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One of my all time favorite books. If you have not see the BBC TV series of it I highly recommend it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to

One of my all time favorite books. If you have not see the BBC TV series of it I highly recommend it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_th... So this is an interesting read you have here. I think the largest issues is that because of our technology we have allowed everyone to only hear their option. If you are in the US and you are conservative you watch Fox, if you are liberal you watch MSNBC and if you are in the middle CNN. It was not always this way. You came home and turned on ABC, CBS or NBC news and the news was delivered in a non-partisan fact based method. Then you could debt it with your family. You did not get force feed view points. Today you never have to hear anything you do not like which leads to a closed minded view of everything.

jerf 9y ago
"You came home and turned on ABC, CBS or NBC news and the news was delivered in a non-partisan fact based method" Getting news from only one partisan viewpoint is not the same thing as getting "non-partisan news".
- myrandomcomment 9y ago
  You are splitting hairs. The point was there was no "tailored" view of the news. There where 3 and they had standards that they all followed. We do not have that anymore, we have infotainment, not the news.
  - mquander 9y ago
    Really? What about tabloids? What about Rush Limbaugh? What about Bill O'Reilly? A shitload of people consumed primarily absurdly terrible news sources before they were on the Internet.
    - jacquesm 9y ago
      That's absolutely true but the horizontal peer-to-peer connection wasn't made it was mostly one-way.
  - dredmorbius 9y ago
    The news was exceedingly highly tailored. It's just that the tailors agreed on their cuts. Noam Chomsky, Marshall McLuhan, Jerry Mander, Niel Postman, and Robert W. McChesney all address this, as do many, many others. If you'd like it from the horse's mouth, here's Edward R. Murrow's 1958 "Wires and Lights in a Box" speech: http://www.rtdna.org/content/edward_r_murrow_s_1958_wires_lights_in_a_box_speech http://www.rtdna.org/content/edward_r_murrow_s_1958_wires_li...
  - jerf 9y ago
    Yes, it was absolutely tailored. The fact that there was no competition does not imply that it was not tailored. Pick your favorite news story of that era. Dig deeper into it. Read the after-the-fact analyses and behind-the-scenes exposes. I guarantee you you will be shocked at the disparity between what was reported and what was most likely the truth. Yellow journalism never stopped, it just put on a suit and tie. It is true that we get more highly-focused infotainment now, in a much more viciously competitive environment. It is not at all clear to me that the actual quality of the reporting has gone down all that much, though, on the grounds that it was nowhere near as high as the mythos says it was.

jerf 9y ago

"You came home and turned on ABC, CBS or NBC news and the news was delivered in a non-partisan fact based method" Getting news from only one partisan viewpoint is not the same thing as getting "non-partisan news".

myrandomcomment 9y ago
You are splitting hairs. The point was there was no "tailored" view of the news. There where 3 and they had standards that they all followed. We do not have that anymore, we have infotainment, not the news.
- mquander 9y ago
  Really? What about tabloids? What about Rush Limbaugh? What about Bill O'Reilly? A shitload of people consumed primarily absurdly terrible news sources before they were on the Internet.
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    That's absolutely true but the horizontal peer-to-peer connection wasn't made it was mostly one-way.
- dredmorbius 9y ago
  The news was exceedingly highly tailored. It's just that the tailors agreed on their cuts. Noam Chomsky, Marshall McLuhan, Jerry Mander, Niel Postman, and Robert W. McChesney all address this, as do many, many others. If you'd like it from the horse's mouth, here's Edward R. Murrow's 1958 "Wires and Lights in a Box" speech: http://www.rtdna.org/content/edward_r_murrow_s_1958_wires_lights_in_a_box_speech http://www.rtdna.org/content/edward_r_murrow_s_1958_wires_li...
- jerf 9y ago
  Yes, it was absolutely tailored. The fact that there was no competition does not imply that it was not tailored. Pick your favorite news story of that era. Dig deeper into it. Read the after-the-fact analyses and behind-the-scenes exposes. I guarantee you you will be shocked at the disparity between what was reported and what was most likely the truth. Yellow journalism never stopped, it just put on a suit and tie. It is true that we get more highly-focused infotainment now, in a much more viciously competitive environment. It is not at all clear to me that the actual quality of the reporting has gone down all that much, though, on the grounds that it was nowhere near as high as the mythos says it was.