3 ms·

I disagree with the whole notion of news itself. Thinking you can condense geopolitical, environmental, or scientific happenings into short, attention grabbing

I disagree with the whole notion of news itself. Thinking you can condense geopolitical, environmental, or scientific happenings into short, attention grabbing headlines and relay enough of the issues at play is crazy. Now journalism, I agree with. But it requires time and investment.

CaptSpify 10y ago
How do you see them differently? In my mind they are kind of the same thing, but one is just a bit more extreme than the other. I guess I see value in news as "here are some issues that people are talking about, go find more info if you want to learn more"
- JoshTriplett 10y ago
  > I guess I see value in news as "here are some issues that people are talking about, go find more info if you want to learn more" The problem is that most news falls outside the circle of control for the people reading it: it makes people worry, but in practice they can't or won't do anything about it. There's no point in worrying about something if you don't intend to act on it. But that runs counter to the notion of "get people worried to get more eyeballs watching".
  - CaptSpify 10y ago
    I guess I see it as: People should be worrying. Things are scary, and there's more field of interest than ever to worry about. But people have to focus on what they think is the most important thing, or set of things, to worry about. I see news as a way to give them an introduction to the subject. Though, I agree it doesn't seem to work well in practice. I wonder what could change to make that happen.
    - JoshTriplett 10y ago
      > I see news as a way to give them an introduction to the subject. Very little news actually does that. Watch a TV news program, or read a newspaper, and try to imagine what the call to action is on each story. For most stories, there isn't any, other than "Worry more!" or "Resent these people!" or "Get annoyed!". > Though, I agree it doesn't seem to work well in practice. I wonder what could change to make that happen. Build a source of news whose fundamental premise is "if it doesn't have a specific call to action that people can act on if they care about it (and that in practice people do actually act on), it doesn't get published".
      - CaptSpify 10y ago
        > "if it doesn't have a specific call to action that people can act on if they care about it (and that in practice people do actually act on), it doesn't get published". Although I kind of agree with you, what about problems that don't have a clear, actionable response by most people? Although those are probably rare, I'd personally want to know about them and decide for myself.
        PeterisP 10y ago
        Decide what for yourself? There would be a point if there was a possible actionable response that most people wouldn't want to do, but that would be up to them to decide. However, if it doesn't have an actionable response, then there's nothing to decide, except whether to experience useless and unproductive worrying or not. There may be some problems that are not solvable by you but need an organized intervention from a government, but they generally have a clear, actionable response, i.e. act to get elected representatives that will try to solve the problem. However, something that truly doesn't have an actionable response - i.e. "someone slaughtered a dozen schoolkids halfway across the globe" is a viable headline, but not really a problem that can be solved nor (generally) even a useful source of information about risks, as the likely inferred knowledge from titles like these generally has no correlation with reality.
TillE 10y ago
Right! We're still mostly locked into the newspaper model of "articles" for factual reporting, despite its complete arbitrariness on the web. I'd love to see journalists experiment with perhaps a more wiki-like model of reporting, where you have one page for a certain topic which gets updated (new stuff at the top or otherwise readily visible).
- alphapapa 10y ago
  This is a really interesting idea. Any story that really matters unfolds over a period of months or years, and stumbling upon a couple of articles a month about it doesn't inform the reader very well. And what if the first article you read about it is in the middle of the unfolding? A wiki-style document, updated as the story unfolds, organized so that anyone can get an overview and then drill down into the details, seems like a really good idea. Some JavaScript and such could allow stories to be viewed chronologically, by topic, keyword, etc. (Something like TiddlyWiki could be a good place to start.)
- treehau5 10y ago
  I would love that.

CaptSpify 10y ago

How do you see them differently? In my mind they are kind of the same thing, but one is just a bit more extreme than the other. I guess I see value in news as "here are some issues that people are talking about, go find more info if you want to learn more"

JoshTriplett 10y ago
> I guess I see value in news as "here are some issues that people are talking about, go find more info if you want to learn more" The problem is that most news falls outside the circle of control for the people reading it: it makes people worry, but in practice they can't or won't do anything about it. There's no point in worrying about something if you don't intend to act on it. But that runs counter to the notion of "get people worried to get more eyeballs watching".
- CaptSpify 10y ago
  I guess I see it as: People should be worrying. Things are scary, and there's more field of interest than ever to worry about. But people have to focus on what they think is the most important thing, or set of things, to worry about. I see news as a way to give them an introduction to the subject. Though, I agree it doesn't seem to work well in practice. I wonder what could change to make that happen.
  - JoshTriplett 10y ago
    > I see news as a way to give them an introduction to the subject. Very little news actually does that. Watch a TV news program, or read a newspaper, and try to imagine what the call to action is on each story. For most stories, there isn't any, other than "Worry more!" or "Resent these people!" or "Get annoyed!". > Though, I agree it doesn't seem to work well in practice. I wonder what could change to make that happen. Build a source of news whose fundamental premise is "if it doesn't have a specific call to action that people can act on if they care about it (and that in practice people do actually act on), it doesn't get published".
    - CaptSpify 10y ago
      > "if it doesn't have a specific call to action that people can act on if they care about it (and that in practice people do actually act on), it doesn't get published". Although I kind of agree with you, what about problems that don't have a clear, actionable response by most people? Although those are probably rare, I'd personally want to know about them and decide for myself.
      - PeterisP 10y ago
        Decide what for yourself? There would be a point if there was a possible actionable response that most people wouldn't want to do, but that would be up to them to decide. However, if it doesn't have an actionable response, then there's nothing to decide, except whether to experience useless and unproductive worrying or not. There may be some problems that are not solvable by you but need an organized intervention from a government, but they generally have a clear, actionable response, i.e. act to get elected representatives that will try to solve the problem. However, something that truly doesn't have an actionable response - i.e. "someone slaughtered a dozen schoolkids halfway across the globe" is a viable headline, but not really a problem that can be solved nor (generally) even a useful source of information about risks, as the likely inferred knowledge from titles like these generally has no correlation with reality.

TillE 10y ago

Right! We're still mostly locked into the newspaper model of "articles" for factual reporting, despite its complete arbitrariness on the web. I'd love to see journalists experiment with perhaps a more wiki-like model of reporting, where you have one page for a certain topic which gets updated (new stuff at the top or otherwise readily visible).

alphapapa 10y ago
This is a really interesting idea. Any story that really matters unfolds over a period of months or years, and stumbling upon a couple of articles a month about it doesn't inform the reader very well. And what if the first article you read about it is in the middle of the unfolding? A wiki-style document, updated as the story unfolds, organized so that anyone can get an overview and then drill down into the details, seems like a really good idea. Some JavaScript and such could allow stories to be viewed chronologically, by topic, keyword, etc. (Something like TiddlyWiki could be a good place to start.)
treehau5 10y ago
I would love that.