> We marinate in the news. We may be familiar with the headlines before we have exchanged a word with another human in the morning; we kill time on the bus or in queues by checking Twitter, only to find ourselves plunged into the dramas of presidential politics or humanitarian emergencies. By one estimate, 70% of us take our news-delivery devices to bed with us at night.
Some people do this. And I'm guilty of having been one of them. But I realized that the constant negative news cycle started to shape my outlook on the world around me.
Earlier this year I decided that the cycle of indulging in consumption of (usually negative) news, worrying about it, and then repeating is a waste of time and probably takes away from who I am rather than adding anything of real value. I don't check Twitter, I trying to avoid Facebook. I don't even watch my favorite late night talk show hosts (sorry Colbert). I've replaced them with audiobooks and podcasts.
I am significantly happier for it. And minor anxieties I had that were unrelated to current events seem to have gone away too.
The reason I visit hn is because it's typically technical news. Other news stories do make it to the front page occasionally, but they're normally big stories or tangentially related to tech. That's a trade-off I'm willing to make.
Yes, although the things that fall within the scope of what HN considers to be newsworthy generally don't present the problems that I have with mainstream news.
Same. It was a hard pill to swallow because I took a lot of pride in being "informed". But, at the end of the day you're along for the ride. I figured it makes the most sense to stay current about news that is relevant to my career and hobbies and skip the rest.
Weren't these patterns the same in the era of news delivered via newspaper? In old movies, the family reads the newspaper at the breakfast table, and in old photographs, everybody on the bus had a newspaper in their hands.
Without even reading it I think I can predict the unspoken intent of the article: anything that undermines our suppression of opposing viewpoints must itself be suppressed.
Off to check.. Yep that's pretty much the gist of it.
While I enjoy reading some of the political reporting on Brexit on the guardian, they are amongst the least balanced newspapers on general societal and cultural issues.
what does balanced mean to people who comment on the lack of balance in the news? giving equal weight and time to all viewpoints? that seems to be a crazy thing to expect since soke viewpoints are totally bonkers (example: flat earthers). perhaps a better way to critique would be to specify exactly what viewpoint you feel is being ignored or treated unfairly and justify that claim. otherwise “not balanced” comes across like a thought terminating meme, with no information attached.
It means they have fully subscribed to an intersectional victim culture that is obsessed with race, identity and oppression. It means giving platform to e.g. journalists inciting personal campaigns against e.g. Tim Hunt or whoever is the wrong-thinker of the hour.
Outrage sells so this is a rational strategy for them, it is just surprising they have a better reputation than, say, Fox News.
Let's say that a popular politician believes that vaccines cause autism. In order to be impartial, does the news outlet now have to give equal weight to people who believe in a lie?
Or what if what the majority believes is actually abhorrent? Like for example, let's say the majority believe (or choose to simply ignore) that it's a good thing to put a bunch of ethnic minorities in concentration camps. Whether it's due to propaganda or threats from the government. In this hypothetical example, let's call these people Uyghurs.
Is the impartial outlet supposed to give equal consideration to both sides? Maybe bring up a few positives of concentration camps?
>Let's say that a popular politician believes that vaccines cause autism. In order to be impartial, does the news outlet now have to give equal weight to people who believe in a lie?
The political matters news outlets cover are not confined to scientific issues (like vaccines) that can be settled by some expert consensus. They can dismiss such claims easily, and those are not the point anyway.
Nor are most political issues as clear cut as putting minorities in "concentration camps" -- that's a contrived example, making sound like anything not approved by the Guardian amounts to Hitler (or, in this case, Chinese state oppression -- though even this story might have more nuance than what we're getting).
The most important political issues cannot be classified as "a lie", they are just different ways of thinking of what's good, beneficial, important short or long term, etc. And of course, different interests, to different segments of the population, or to different countries, cultures, etc.
Examples? The arguments pro or against social democracy or liberalism. The arguments pro or against immigration. Or pro or against EU governance. Or pro or against certain fiscal policies. Or pro or against surveillance. Or pro or against privacy. Or pro or against this or that war or intervention or enemy du jour. Or pro or against this or that technology. Or pro or against this or that education reform. Or pro or against Assange. And so on...
Yet those nuanced things are still presented as one side is the "good side" and the other is either evil or deluded or a liar.
There is zero website, news team or otherwise that adheres to your nigh-impossible lofty ideals of 'neutrality'. Every single site is going to have some bias in one direction or another.
For example, EFF is obviously going to be biased against anything that takes away privacy. The Guardian is going to be more left leaning than The Daily Mail and so forth.
Can you name me a single example of a website behaving according to the rules that you've laid down?
>There is zero website, news team or otherwise that adheres to your nigh-impossible lofty ideals of 'neutrality'. Every single site is going to have some bias in one direction or another.
I don't care for "some bias in one direction or another", nor I have "nigh-impossible lofty ideals".
I just don't like to be taken for a fool with blatant bias -- which many outlets have, including the Guardian.
>For example, EFF is obviously going to be biased against anything that takes away privacy. The Guardian is going to be more left leaning than The Daily Mail and so forth.
Again those things are not really relevant to what I say. You can be more left or right leaning, or be more pro-privacy than anti-privacy and still tell things like they are (including in your opinion pieces) without demonizing the other side, misrepresenting their arguments, using uncharitable interpretations, using imagery and statistics for cheap tricks, and so on.
In other words, you can still report and opinion on things in good faith, despite having a bias.
When I say "balanced news", I don't mind if the media has a clear bias on a topic which shines through. It's fine if there is a right side, and they come down firmly on that side.
The issue comes when it feels like they're leaving out information or a perspective which would be harmful to their case. Basically if I read something in the news and after reading it I felt like the story made it look like one side was obviously correct, but then I go and look up more sources or more information and I will feel like there's a lot more nuance to it or my opinion even reverses, then I feel like there's been a huge failure in the media and I call that "not balanced".
It feels like they strawman the opinions they disagree with while pulling in the best representatives and sources for the positions they agree with.
Why would you expect balance? With the possible exception of the Independent which tries, no British newspaper is attempting balance - they’re all opinionated.
Well, it's the Guardian after all, what did you expect?
Establishment press was bad in the 60s already, which was why there was a flourishing counter-movement, from the early Rolling Stone to underground press.
In due time, the Rolling Stone turned to the content-less rag that it is today, and e.g. the once revolutionary Liberation turned into a centre-left more of the same, similar fate awaited most of the once alternative press.
Nowadays with the web as equalizer, alternative sources also directly compete for viewers with any established outlet (they're just another URL away). So they are far more fierce with them, presenting any opposing viewpoint as beyond the pale (even if shared by a great chunk of the population, or even the majority), and cheering for their de-platforming.
Yes. A significant percentage of people are any combination of racist, sexist or homophobic.
Their views are well represented in other newspapers, media and in politics. In fact in the UK it can be argued to be the majority view.
Why is it that these people always want to say that they're the real victims whilst sugarcoating their views with the phrase "opposing viewpoints". It's like there's a playbook to follow for disingenuous argument.
>Yes. A significant percentage of people are any combination of racist, sexist or homophobic.
And a great majority of people don't particularly like giving sovereignty to participate into a nebulous "European Union" which mostly promotes German interests and Brussels bureucrats, don't welcome immigration as panacea without thinking their race is superior (just that their country doesn't need more people coming in, whether caucasian or black or whatever), have a good relationship with their spouses without turning everything into a war of the sexes and a fight against "patriarchy", and are straight/LGBT/etc, etc, and content with it, without making everything be about their sexual preferences, or approving of BS demands like trans persons competing in women's sports, or the "cotton ceiling".
And yet those people are frequently classified as racist, sexist and homophobic, because any nuance away from a constantly widening Overton window is considered beyond the pale -- even if what they say could very well have been the opinion of the mainstream of the left population in, say, 1980s (heck, in 1999 in Seattle the left fought against "globalization", and today anybody that speaks against the same is a "populist/Trump supporter/xenophobic/etc").
>Why is it that these people always want to say that they're the real victims whilst sugarcoating their views with the phrase "opposing viewpoints". It's like there's a playbook to follow for disingenuous argument.
So, just like there's a playbook to demonize the other side with thought-crimes ("anybody that says X is "racist, sexist or homophobic", and you get to define how wide X can be...).
To me it wasn’t about that at all. I read it in the context of the movie “Network” — the evolution of news from a public service towards one of profit generation. The point seems to be that as a culture we take “news” as reality. But ultimately it’s its own construct; having more to do with pulling emotional strings for attention than pushing a particular agenda. [Bias and propaganda certainly exist; but the argument here is about a different, overriding bias that serves the aims of “news” itself.]
James Fallows of the Atlantic has a great book from a long time ago called “Breaking the News” which offers a compelling take on how we ended up in this state, and what the news is really about.
If there was a time when news was a public service ( at least in the US or even anywhere in the world ), I'd be interested to find out. My take on news has been that it's always been about influence, power and control. Public service ( like the weather ) are secondary considerations. And profit isn't a real consideration for major news companies.
It why the guardian can exist for 20 years without a profit.
It's why WashingtonPost is bailed out by Bezos. Do you really think Bezos bought the WashingonPost to make money?
The first newspapers in the US and during colonial times were created by wealthy landowners and business elites to push their views and ideology. Fundamentally, I don't think much has changed, but I'm open to having my mind changed.
> And profit isn't a real consideration for major news companies.
You names WaPo and NYT but those are tiny in reach and revenue compared to CNN or Fox News, which are both extremely profitable. Bezos WaPo for $250 million which is barely more than a third of CNN's profit in 2018 [1] and Fox's profitability is even bigger [2] with a giant warchest after the sale of its other media assets. The television news channels that most Americans get their news from are very profit motivated and some like Fox have found idealogical niches that are consistent across media empires like News Corp but they all just push outrage for profit.
It's very hard to see how you reached this conclusion, which seems to show more knee-jerk bias on your part.
The article is (in the main) about our relationship to news. The ever increasing saturation of 'news' into our everyday lives with constant demands for our attention and the impact on individuals and society.
It actually advocates rising above news and connecting on a human level with each other rather than political in order to push the news cycle out of our lives.
Here are some quotes from the article:
"The belief that we’re morally obliged to stay plugged in – that this level of time commitment and emotional investment is the only way to stay informed about the state of the world – begins to look more and more like an alibi for our addiction to our devices."
"At Thanksgiving with your Trumpist uncle, the point is not to seek agreement or compromise, but to grasp that we are not fully defined by our political allegiances – and that, as Talisse puts it, “in order to treat each other as political equals, we must see each other as something more than citizens”. "
And the last paragraph:
"But it may be the only practical way for us to begin to foster a change. If the colonisation of everyday life by the news is damaging both to ourselves and to democratic politics, we ought not to collaborate unthinkingly with that process. Far from it being our moral duty to care so much about the news, it may in fact be our duty to start caring somewhat less."
How are they supresssing oposing viewpoints when alternative news sources are consistantly producing stories with a wide range of points of view? What is it exactly that they are supresssing? Through the internet I can easily access all sorts of takes on any topic.
Twice, now, I've written a story--and deleted--about local TV news people I'm close to compared to when I worked in TV news in the early 1970s. There is no comparison and I wish I could leave what I wrote here.
Back then, the TV news reporters were former newspaper reporters who spent days digging political underhandedness. I once had a TV reporter call me, recently, cause someone referred her saying I had knowledge of a topic. Misunderstanding what she asked, I called back 30 minutes later I did have the information she needed but she said it was too late and they weren't going to run the story.
A few days ago, a news producer was reviewing dog toys.
How do you solve that dilemma between disconnecting from news because it can make you happier and less stressed and disconnecting from news because you're privileged to do so? the parts of the article about the "need" to stay aware of what's happening at the very least certainly ring true for me.
Judging by the author's article history, there is good money to be made in playing on other people's insecurities.
We should look at articles like this for what it is: the 2010s version of self-help. And as with most self-help, the author is more interested in heightening awareness of the things that are 'holding you back' than providing any meaningful solution.
It might help if filtering were better in more places.
On YouTube, I mostly see accordion videos and that's the way I like it. On Twitter, even if I follow people who don't talk about politics, they will "like" other people's tweets that then show up in my feed.
On Facebook, there should be a way to turn off reshares for someone you're friends with.
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 101 ms ] threadSome people do this. And I'm guilty of having been one of them. But I realized that the constant negative news cycle started to shape my outlook on the world around me.
Earlier this year I decided that the cycle of indulging in consumption of (usually negative) news, worrying about it, and then repeating is a waste of time and probably takes away from who I am rather than adding anything of real value. I don't check Twitter, I trying to avoid Facebook. I don't even watch my favorite late night talk show hosts (sorry Colbert). I've replaced them with audiobooks and podcasts.
I am significantly happier for it. And minor anxieties I had that were unrelated to current events seem to have gone away too.
The reason I visit hn is because it's typically technical news. Other news stories do make it to the front page occasionally, but they're normally big stories or tangentially related to tech. That's a trade-off I'm willing to make.
Off to check.. Yep that's pretty much the gist of it.
Outrage sells so this is a rational strategy for them, it is just surprising they have a better reputation than, say, Fox News.
Covering all _major_ viewpoints with decency, and not demonizing the ones they disagree with.
Here's a trick impartial outlets use all the time, for example:
a favorite politician is presented in nice flattering photographs,
a politician they don't like is presented in unflattering photographs, selected to make them look evil, etc.
(Now extend this to coverage of their actions inside the articles).
Let's say that a popular politician believes that vaccines cause autism. In order to be impartial, does the news outlet now have to give equal weight to people who believe in a lie?
Or what if what the majority believes is actually abhorrent? Like for example, let's say the majority believe (or choose to simply ignore) that it's a good thing to put a bunch of ethnic minorities in concentration camps. Whether it's due to propaganda or threats from the government. In this hypothetical example, let's call these people Uyghurs.
Is the impartial outlet supposed to give equal consideration to both sides? Maybe bring up a few positives of concentration camps?
The political matters news outlets cover are not confined to scientific issues (like vaccines) that can be settled by some expert consensus. They can dismiss such claims easily, and those are not the point anyway.
Nor are most political issues as clear cut as putting minorities in "concentration camps" -- that's a contrived example, making sound like anything not approved by the Guardian amounts to Hitler (or, in this case, Chinese state oppression -- though even this story might have more nuance than what we're getting).
The most important political issues cannot be classified as "a lie", they are just different ways of thinking of what's good, beneficial, important short or long term, etc. And of course, different interests, to different segments of the population, or to different countries, cultures, etc.
Examples? The arguments pro or against social democracy or liberalism. The arguments pro or against immigration. Or pro or against EU governance. Or pro or against certain fiscal policies. Or pro or against surveillance. Or pro or against privacy. Or pro or against this or that war or intervention or enemy du jour. Or pro or against this or that technology. Or pro or against this or that education reform. Or pro or against Assange. And so on...
Yet those nuanced things are still presented as one side is the "good side" and the other is either evil or deluded or a liar.
For example, EFF is obviously going to be biased against anything that takes away privacy. The Guardian is going to be more left leaning than The Daily Mail and so forth.
Can you name me a single example of a website behaving according to the rules that you've laid down?
I don't care for "some bias in one direction or another", nor I have "nigh-impossible lofty ideals".
I just don't like to be taken for a fool with blatant bias -- which many outlets have, including the Guardian.
>For example, EFF is obviously going to be biased against anything that takes away privacy. The Guardian is going to be more left leaning than The Daily Mail and so forth.
Again those things are not really relevant to what I say. You can be more left or right leaning, or be more pro-privacy than anti-privacy and still tell things like they are (including in your opinion pieces) without demonizing the other side, misrepresenting their arguments, using uncharitable interpretations, using imagery and statistics for cheap tricks, and so on.
In other words, you can still report and opinion on things in good faith, despite having a bias.
That said, again, what would be an example of a charitable news outlet that does not pull tricks you claim the Guardian is doing?
why did you do this.
Saying earth is flat is not an "example" equivalent to saying immigration hurts me and my family.
The issue comes when it feels like they're leaving out information or a perspective which would be harmful to their case. Basically if I read something in the news and after reading it I felt like the story made it look like one side was obviously correct, but then I go and look up more sources or more information and I will feel like there's a lot more nuance to it or my opinion even reverses, then I feel like there's been a huge failure in the media and I call that "not balanced".
It feels like they strawman the opinions they disagree with while pulling in the best representatives and sources for the positions they agree with.
If this is an honest question, does that mean you don't actually know?
It's not that hard. Just find out and present the facts even handedly. Make an attempt at see things from the different perspectives.
Well, it shouldn't be hard for a normal grownup, but it sure seems like it is for a lot of people.
Or perhaps the real issue is not how hard it is, but that there is no demand for that type of journalism, so the market doesn't produce it.
Establishment press was bad in the 60s already, which was why there was a flourishing counter-movement, from the early Rolling Stone to underground press.
In due time, the Rolling Stone turned to the content-less rag that it is today, and e.g. the once revolutionary Liberation turned into a centre-left more of the same, similar fate awaited most of the once alternative press.
Nowadays with the web as equalizer, alternative sources also directly compete for viewers with any established outlet (they're just another URL away). So they are far more fierce with them, presenting any opposing viewpoint as beyond the pale (even if shared by a great chunk of the population, or even the majority), and cheering for their de-platforming.
Their views are well represented in other newspapers, media and in politics. In fact in the UK it can be argued to be the majority view.
Why is it that these people always want to say that they're the real victims whilst sugarcoating their views with the phrase "opposing viewpoints". It's like there's a playbook to follow for disingenuous argument.
And a great majority of people don't particularly like giving sovereignty to participate into a nebulous "European Union" which mostly promotes German interests and Brussels bureucrats, don't welcome immigration as panacea without thinking their race is superior (just that their country doesn't need more people coming in, whether caucasian or black or whatever), have a good relationship with their spouses without turning everything into a war of the sexes and a fight against "patriarchy", and are straight/LGBT/etc, etc, and content with it, without making everything be about their sexual preferences, or approving of BS demands like trans persons competing in women's sports, or the "cotton ceiling".
And yet those people are frequently classified as racist, sexist and homophobic, because any nuance away from a constantly widening Overton window is considered beyond the pale -- even if what they say could very well have been the opinion of the mainstream of the left population in, say, 1980s (heck, in 1999 in Seattle the left fought against "globalization", and today anybody that speaks against the same is a "populist/Trump supporter/xenophobic/etc").
>Why is it that these people always want to say that they're the real victims whilst sugarcoating their views with the phrase "opposing viewpoints". It's like there's a playbook to follow for disingenuous argument.
So, just like there's a playbook to demonize the other side with thought-crimes ("anybody that says X is "racist, sexist or homophobic", and you get to define how wide X can be...).
In other words: show your work.
James Fallows of the Atlantic has a great book from a long time ago called “Breaking the News” which offers a compelling take on how we ended up in this state, and what the news is really about.
It why the guardian can exist for 20 years without a profit.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19799893
It's why WashingtonPost is bailed out by Bezos. Do you really think Bezos bought the WashingonPost to make money?
The first newspapers in the US and during colonial times were created by wealthy landowners and business elites to push their views and ideology. Fundamentally, I don't think much has changed, but I'm open to having my mind changed.
You names WaPo and NYT but those are tiny in reach and revenue compared to CNN or Fox News, which are both extremely profitable. Bezos WaPo for $250 million which is barely more than a third of CNN's profit in 2018 [1] and Fox's profitability is even bigger [2] with a giant warchest after the sale of its other media assets. The television news channels that most Americans get their news from are very profit motivated and some like Fox have found idealogical niches that are consistent across media empires like News Corp but they all just push outrage for profit.
[1] https://www.theinformation.com/briefings/cf4270
[2] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-03-28/fox-ne...
The article is (in the main) about our relationship to news. The ever increasing saturation of 'news' into our everyday lives with constant demands for our attention and the impact on individuals and society.
It actually advocates rising above news and connecting on a human level with each other rather than political in order to push the news cycle out of our lives.
Here are some quotes from the article:
"The belief that we’re morally obliged to stay plugged in – that this level of time commitment and emotional investment is the only way to stay informed about the state of the world – begins to look more and more like an alibi for our addiction to our devices."
"At Thanksgiving with your Trumpist uncle, the point is not to seek agreement or compromise, but to grasp that we are not fully defined by our political allegiances – and that, as Talisse puts it, “in order to treat each other as political equals, we must see each other as something more than citizens”. "
And the last paragraph:
"But it may be the only practical way for us to begin to foster a change. If the colonisation of everyday life by the news is damaging both to ourselves and to democratic politics, we ought not to collaborate unthinkingly with that process. Far from it being our moral duty to care so much about the news, it may in fact be our duty to start caring somewhat less."
How are they supresssing oposing viewpoints when alternative news sources are consistantly producing stories with a wide range of points of view? What is it exactly that they are supresssing? Through the internet I can easily access all sorts of takes on any topic.
Back then, the TV news reporters were former newspaper reporters who spent days digging political underhandedness. I once had a TV reporter call me, recently, cause someone referred her saying I had knowledge of a topic. Misunderstanding what she asked, I called back 30 minutes later I did have the information she needed but she said it was too late and they weren't going to run the story.
A few days ago, a news producer was reviewing dog toys.
We should look at articles like this for what it is: the 2010s version of self-help. And as with most self-help, the author is more interested in heightening awareness of the things that are 'holding you back' than providing any meaningful solution.
On YouTube, I mostly see accordion videos and that's the way I like it. On Twitter, even if I follow people who don't talk about politics, they will "like" other people's tweets that then show up in my feed.
On Facebook, there should be a way to turn off reshares for someone you're friends with.