4 ms·

I thought this was going to be a post about how reading news sites is a waste of time. That said, I'm not sure this is the best viewpoint to have. It fails whe

I thought this was going to be a post about how reading news sites is a waste of time. That said, I'm not sure this is the best viewpoint to have. It fails when everyone holds this viewpoint, because if everyone expects the news to find him, there will be no news. Someone has to actually be out there seeing what is going on and reporting on it. Another problem is that if you've ever played telephone (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_whispers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_whispers), you know how information can get distorted as it gets passed along. A non-trivial issue I've seen in this US election is that non-news-seeking individuals hear from someone that Obama is Muslim (never mind that they also have incorrect notions of what being a Muslim means based on various pieces of "information" that has "found them"), and that affects their decision (note that I'm not actually an Obama supporter). In other words, I think the post promotes something that may turn out to be a dangerous practice which could eventually result in an echo chamber of news which fails to reflect many of the things that are actually happening. It takes true investigative reporting to uncover real conspiracies and dangerous secrets. Would anyone who believes, "If the news is that important, it will find me," be willing to do that?

dreish 19y ago
I wouldn't call your first point a problem. There are plenty of voracious newshounds out there that are collectively scraping all available news sites clean and originating these link posts and chain emails. That's why the phenomenon exists. As for the echo chamber, this problem is nothing new. Traditional media copy ideas from each other with less self-examination than the blogosphere, which is unabashedly divided into two camps carefully scrutinizing each other for any inaccuracy to pounce on, and they (Reuters and AP especially) frequently screw up stories that are outside the core competencies of the vast majority of journalists, like science. It's the responsibility of Obama and his supporters to dispel misconceptions about him, as it ever was, and I'm sure he and they know full well how to do it.

dreish 19y ago

I wouldn't call your first point a problem. There are plenty of voracious newshounds out there that are collectively scraping all available news sites clean and originating these link posts and chain emails. That's why the phenomenon exists. As for the echo chamber, this problem is nothing new. Traditional media copy ideas from each other with less self-examination than the blogosphere, which is unabashedly divided into two camps carefully scrutinizing each other for any inaccuracy to pounce on, and they (Reuters and AP especially) frequently screw up stories that are outside the core competencies of the vast majority of journalists, like science. It's the responsibility of Obama and his supporters to dispel misconceptions about him, as it ever was, and I'm sure he and they know full well how to do it.