7 ms·

These days I try hard to maintain control of my perspective not by reading broadly, but reading judiciously; I have a white-list on sources rather than a black-

by dfee 8y ago

These days I try hard to maintain control of my perspective not by reading broadly, but reading judiciously; I have a white-list on sources rather than a black-list. For instance, if cable news is on, I fight the temptation to give it my attention. But I sometimes seek out public news like PBS or NPR. It’s difficult to identify what the difference is, but I find myself better able to separate opinions from facts. For online news: I pay and from a newspaper that gets more than 50% of its revenue from subscriptions. It also has a finance bent, and is non-US based, which seems to steer me clear of much of the political echo chamber. Therefore the op-eds are often on topics that don’t directly impact me and I find it easier to assess the expressed opinion without emotional investment (e.g. from today: “Customs Union: The battleground set to decide the fate of Brexit”). While on emotional investment, I find the public conversation (which I seem to be less privy to now days) to be alarmist, ideological, and radicalizing. Perhaps that’s because Breitbart, HuffPo, and the likes are the masters of new media grabbing impressions and setting the narrative of “what’s news” around the world. All in all, my content consumption patterns have shifted from “eat what’s in front of you” to “toy with your diet and see where you end up; rinse; repeat”. So I make no claims that this is the right approach, it’s just my current approach.

shaki-dora 8y ago
I don’t think HuffPo is “agenda-setting”, or really any opinion pages. I’d say the agenda is actually driven by real reporting (not op-Ed’s) in the NYT, WahPo, sometimes WSJ. The current hot topics in US politics, for example, are the VA nominee, the EPA head’s corruption, and the Macron visit. All those are actual news. But the FT is rather good, indeed.
- swebs 8y ago
  Here's the front page of the Huffington Post after Trump won the NH primaries. https://i.imgur.com/IhID9qY.jpg https://i.imgur.com/IhID9qY.jpg Searching for "Huffington post Trump" on any image search pulls similar results.
  - LukeShu 8y ago
    Just in case you thought that screenshot looks fake: https://web.archive.org/web/20160210013242/http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20160210013242/http://www.huffin...
_Codemonkeyism 8y ago
Welcome to the Guardian ;-)
- tonyedgecombe 8y ago
  I assumed it was the FT, and a Google search seems to confirm that.
  - _Codemonkeyism 8y ago
    Should have known :-) And as always comments say more about oneself than the other.
dantheman 8y ago
Remember it's more than just fact and opinion, it's also about what's covered, whose interviewed, etc.
- swebs 8y ago
  Don't know why you're being downvoted. Agenda is pushed by what you chose to omit just as much as it is by what you chose to report.
- ghaff 8y ago
  That's always been the most reasonable perspective on "bias" in most major newspapers like the New York Times. I do believe they endeavor to report stories accurately. But the selection of stories and the way they're approached almost inevitably a particular set of beliefs and perspectives.
pjc50 8y ago
This is what I get from reading the paper copy of the Scotsman in a cafe at lunch. Somehow it seems better to have clear "sections"; the US politics is confined to the single foreign news page, and even UK news is not the main focus. Some of their opinion columnists are extremely bad and I stop reading at their byline, but that's a relatively small part of the paper and I'm not giving them money for it. Whereas reading news through social media gets you whatever the most controversial thing is at the moment - often US news which is of limited relevance to me.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
calpaterson 8y ago
> For online news: I pay and from a newspaper that gets more than 50% of its revenue from subscriptions. It also has a finance bent, and is non-US based, which seems to steer me clear of much of the political echo chamber. Therefore the op-eds are often on topics that don’t directly impact me and I find it easier to assess the expressed opinion without emotional investment (e.g. from today: “Customs Union: The battleground set to decide the fate of Brexit”). It's funny you mention the FT. It might be outside your echo chamber but it probably is the loudest voice in mine. Pro-EU, broadly free trade and broadly in favour of the welfare state. I work in the City and I can at any time see a number of people reading it on their screens, there are paper copies piled up in in-trays and the views expressed in those op-ed have a commensurately large correlation with what I (over)hear while queuing to buy a sandwich at lunchtime.
- MistahKoala 8y ago
  More or less was going to comment along similar lines. I'm probably the radical opposite (Northern, unemployed, mediocre education) of a stereotype of its readers, but the FT is probably my preferred newspaper source these days because it's (relatively) the most sober UK publication, if you take in to account its institutional worldview. The exception to that is the overly-hysterical - at times, apocalyptic - stance on Brexit, although that may speak to its London-centricity and serving conservative corporate cultures where "don't scare the horses" is a preference for the political jurisdictions they do business in. I have noticed an element of virtue signaling creeping in lately, though. Hopefully not a sign that they're about to go full 'The Economist' on its readers, which would be a disappointment. You mention copies of the FT piled up on colleagues' trays - do you see many copies of City AM? Are there many readers and can you infer much of anything about them?
  - calpaterson 8y ago
    As City AM is a free paper I don't see paper copies much in the office - people tend to read it on the tube and then dispose of it when they arrive in the morning (and probably take the Standard on the way home). It's also not as easy to tell when someone is reading it on a screen because it's background is the normal white rather than pink. Totally agree with you about the FT's apocalyptic outlook on Brexit - though I think that's moderated somewhat over the last 6 months as it's become clear that the sky isn't going to fall on us :)
chiefalchemist 8y ago
Would you be willing to share your white-list? As well as your "consumption-flow" for digesting it?
emodendroket 8y ago
I think it's important to hear from varied sources, not just numerous ones. So many people talk about how they read a variety of sources to get balance, but then their sources are the Washington Post, PBS, NPR, the New York Times, and the major US cable news networks, which don't exactly represent a wide range of opinion.
- dfee 8y ago
  I'd agree with you a year ago. But, then I disconnected from Facebook as an experiment. This cut out 90% of my exposure to alternate news sources (alternate defined here as my traffic not being direct). I know I miss some things, and some things I just find out about late (I'm never the first to hear about horrendous disasters - which appears to be good for my mental health). So I'm opting to be under-exposed vs. over-exposed. And, I'm taking the approach of curating the source first, and the content second. The inverse lets in too much noise, that I simply don't have the time or expertise to vet and assess. Unfortunately, the "trusted partner" approach doesn't work with things like Apple News, which wants to lowest-common-denominator news sources like CNN / MSNBC / Fox News to me, but has virtually no support for premium news. As other's noticed, I read FT. But, I have a belief right now that news with a financial slant is the key to having a critical perspective – you understand where the participants of a story stand and where they're set to gain. The benefit? As situations unfold, you can actually learn from watching how individuals respond to stimuli, and somewhat assess what the universe of possible actions might be. That's a mouthful, but it lends the opportunity to be patient with news and forces paced consumption in moderation over a long period of time. Consider that as an alternative to common consumption patterns which appear to match multi-hour "Turn on, tune in, drop out" sessions with 40 minutes of content and 20 minutes of ads(!). On the flip side, I'm (obviously) a member of HN, so I get variety here – albeit largely tech focused.
thaumaturgy 8y ago
You (and others with similar habits) may be interested in Vanessa's "chart": http://www.allgeneralizationsarefalse.com/the-chart-version-3-0-what-exactly-are-we-reading/ http://www.allgeneralizationsarefalse.com/the-chart-version-... Reuters is my only regular source of news, and it was before I first saw that chart, and I was happy to see their position there. Although even they've been subtly sharp when reporting on the latest Trump news recently. Following this stuff is a guilty habit for me. I agree with some of what Aaron Swartz had to say about news (http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews), but skimming it makes for as good a social lubricant as alcohol.

by dfee 8y ago

shaki-dora 8y ago

I don’t think HuffPo is “agenda-setting”, or really any opinion pages. I’d say the agenda is actually driven by real reporting (not op-Ed’s) in the NYT, WahPo, sometimes WSJ. The current hot topics in US politics, for example, are the VA nominee, the EPA head’s corruption, and the Macron visit. All those are actual news. But the FT is rather good, indeed.

swebs 8y ago
Here's the front page of the Huffington Post after Trump won the NH primaries. https://i.imgur.com/IhID9qY.jpg https://i.imgur.com/IhID9qY.jpg Searching for "Huffington post Trump" on any image search pulls similar results.
- LukeShu 8y ago
  Just in case you thought that screenshot looks fake: https://web.archive.org/web/20160210013242/http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20160210013242/http://www.huffin...

_Codemonkeyism 8y ago

Welcome to the Guardian ;-)

tonyedgecombe 8y ago
I assumed it was the FT, and a Google search seems to confirm that.
- _Codemonkeyism 8y ago
  Should have known :-) And as always comments say more about oneself than the other.

dantheman 8y ago

Remember it's more than just fact and opinion, it's also about what's covered, whose interviewed, etc.

swebs 8y ago
Don't know why you're being downvoted. Agenda is pushed by what you chose to omit just as much as it is by what you chose to report.
ghaff 8y ago
That's always been the most reasonable perspective on "bias" in most major newspapers like the New York Times. I do believe they endeavor to report stories accurately. But the selection of stories and the way they're approached almost inevitably a particular set of beliefs and perspectives.

pjc50 8y ago

This is what I get from reading the paper copy of the Scotsman in a cafe at lunch. Somehow it seems better to have clear "sections"; the US politics is confined to the single foreign news page, and even UK news is not the main focus. Some of their opinion columnists are extremely bad and I stop reading at their byline, but that's a relatively small part of the paper and I'm not giving them money for it. Whereas reading news through social media gets you whatever the most controversial thing is at the moment - often US news which is of limited relevance to me.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

calpaterson 8y ago

> For online news: I pay and from a newspaper that gets more than 50% of its revenue from subscriptions. It also has a finance bent, and is non-US based, which seems to steer me clear of much of the political echo chamber. Therefore the op-eds are often on topics that don’t directly impact me and I find it easier to assess the expressed opinion without emotional investment (e.g. from today: “Customs Union: The battleground set to decide the fate of Brexit”). It's funny you mention the FT. It might be outside your echo chamber but it probably is the loudest voice in mine. Pro-EU, broadly free trade and broadly in favour of the welfare state. I work in the City and I can at any time see a number of people reading it on their screens, there are paper copies piled up in in-trays and the views expressed in those op-ed have a commensurately large correlation with what I (over)hear while queuing to buy a sandwich at lunchtime.

MistahKoala 8y ago
More or less was going to comment along similar lines. I'm probably the radical opposite (Northern, unemployed, mediocre education) of a stereotype of its readers, but the FT is probably my preferred newspaper source these days because it's (relatively) the most sober UK publication, if you take in to account its institutional worldview. The exception to that is the overly-hysterical - at times, apocalyptic - stance on Brexit, although that may speak to its London-centricity and serving conservative corporate cultures where "don't scare the horses" is a preference for the political jurisdictions they do business in. I have noticed an element of virtue signaling creeping in lately, though. Hopefully not a sign that they're about to go full 'The Economist' on its readers, which would be a disappointment. You mention copies of the FT piled up on colleagues' trays - do you see many copies of City AM? Are there many readers and can you infer much of anything about them?
- calpaterson 8y ago
  As City AM is a free paper I don't see paper copies much in the office - people tend to read it on the tube and then dispose of it when they arrive in the morning (and probably take the Standard on the way home). It's also not as easy to tell when someone is reading it on a screen because it's background is the normal white rather than pink. Totally agree with you about the FT's apocalyptic outlook on Brexit - though I think that's moderated somewhat over the last 6 months as it's become clear that the sky isn't going to fall on us :)

chiefalchemist 8y ago

Would you be willing to share your white-list? As well as your "consumption-flow" for digesting it?

emodendroket 8y ago

I think it's important to hear from varied sources, not just numerous ones. So many people talk about how they read a variety of sources to get balance, but then their sources are the Washington Post, PBS, NPR, the New York Times, and the major US cable news networks, which don't exactly represent a wide range of opinion.

dfee 8y ago
I'd agree with you a year ago. But, then I disconnected from Facebook as an experiment. This cut out 90% of my exposure to alternate news sources (alternate defined here as my traffic not being direct). I know I miss some things, and some things I just find out about late (I'm never the first to hear about horrendous disasters - which appears to be good for my mental health). So I'm opting to be under-exposed vs. over-exposed. And, I'm taking the approach of curating the source first, and the content second. The inverse lets in too much noise, that I simply don't have the time or expertise to vet and assess. Unfortunately, the "trusted partner" approach doesn't work with things like Apple News, which wants to lowest-common-denominator news sources like CNN / MSNBC / Fox News to me, but has virtually no support for premium news. As other's noticed, I read FT. But, I have a belief right now that news with a financial slant is the key to having a critical perspective – you understand where the participants of a story stand and where they're set to gain. The benefit? As situations unfold, you can actually learn from watching how individuals respond to stimuli, and somewhat assess what the universe of possible actions might be. That's a mouthful, but it lends the opportunity to be patient with news and forces paced consumption in moderation over a long period of time. Consider that as an alternative to common consumption patterns which appear to match multi-hour "Turn on, tune in, drop out" sessions with 40 minutes of content and 20 minutes of ads(!). On the flip side, I'm (obviously) a member of HN, so I get variety here – albeit largely tech focused.

thaumaturgy 8y ago

You (and others with similar habits) may be interested in Vanessa's "chart": http://www.allgeneralizationsarefalse.com/the-chart-version-3-0-what-exactly-are-we-reading/ http://www.allgeneralizationsarefalse.com/the-chart-version-... Reuters is my only regular source of news, and it was before I first saw that chart, and I was happy to see their position there. Although even they've been subtly sharp when reporting on the latest Trump news recently. Following this stuff is a guilty habit for me. I agree with some of what Aaron Swartz had to say about news (http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews), but skimming it makes for as good a social lubricant as alcohol.