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Neither. Most of these are baseless critiques, in my opinion. The Economist has a section at the beginning of each issue that gives you a one paragraph or less

Neither. Most of these are baseless critiques, in my opinion. The Economist has a section at the beginning of each issue that gives you a one paragraph or less overview of important events that happened that week. Many people also only read the Sunday edition of the paper instead of the daily publications. I don't know why the person you're replying to suggest that the news is usually contextless. Pretty much any article I read from WaPo or NYT has all of the context you need towards the end of the article after stating the most recent or relevant facts. Reporting hyperlocal news is just not feasible in today's media climate. It's very hard to run a successful local news organization because you have to compete with all of the big players. Most of the news I read does not report on rumors or unconfirmed news, either. I somewhat agree that news that isn't relevant a quarter from now probably isn't important but it's important to someone. Sure, I don't care if the stock market went down .5% but many people do care about daily fluctuations of their investments or have jobs in the finance sector. Also, why choose a quarter as your time scale? Why not a week, a month, a year, a decade? Who is to say whether yearly stock market fluctuations are actually news worthy?

kartickv 9y ago
A para a week is too little. Maybe news articles in your country have context, but often not in mine. Here's one example: http://bangaloremirror.indiatimes.com/bangalore/civic/rejuvenation-work-starts-at-sompura-lake/articleshow/63086169.cms http://bangaloremirror.indiatimes.com/bangalore/civic/rejuve... This doesn't give Bangaloreans the wider context: amidst all the talk of lake restoration, have there been any results yet? Has the inflow of garbage stopped, or is there even a plan to? What's the scope of the efforts? To restore lakes to the state they were in 30 years ago, or only to stop further decline? Is there any plan to reclaim any of land that has already been encroached for years? And so on. Hyperlocal news may not be feasible today, but since there's an umnet need, it's only a matter of time before someone figures out the right business model. "It might be important to someone" is an excuse to publish any and all news, which is exactly how the media ended up in today's situation. As for why choose a quarter as a timescale, you can choose some other timescale. Focus on essence of the argument rather than picking nits.

kartickv 9y ago

A para a week is too little. Maybe news articles in your country have context, but often not in mine. Here's one example: http://bangaloremirror.indiatimes.com/bangalore/civic/rejuvenation-work-starts-at-sompura-lake/articleshow/63086169.cms http://bangaloremirror.indiatimes.com/bangalore/civic/rejuve... This doesn't give Bangaloreans the wider context: amidst all the talk of lake restoration, have there been any results yet? Has the inflow of garbage stopped, or is there even a plan to? What's the scope of the efforts? To restore lakes to the state they were in 30 years ago, or only to stop further decline? Is there any plan to reclaim any of land that has already been encroached for years? And so on. Hyperlocal news may not be feasible today, but since there's an umnet need, it's only a matter of time before someone figures out the right business model. "It might be important to someone" is an excuse to publish any and all news, which is exactly how the media ended up in today's situation. As for why choose a quarter as a timescale, you can choose some other timescale. Focus on essence of the argument rather than picking nits.