefore be to refuse resolutely to feed the mind with canned chatter.”
I heard a very interesting talk on Crowley by Robert Anton Wilson once. Crowley did have some rather far-out ideas. Also, I seem to recall him being in cahoots with the British Intelligence services at the time.
That comes as an explanation of the previous statements:
"Good God," I said to myself, "and this is merely New York! What must Mexico be like!" I supposed that I was experiencing normal conditions, whereas in point of fact I had landed at the climax of a heat wave which killed about a hundred people a day while it lasted. I should have discovered the truth if I had looked at a newspaper; but I did not read them.
In any case, that principle means we should probably refrain from reading HN too.
Ugh, why can't rational people see how this is an instance of "black and white thinking" cognitive distortions?
Life isn't a binary black and white, as much as software engineers would like it to be. One side says "don't ever read the news, it causes negative moods" and the another side says "you should always read the news to keep up to date with the world".
The proper way to approach the issue is to strike a balance between consumption of news or not. The aim is moderation of information and distraction, while still keeping touch with the world.
Agreed. The whole point of news providers should be that they're filtering the "new" information down to what's actually important. But because of the engagement economy we've built, the goal is instead to make EVERYTHING sounds like critical breaking news, even when it's not.
I really hope there is some kind of replacement for the 24 hour news cycle, because otherwise society will continue to polarize.
I'm not sure that a balance is generally possible without paying significant sums.
On the rare occasions that I do read news articles I find them shallow, meandering and less informative than they should be.
I used to read The Economist and found their reports useful. But that comes at a considerable cost. So the easier option is to just forgo news altogether.
Doesn't most/all news on Bloomberg Terminal make it to the public sites, with some delay? The cost of the terminal includes expensive hardware, high quality support, multi-language API bindings, etc.
One piece of anecdata: I subscribed to the Economist briefly last year and it was one of the best things I've done as far as advancing myself as a person. While the vast majority of what written about wasn't immediately relevant to me (compared even to a random programming-related blog post), it did a lot to enlighten me on the value of good journalism and broaden my world view as well as keeping me reasonably informed on happenings in the world. I stopped subscribing to the Economist because I couldn't find time to read every edition cover to cover, but I plan on starting again this year.
I also subscribe to https://lwn.net which brings up another thing -- supporting the organizations that make the news is important if you want news that is good (even if it's irrelevant right now) from being produced.
It is hard to find time to read The Economist from cover to cover. I try to at least look at each article, and read at least half of them. Even The Economist has some articles that seem ephemeral: for example, a discussion of whether a particular merger will or won't happen.
I have had their subscription twice and the only real complaint for me would be, as you also touch upon, that they almost seem to come too often. If only they had a cheaper "digital only" subscription.
I am an Economist subscriber and just download the audio edition each week. I listen to it when doing other tasks that don't require 100% mental focus such as housework and am usually able to complete each week's issue before the next one releases. I am not absorbing the content as well as if I were to sit down and read each issue, but this is a reasonable tradeoff for me.
They also have an android/iphone app for subscribers, but I've had a lot of issues with playing audio through it and find it much easier to simply download each week's .zip file of .mp3's and play them with my audio player of choice.
I, for one, would love a monthly email newsletter that summarizes the top ~100 news stories of the past 30 days. Things that turned out to be irrelevant would be ignored, while things that turned out to be important would be included and briefly commented upon.
Magazines like The Economist sort of fulfill this role, but they are often a little too detailed for the high-level overview I'm looking for.
The Economist does include a one page summary of the week's news near the start, with just one or two sentences for each story. You can use that to decide which you wish to read a whole article about later in the paper. You can even choose not to read any, though admittedly it would be a bit expensive to buy the paper and read only one page of it. (There is also a page about business news, reflecting the publication's title, and it's often worth looking at the first couple of those.)
Also worth looking at unconditionally are the letters page, which is always very good and sometimes has very famous correspondents (occasionally from tyrannical regimes making preposterous statements, with no response from the paper), and the obituary, which has an eclectic selection of very famous and very unknown individuals.
I think of something similar but less "news" lead - for example a backlog of the most "important" global issues (yes we can out climate change at number one) but it's things like "water shortages in southern sudan" at number 18 and so on that really will give perspective - when we see things like Brexit at number 67 that we know we have a proper balance.
I would start with a metric like "estimated number of excess human deaths from this issue in next year, five years fifty years" and have open transparent ways to assess the metric
Part of me feels kind of bad about this when I think about it too much, but I have substantially improved my well-being by drastically cutting down my news consumption. It's not about time management per se, but so much of the news either makes me feel sad or angry.
On the other hand, what news I do consume these days, I do consume more deliberately.
I don't like the binary choice to either read the news or ignore it. We just need to be mature enough to curate what we read, hopefully striking a healthy balance between our personal lives and what's going on in the world outside of that.
There is an amazing book written in 1925: A Heaf of a Dog by Mikhail Bulgakov. And there is just as an amazing movie based on it.
There is an exchange about not reading soviet newspapers if one cares about digestion.
He could have written a much longer article on this if he wanted to; there are deeper issues related to this subject. The characterisation of this should be news-news (company releases a new wossname, generally not a problem) and politics-news where society decides what is happening and what should be done about it. The big question is really: How does "the societal discourse" handle complicated issues?
I don't see much evidence that society at large can take an interest in a subject and maintain a sophisticated position like "there isn't enough evidence here to form an opinion". The closest that seems to be achieved in practice is two interest groups completely at loggerheads, preventing any action due to their strident opposition of each other.
In game theory terms, is there a system where a consensus opinion and a focused group of crazies can coexist without compromising in the direction of the crazies? Because the power of a focused group of political extremists is so great that it distorts political action and has significant flow on effects to journalism as political forces vie for control of the public discourse. The type of discipline to deal with something like that is clearly beyond most citizens.
I think society doesn't purposefully handle it at all currently, issues are solved by accident through simply waiting for new technologies to make all the old problems disappear. Sometimes a problem is so gigantic that no amount of spin and delusion can deny it and then things do tend to get fixed but usually with a few new problems in there as well.
Regarding your game theory question: One group being immovable in thought inevitably leads to either that group gaining more members or new immovable groups forming to fight that contender at the same level.
If you don't read the news then how are you supposed to make a judgement about who to vote for or understand current trends or be alerted to issues with products recalls or where the great bargins are?
I stopped reading newspapers very a long time ago too, haven't watched TV in several years, and because of this i miss out on most of the above.
>The point is, most of what you read online today is pointless. It’s not important to your life. It’s not going to help you make better decisions. It’s not going to help you understand the world.
That's an awfully privileged position to take. I'm going to guess the author isn't likely to have their status as a person invalidated, their religion declared illegal, or their citizenship revoked any time soon. I'm going to guess he's of a race that isn't likely to be a target of a government endorsed hate crime.
---
I purposefully wrote that paragraph before I looked up the author:
>Shane Parrish has become an unlikely guru for Wall Street. His self-improvement strategies appeal to his overachieving audience in elite finance, Silicon Valley and professional sports.
When a member of an elite class gives you advice, consider if the advice is truly in your best interest, or if it serves to cement their elite status in society. The elites benefit from keeping "the proles" in the dark.
As a member of the elite, trying to sell to other elites, Shane represents the ultimate in privilege: the type of person who is going to be just fine no matter what the government or any company decides to do. Some of us aren't so lucky.
I buy the bit about being critical about what news we consume, but I just don’t see a complete avoidance of news as being a good solution. To me, not reading news would remove more value from my life than reading too much.
My personal fix for news media was to identify exactly what I wanted from a news paper and then identify the one which suited my needs best.
This turned out to be a paper, which at the time (2017) only had a printed version. No online version at all, they do now, but I’ve never visited it. It’s a high lixcount paper with a heavy focus on society (as in statecraft not cocktails), culture and arts/literature. It’s basically the perfect paper for our cultural elite. I’m not really part of that, and I always skip the book and arts sections, so you could say the paper isn’t exactly a perfect match. It’s underlying political philosophy doesn’t even align with mine.
The thing is though, it only comes out on Fridays. This means the paper only focuses on the stuff that’s actually relevant. It also means the articles have actually journalistic depth. The combination of this means I get to stay informed without being bothered by all the irrelevant noise in the regular news cycle.
It’s been truly awesome, and if something critical happens I can always turn to internet news.
If you want to understand better than 99% of the population where the world is heading, you could do a lot worse than reading a few of the titles in the Economist's books of the year list.
Even better, read Machiavelli, human nature hasn't changed and it will help you interpret the news.
Also watch the documentary "The Century of The Self"; most news is propaganda, and this will help you spot it.
And, if you must read the news, aim for a bit of diversity (i.e. both media from the right and the left, and events in your country as seen from abroad, and triangulate), otherwise you will easily get brainwashed, censorship in dictatorships tries to block media it can't control for this very reason.
Headlines are clickbait more often than not, don't believe them, and "breaking news" is abused so often that it's become a meaningless tag.
Don't use social media as a news source, it's abysmal, even worse than tabloids.
Regarding Brexit, I got so fed up with all the media spin around it, that I set up a TVHeadend[1] server on my network, and started watching (rather listening to while I work) BBC Parliament live via a small window on my screen using VLC. Once you start hearing the de-facto source for news events, it's amazing how brazen the mass media are in the manipulation of how they reported those events to support their own agendas.
I've been doing this now for about 1 month, and although some of the coverage is mundane, most of it is quite interesting. It's also good as background 'noise' as I work from home, which can be too quiet at times.
For technical news, I follow HN, and a few other sources. I tend to cross reference the reporting and try to see through the manipulation.
Beyond technical and political news (both of which can affect me directly), I no longer have an interest in other more 'general' news. Sure, an earthquake in Indonesia may be newsworthy for example, but as it doesn't affect me directly, why waste my time with it?
We've all been conditioned to suck up all world news as if it is important - Most of it isn't, and only exists to fill airtime and/or sell adverts. Calculate how much time it takes for you to consume your daily news, and then ask yourself if that was time well spent. My guess is that it probably isn't.
Finally, depressing news sells, and good news doesn't. People want to feel that they have a better life than the sad people shown on the news. The same thing goes for Soap Operas, they trade on this effect to keep viewers. In fact the absolute reverse happens - over time, people get more depressed watching depressing news, than they would if they didn't. The effect is more pronounced in people who 'catch up' on the news just before bedtime.
>started watching (rather listening to while I work) BBC Parliament live
Sounds like compiling a list of sources like this, Oyez, and others (for people who just don't know these things can be found if one looks) could be of immediate practical benefit to society.
212 comments
[ 3693 ms ] story [ 4655 ms ] threadMy own view is that you should reduce consumption dramatically, but still read some publications. And realize that in software, we have our own form of “news” that this missive applies to.
Here’s my media literacy guide:
https://github.com/nemild/hack-the-media/blob/master/README....
And one just for the tech industry (including HN):
https://github.com/nemild/hack-the-media/blob/master/softwar...
FWIW sharing my primary global non-tech news source while we are at it: The Financial Times to me is all the important news without the fluff and very much worth the subscription price. Obviously there is a heavy focus on economic news (but not exclusively).
I especially like the News Briefing which I can listen to conveniently with a "Hey Siri, play the FT News Briefing" while doing my morning routine. These podcasts as well as Alphaville (https://ftalphaville.ft.com) are actually free.
I delved into FT last year through exploration of the Media Bias Chart for the US: https://www.adfontesmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Med...
I probably should read more widely but I had been disappointed by traditional outlets like the BBC or The Economist for a long while now. It also feels like the world's balance of power is shifting heavily at this time so I'm not sure where I can get high quality global news without our natural western bias (our perspective increasingly feels like wishful thinking to me).
Financial news, in general, tend to be my favorites because their biases don't tend to fall strongly along political lines, so you get fewer outrage-of-the-day stories, fewer what's-trending-on-twitter stories, and less politics in general - unless it's a really meaningful story that can affect markets.
So watching CNBC, for example instead of NBC Nightly News, you'll still know all about the government shutdown or the possible resignation of the governor of Virginia or a winter storm shutting down half the country, but you won't have to endure endless, excruciating segments about a kid smiling at a guy beating a drum.
How Media Fuels our Fear of Western Terrorism: https://www.nemil.com/s/part2-terrorism.html
Visualizing 10 years of International Coverage in The New York Times: https://www.nemil.com/s/nytimes-international-coverage.html
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC64gD1NN-GE_tfd0swtxcOA/vid... (a fun one)
http://www.spiegel.de/international/
http://en.people.cn/ (very good English, despite the HEAVY propaganda)
http://www.sciencemag.org/news
https://www.sfchronicle.com/
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk
https://www.foxnews.com/
http://www.asahi.com/ajw/
https://twitter.com/chismaiocity?lang=en
https://www.aljazeera.com/
https://www.dawn.com/
https://themoscowtimes.com/
https://www.democracynow.org/
https://www.abc.net.au/news/
http://www.congoindependant.com/category/presse-anglophone/ (if anyone knows of a better English paper for Congo, please let me know!)
https://www.iraqinews.com/
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai
https://www.newdelhitimes.com/category/delhincr/
https://www.scmp.com/frontpage/international
https://dailytimes.ng/category/news/
https://dailynews.co.tz/tags/local.aspx
https://www.who.int/ebola/situation-reports/drc-2018/en/
Again, apologies for the wall of text!
Before that, I did not read newspapers or follow any kind of journalism. I still recall being around age 12 or 13 and making a conscious decision not to watch TV anymore. It has been around just as much time since I last saw a TV news report.
Maybe it has something to do with mentality? Is the new generation reading news? I highly doubt it. I think the new generation is caught up in quizzes that stir up emotions, and psychological tests that determine whether a giraffe is your spirit animal.
I'm not even sure if that makes sense, but I know that newspapers don't make any sense whatsoever; despite it being the livelihood of so many folks.
How can anyone justify reading news that only talk about negative things? I don't have time for that kind of nonsense in my life. I know the system is broken, corrupt, beyond repair -- why remind me about it every day?
Given the activism they're showing in, eg, the US, I think if you read the news, you'd be surprised how wrong you are.
> How can anyone justify reading news that only talk about negative things?
To be aware of them in order to help fix them?
The number of people who perform some kind of activism is way lower than voter turnout. What makes you think there are lots of people who are doing "performative" activism that isn't translating into them voting or otherwise participating in the system?
I don't think that. Activism isn't translating into non-activists voting, hence activism being performative.
Good one.
Additionally, HN is very "high level". I don't know how involved you are in the community you live in but I always consume at least one "hyperlocal" paper (+local radio) to stay up to speed on the things that happen in my immediate neighborhood.
I use FB in order to stay up-to-date with news from my childhood town, of which I moved out 18 years ago. It kind of gives me a feeling of belonging, even though almost all of my friends and even my parents have moved out of that town.
The only time it failed me was a few years back when a disgruntled Tory party donor spread rumours that the then PM David Cameron had put his dick in a pigs mouth as a university hazing ritual. As no mainstream media would ever dare print that, but people slowly got the right twitter link from friends, there were two weeks when a "oink oink" joke would cause half the country to convulse in laughter and the other half (me included) to wonder what the hell was going on.
That's OK. A lot of people aren't aware of that. You can fix that.
Your comment shows how conscious you are while skipping "irrelevant" stuff.
Perhaps only having Hacker News as your source of news has led to that mentality. That's not to say it isn't broken, or there isn't corruption, but I don't think things are beyond repair, and they can certainly be worse.
Ok, next time I will omit the part where I say that HN has been my only source of news.
I'm not even mad! That's amazing!
Instead of doubting it, try doing some research.
"Age does not impact people’s attentiveness to various news topics. Even the youngest adults are as likely to pay attention to news [...] as older adults. Further, they are no more likely than older adults to follow news on lifestyle topics."[1]
> I think the new generation is caught up in quizzes that stir up emotions, and psychological tests that determine whether a giraffe is your spirit animal.
This is incredibly condescending and seemingly not based in any statistical reality.
> I know the system is broken, corrupt, beyond repair -- why remind me about it every day?
Because knowing how "the system" is broken today (which differ from yesterday or last week) makes you an informed citizen. When enough informed citizens vote, the system is significantly less broken.
If you don't inform yourself and vote, you are one of the reasons the system is still dangerously broken. I hope well-run governments are not a matter of life and death for you, because they are for billions of other people.
1. https://www.americanpressinstitute.org/publications/reports/...
Not sure if that helps, but thank you for voting!
※ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18380366
Why?
Hacker News is a content aggregator, no different than Reddit, Twitter or Facebook. The posters here are not unbiased, nor are they likely to be experts in every subject they comment on, unless it's about tech, and then only maybe.
I can understand preferring Hacker News for technical news, or to avoid mainstream news, but as a primary news source? I think you're letting HN's elitist cultural bias cloud your sense of objectivity if you think this one internet forum is a better a news provider than any other.
I'm what the mainstream media calls a millennial (only discovered I had that title after 10 years of being one apparently, shows how much I buy into the Media). I have seen time and time again how toxic the media can be even for democracy. During the last election where Ron Paul was a candidate they gave him the least amount of air time on television[0][1][2], and thus he became irrelevant to most Americans because they are glued to the TV and the news organizations, he wasn't the kind of person that would of sold advertisement eye balls I guess. I guess if you want a solid candidate to be president buy all the ad space most major news organization will offer? He was a rare gem I got excited to vote for but couldn't.
[0]: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/10/ron-pau...
[1]: http://www.journalism.org/numbers/are-media-ignoring-ron-pau...
[2]: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/is-ron-paul-getting-unfair-medi...
Regarding your choice not to watch TV at age 12-13, this reminds me of reading tabloid newspapers at that age or possibly earlier. It all seemed so much below me and for people that must be thick.
Anonymous postings on the internet, no matter where, are the worst thing that has happened to civilization since anonymous reports to the police of wrongdoings of a neighbor.
google.com/search?q=whatsapp+massacre
> Is the new generation reading news? I highly doubt it. I think the new generation is caught up in quizzes that stir up emotions, and psychological tests that determine whether a giraffe is your spirit animal.
When people write of the 'new generation' they tend to be a generation older and slightly out of touch with this 'new generation'. I think you are allowing your assumptions to cloud your judgement somewhat.
80% of this so-called 'news' that you are seemingly quite assertive in defending is the creation of PR agencies. Not sure what relevance your comments on 'anonymous news' has to do with my comment.
I stand by my original comment, there is no point getting engrossed in the Punch and Judy Trump show, Brexit or anything else of that ilk. There is also another question that has to be asked of news - 'does this affect my life or the world I live in?' This applies to sport too, following with a passion the comings and goings of sports celebrities is a waste of time unless you play the sport yourself.
Hence HN is a very good filter. A normal news source will have stories that are clickbait, hard to not be interested in at an entertainment level.
This attitude does not mean passivity, a lack of interest in the world and a lack of engagement in politics. On the contrary, people that shout at their TV to the tune of the latest Trumpisms are stuck on their sofa and not doing anything.
Since I did so, I've been much happier. I can't avoid all news - for example, I see non-tech stuff on HN sometimes, or see Trump's latest nonsense in my Twitter timeline - but with the exception of technical stuff on HN, I never seek it out.
I think that you would know more about the information habits of the new generation if you actually researched it, instead of relying on HN as your only news source...
This community definitely has a lot of biases of its own, no matter how much it tries to deny it, so really, I think that for anyone, getting news from multiple sources makes it easier to come up with a more holistic interpretation of current events.
You're definitely wrong on this point (and as others have said, it's a condescending sentiment).
This has always happened. I'm 28 and online quizzes and tests were _very_ common when I was school age.
My parent's generation also took lots of quizzes and tests, albeit they were in newspapers and magazines (and you had to tally up your own results).
― Aleister Crowley
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qt8TZ0hYHiE
"Good God," I said to myself, "and this is merely New York! What must Mexico be like!" I supposed that I was experiencing normal conditions, whereas in point of fact I had landed at the climax of a heat wave which killed about a hundred people a day while it lasted. I should have discovered the truth if I had looked at a newspaper; but I did not read them.
In any case, that principle means we should probably refrain from reading HN too.
Life isn't a binary black and white, as much as software engineers would like it to be. One side says "don't ever read the news, it causes negative moods" and the another side says "you should always read the news to keep up to date with the world".
The proper way to approach the issue is to strike a balance between consumption of news or not. The aim is moderation of information and distraction, while still keeping touch with the world.
I really hope there is some kind of replacement for the 24 hour news cycle, because otherwise society will continue to polarize.
On the rare occasions that I do read news articles I find them shallow, meandering and less informative than they should be.
I used to read The Economist and found their reports useful. But that comes at a considerable cost. So the easier option is to just forgo news altogether.
https://sivers.org/compensate
Mainstream news is practically given away. The hidden cost--whatever that may or may not be--I leave to the philosophers.
c.f. https://www.quora.com/What-is-so-special-about-the-Bloomberg...
I also subscribe to https://lwn.net which brings up another thing -- supporting the organizations that make the news is important if you want news that is good (even if it's irrelevant right now) from being produced.
Generally when I buy a copy, it goes something like this:
- News in brief at the front
- Feature articles that I particularly like the sound of
- Then I go through it skimming and stopping when something catches my eye based on how much time I have
Getting the digital version also means you don't feel the pang of the dead tree sat there making you guilty, too.
They also have an android/iphone app for subscribers, but I've had a lot of issues with playing audio through it and find it much easier to simply download each week's .zip file of .mp3's and play them with my audio player of choice.
Magazines like The Economist sort of fulfill this role, but they are often a little too detailed for the high-level overview I'm looking for.
Also worth looking at unconditionally are the letters page, which is always very good and sometimes has very famous correspondents (occasionally from tyrannical regimes making preposterous statements, with no response from the paper), and the obituary, which has an eclectic selection of very famous and very unknown individuals.
I would start with a metric like "estimated number of excess human deaths from this issue in next year, five years fifty years" and have open transparent ways to assess the metric
at least this way we are transparently surfacing the issues and there is ability for people to apply different curation criteria
Basically I would love to get the weekly report from the US national security advisor - that's basically what I think Inam trying to create.
On the other hand, what news I do consume these days, I do consume more deliberately.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOE_3_Ws4y0&feature=youtu.be... (English subtitles are available).
I don't see much evidence that society at large can take an interest in a subject and maintain a sophisticated position like "there isn't enough evidence here to form an opinion". The closest that seems to be achieved in practice is two interest groups completely at loggerheads, preventing any action due to their strident opposition of each other.
In game theory terms, is there a system where a consensus opinion and a focused group of crazies can coexist without compromising in the direction of the crazies? Because the power of a focused group of political extremists is so great that it distorts political action and has significant flow on effects to journalism as political forces vie for control of the public discourse. The type of discipline to deal with something like that is clearly beyond most citizens.
I stopped reading newspapers very a long time ago too, haven't watched TV in several years, and because of this i miss out on most of the above.
That's an awfully privileged position to take. I'm going to guess the author isn't likely to have their status as a person invalidated, their religion declared illegal, or their citizenship revoked any time soon. I'm going to guess he's of a race that isn't likely to be a target of a government endorsed hate crime.
---
I purposefully wrote that paragraph before I looked up the author:
>Shane Parrish has become an unlikely guru for Wall Street. His self-improvement strategies appeal to his overachieving audience in elite finance, Silicon Valley and professional sports.
When a member of an elite class gives you advice, consider if the advice is truly in your best interest, or if it serves to cement their elite status in society. The elites benefit from keeping "the proles" in the dark.
As a member of the elite, trying to sell to other elites, Shane represents the ultimate in privilege: the type of person who is going to be just fine no matter what the government or any company decides to do. Some of us aren't so lucky.
My personal fix for news media was to identify exactly what I wanted from a news paper and then identify the one which suited my needs best.
This turned out to be a paper, which at the time (2017) only had a printed version. No online version at all, they do now, but I’ve never visited it. It’s a high lixcount paper with a heavy focus on society (as in statecraft not cocktails), culture and arts/literature. It’s basically the perfect paper for our cultural elite. I’m not really part of that, and I always skip the book and arts sections, so you could say the paper isn’t exactly a perfect match. It’s underlying political philosophy doesn’t even align with mine.
The thing is though, it only comes out on Fridays. This means the paper only focuses on the stuff that’s actually relevant. It also means the articles have actually journalistic depth. The combination of this means I get to stay informed without being bothered by all the irrelevant noise in the regular news cycle.
It’s been truly awesome, and if something critical happens I can always turn to internet news.
Even better, read Machiavelli, human nature hasn't changed and it will help you interpret the news.
Also watch the documentary "The Century of The Self"; most news is propaganda, and this will help you spot it.
And, if you must read the news, aim for a bit of diversity (i.e. both media from the right and the left, and events in your country as seen from abroad, and triangulate), otherwise you will easily get brainwashed, censorship in dictatorships tries to block media it can't control for this very reason.
Headlines are clickbait more often than not, don't believe them, and "breaking news" is abused so often that it's become a meaningless tag.
Don't use social media as a news source, it's abysmal, even worse than tabloids.
I've been doing this now for about 1 month, and although some of the coverage is mundane, most of it is quite interesting. It's also good as background 'noise' as I work from home, which can be too quiet at times.
For technical news, I follow HN, and a few other sources. I tend to cross reference the reporting and try to see through the manipulation.
Beyond technical and political news (both of which can affect me directly), I no longer have an interest in other more 'general' news. Sure, an earthquake in Indonesia may be newsworthy for example, but as it doesn't affect me directly, why waste my time with it?
We've all been conditioned to suck up all world news as if it is important - Most of it isn't, and only exists to fill airtime and/or sell adverts. Calculate how much time it takes for you to consume your daily news, and then ask yourself if that was time well spent. My guess is that it probably isn't.
Finally, depressing news sells, and good news doesn't. People want to feel that they have a better life than the sad people shown on the news. The same thing goes for Soap Operas, they trade on this effect to keep viewers. In fact the absolute reverse happens - over time, people get more depressed watching depressing news, than they would if they didn't. The effect is more pronounced in people who 'catch up' on the news just before bedtime.
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[1] https://tvheadend.org/
Sounds like compiling a list of sources like this, Oyez, and others (for people who just don't know these things can be found if one looks) could be of immediate practical benefit to society.
Reading news more often than once a day is masochism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events