I feel like the best advice I could give to young news audiences is to stop. Just stop. What little value the news may offer to make you a more informed citizen is completely outweighed by all the negatives.
This is bad advice. Local news is not some noble pursuit. It's helpful but so is national news. It's good to know how the world is evolving. Burying your head in the sand is not a solution.
A big problem is that the product of "access journalism" is untrustworthy.
In order to produce articles which generate large clickthrough rates for comparatively low cost, news organizations rely on interviews with people in power. But as a price of access, the people in power require a certain level of deference that compromises the news channel in the eyes of young audiences, when there are lots of other competing sources that don't observe the same deference.
Reuters is less guilty of this than the NY Times, but it's a problem that afflicts all traditional news organizations.
>when there are lots of other competing sources that don't observe the same deference.
sure because they're just making shit up. If you don't have access to a source you're by definition speculating. The fact that they can do it in an abrasive way or in attack mode is a performance of authenticity, not actual reporting. You believe them because they're "just like you".
It's the biggest curse of our time and emotional manipulation. Journalists sometimes have to navigate how they talk to people but a skilled reader can at least extract real information from it even if it requires reading between the lines. The Youtube 'reporters' add nothing, it's entertainment. They're popular to the extent that they reinterpret publicly available information in a way that confirms the biases of their audiences.
The journalist pays for access but the youtuber pays with audience capture, the difference is consumers of mainstream journalism are aware of it. Someone who reads an interview in the NYT with a mainstream politician know in advance that they'll have to be critical, 18 year old's watching youtube don't. Youtubers are infinitely more deferential to their audience than a journalist is ever going to be to an individual subject because the latter is professionally employed and the former is a cancelled subscription wave away from flipping burgers.
“Most people across generations favour the idea of impartial news, but young people more often (32% compared with 19% of those 55+) think it ‘makes no sense for news outlets to be neutral on certain issues’, such as climate change or racism.”
Unfortunately it’s documentarians such as David Attenborough that carefully curate a picture of nature as some playful, curious thing. It would behoove schools that prepare students for post-secondary education to put on actual video recordings of how animals go at it and how the strong kill the weak (and their offspring) in the most savage and cruel of ways with complete disregard. And then ask them if they would rather not know this is how the world really is. Because that’s what taking a side means here, is being wilfully ignorant.
So is "neutrality." Neutrality is at best just a third perspective obtained through distance. A foreigner who reports on an ethnic genocide can in many cases be neutral because they're distant from it, but as they learn more about it they'll almost certainly adopt a position, losing their neutrality as their distance to the issue shrinks. Much worse is when the perception of distance coincides with an unspoken bias on an issue. How can an American who grew up in America be neutral on racism and what does that mean?
The "authenticity" thing of podcasters is only meaningful if the podcaster was there. Sometimes that happens, and those are the good ones. There are good protest videos.
Not many war videos. Secondary sources are just pundits, of which we have too many.
It's easy to be an influencer who covers entertainment - entertainment wants to be watched. It's hard to be an influencer who covers, say, unemployment. It's possible, but you have to go and talk live to people who just got laid off. That's reporting.
It's not the delivery system. It's whether the source goes out and pulls in news. Most don't.
“Whatever a patron desires to get published is advertising; whatever he wants to keep out of the paper is news." - City Editor of a Chicago newspaper, 1918. Look at a news story and ask "did this begin with a press release or a speech?". If so, it's publicity. HN had an article from a few days ago about "CEO says" journalism. It's worse on the political front.
Democracy requires that a sizable fraction of voters know what's really happening. This is a big problem.
Influencers can be controlled. Dubai has cracked down on war reporting by the large number of influencers there.[1] Right now, Iran claims a missile hit on an Oracle data center in Dubai. The UAE denies this. Did anybody in Dubai drive over and take pictures? Call up Oracle and ask? Nah.
> Did anybody in Dubai drive over and take pictures? Call up Oracle and ask? Nah.
Why is any of that necessary? LLMs can just synthesize a story for the press de novo, without reference to prior developments or indeed any 20th century style on-the-ground reporting. Reporters should in fact be pleased that this meaningless drudgery has been automated out of the profession.
Besides, whatever "facts" are presented will be labelled as fake news by its detractors, who will not have their own internal narratives swayed in the slightest. The rest will rest easy in their confirmation bias, it now being confirmed once more.
Anecdotally, that literally only one of my college age students knew about the Moon mission was wild.
I genuinely now believe that a real barrier to (the terrible idea of) reinstating the draft is that it would actually be difficult to find and inform the public about it, in a believable way.
It's not really a challenge of reaching those students, the outlets that could otherwise reach them just simply aren't interested in spreading that particular news, because it goes against their ideological beliefs.
And if you ask yourself "wait, why wouldn't they want to inform people of a NASA moon mission?", you're really behind the ball on what's going on.
If it was information that they actually wanted to spread, it would be spread wide and far and reach those students.
It is not about sources choices. Young people must read books. Everybody should read books. Books on liberty, like "1984" or authors like Michael Ende. Also books on history (and prehistory). That is the thing that really matters and the only via to avoid echo chambers.
>> ... Meeting the needs of this segment is crucial, not just for the current stability of the journalism industry, but also for the future of democratic societies as young individuals transition through adulthood
"Young people are consuming news less frequently than older people. Around two thirds (64%) of 18–24s consume news on a daily basis, compared with 87% of people 55 and over."
I used to watch the news quite a bit in my 20s--40s or so. Read a newspaper almost every day, watched the evening news. Now 20 years later? Not at all. Traditional news sites, most newspapers, and TV news shows are all rage bait and narrative spinning. None of what they talk about affects my day to day life in the slightest way. So I spend my time on things that are more enjoyable.
> Young people are consuming news less frequently than older people...
> Young people are also less interested in news...
Haven't the youth always consumed less news and been less interested? The question is if the current youth consume less and are less interested compared to when the current old people were young, no?
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 42.5 ms ] threadOr if you must watch the news, local only.
In order to produce articles which generate large clickthrough rates for comparatively low cost, news organizations rely on interviews with people in power. But as a price of access, the people in power require a certain level of deference that compromises the news channel in the eyes of young audiences, when there are lots of other competing sources that don't observe the same deference.
Reuters is less guilty of this than the NY Times, but it's a problem that afflicts all traditional news organizations.
sure because they're just making shit up. If you don't have access to a source you're by definition speculating. The fact that they can do it in an abrasive way or in attack mode is a performance of authenticity, not actual reporting. You believe them because they're "just like you".
It's the biggest curse of our time and emotional manipulation. Journalists sometimes have to navigate how they talk to people but a skilled reader can at least extract real information from it even if it requires reading between the lines. The Youtube 'reporters' add nothing, it's entertainment. They're popular to the extent that they reinterpret publicly available information in a way that confirms the biases of their audiences.
The journalist pays for access but the youtuber pays with audience capture, the difference is consumers of mainstream journalism are aware of it. Someone who reads an interview in the NYT with a mainstream politician know in advance that they'll have to be critical, 18 year old's watching youtube don't. Youtubers are infinitely more deferential to their audience than a journalist is ever going to be to an individual subject because the latter is professionally employed and the former is a cancelled subscription wave away from flipping burgers.
Unfortunately it’s documentarians such as David Attenborough that carefully curate a picture of nature as some playful, curious thing. It would behoove schools that prepare students for post-secondary education to put on actual video recordings of how animals go at it and how the strong kill the weak (and their offspring) in the most savage and cruel of ways with complete disregard. And then ask them if they would rather not know this is how the world really is. Because that’s what taking a side means here, is being wilfully ignorant.
So is "neutrality." Neutrality is at best just a third perspective obtained through distance. A foreigner who reports on an ethnic genocide can in many cases be neutral because they're distant from it, but as they learn more about it they'll almost certainly adopt a position, losing their neutrality as their distance to the issue shrinks. Much worse is when the perception of distance coincides with an unspoken bias on an issue. How can an American who grew up in America be neutral on racism and what does that mean?
The "authenticity" thing of podcasters is only meaningful if the podcaster was there. Sometimes that happens, and those are the good ones. There are good protest videos. Not many war videos. Secondary sources are just pundits, of which we have too many. It's easy to be an influencer who covers entertainment - entertainment wants to be watched. It's hard to be an influencer who covers, say, unemployment. It's possible, but you have to go and talk live to people who just got laid off. That's reporting.
It's not the delivery system. It's whether the source goes out and pulls in news. Most don't.
“Whatever a patron desires to get published is advertising; whatever he wants to keep out of the paper is news." - City Editor of a Chicago newspaper, 1918. Look at a news story and ask "did this begin with a press release or a speech?". If so, it's publicity. HN had an article from a few days ago about "CEO says" journalism. It's worse on the political front.
Democracy requires that a sizable fraction of voters know what's really happening. This is a big problem.
Influencers can be controlled. Dubai has cracked down on war reporting by the large number of influencers there.[1] Right now, Iran claims a missile hit on an Oracle data center in Dubai. The UAE denies this. Did anybody in Dubai drive over and take pictures? Call up Oracle and ask? Nah.
[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/national-security/2026/03/dubai-...
Why is any of that necessary? LLMs can just synthesize a story for the press de novo, without reference to prior developments or indeed any 20th century style on-the-ground reporting. Reporters should in fact be pleased that this meaningless drudgery has been automated out of the profession.
Besides, whatever "facts" are presented will be labelled as fake news by its detractors, who will not have their own internal narratives swayed in the slightest. The rest will rest easy in their confirmation bias, it now being confirmed once more.
I genuinely now believe that a real barrier to (the terrible idea of) reinstating the draft is that it would actually be difficult to find and inform the public about it, in a believable way.
And if you ask yourself "wait, why wouldn't they want to inform people of a NASA moon mission?", you're really behind the ball on what's going on.
If it was information that they actually wanted to spread, it would be spread wide and far and reach those students.
Sure buddy. Keep telling yourself that.
Mainstream media can't die quick enough.
I used to watch the news quite a bit in my 20s--40s or so. Read a newspaper almost every day, watched the evening news. Now 20 years later? Not at all. Traditional news sites, most newspapers, and TV news shows are all rage bait and narrative spinning. None of what they talk about affects my day to day life in the slightest way. So I spend my time on things that are more enjoyable.
> Young people are also less interested in news...
Haven't the youth always consumed less news and been less interested? The question is if the current youth consume less and are less interested compared to when the current old people were young, no?