4 ms·

This sort of sensationalism, in general, is so completely ingrained into reporting that it's hard to separate from journalism itself. It's part of the journalis

This sort of sensationalism, in general, is so completely ingrained into reporting that it's hard to separate from journalism itself. It's part of the journalistic style, an inevitability of the medium. We see an article, click a link, by a paper, but we are never committing to more than a second or two of attention at a time. The headline makes you read the byline. The byline gets you reading the second sentence. At every step, a journalist loses most of her readers. The winning strategy is to increase "story," play to existing opinions, be sensational, use bait... There are flavours and degrees, but by and large writing like this is n inevitability of the medium, of journalism. If you are reporting on programs that "developed a type of machine-English patois to communicate between themselves.." you are reporting on whether or not the skynet singularity is coming, almost certainly. If we want something different, I think we'll need a medium change. Personally, I was hoping e-readers would catalyze a new medium subtype: 30-100 page mini books. A lot of "news cycle.." the drip, drip, sensation of the day journalism just isn't a good way of understanding anything. What happened between North Korea and the US this year? What's been happening with the Syrian war? Brexit as of July 2018...? I would be very happy to exchange the daily/weekly news bulletins for monthly/quarterly mini books.

ryanstorm 8y ago
I started reading The Economist last year for this reason. Their Special Reports are similar to what you're looking for. The New Yorker also puts out minibook-length articles. Nautilus is another mag that I've been happy with for more science-oriented stuff. They put out monthly issues with a cohesive theme.
DanielBMarkham 8y ago
But most people don't want that, sadly. Instant mass media has shown us that people want to consume media about other real people -- that they admire in some fashion -- going through life. Not reporting, explanation, facts, or science. So reporters have responded with tweets and instant feedback on anything that's happening. Many times even when nothing is happening, they know they have to put out some kind of personal emotional response to keep the audience. Newspaper and in-depth reporting worked for the most part because nobody really cared about the author. They cared about the material. That's flipped upside down now. The material doesn't matter as much as the author. Even the reall good occasional long-form material you might find is all geared to get you into a personal, minute-by-minute "relationship" with the author. To become part of the tribe.
- dalbasal 8y ago
  Oh I don't know... there are wants and there are wants. I wouldn't put it down to some moral failing of humanity. The problem is more of a systemic one than a fundamental one.. I think. The way we use our phones/computers, our time and such... it adds up to a system where decisions are instant and reflexive. It adds up to a medium, with all its trappings.
  - jdo20bbx 8y ago
    Does humanity want shallow news or are media corps addicted to selling cheap to produce shallow news to wide audiences?
- ntsplnkv2 8y ago
  How true is this really? So many times we hear "people are stupid now they don't want to do science or read fact." I'm sure that sentiment has always been said throughout history. Yet a large deal of my millennial colleagues are the most progressively scientific, rejecting religion, embracing global warming legislation, very strongly against anti-vax movements. How many people really read the newspaper back in the day? Every period piece shows the adult male reading the paper. No one else. Do you think 26 year olds back then just read the news all the time and now it's different and no one does? > So reporters have responded with tweets and instant feedback on anything that's happening. It has more to do with managers and companies pushing reporters and journalists to feed page views. That's it. It's not reporters responding to the end user. It's reporters responding to the fact they don't have good jobs anymore and have to generate ad revenue.
- chasil 8y ago
  I have a streak of journalism about me, and I when I found malware on a cheap, mass-market tablet a year ago I used my soapbox to great effect, forcing a promise from a CTO to rectify the problem. Search on "Barnes Noble malware" if you're curious. Anyway, that was my only writing that really went viral, and it was not about a person. It was about a corporation, a device, and a set of security policies. Anyway, I've written incendiary things, informative things, and I guess some bad things. I now understand the basic math behind "stochastic gradient descent." Maybe after some practice, I can help.
bendavis381 8y ago
For global political analysis, read Foreign Affairs. Long-form analysis as far removed from click-bait journalism I think is possible. https://www.foreignaffairs.com https://www.foreignaffairs.com.
jdo20bbx 8y ago
Not a new notion. I can remember my 6th grade civics teacher, Mr Everson, explaining it exactly so. Important details front loaded into the first paragraph of a newspaper. Meandering narrative throughout the rest. That was in 1996. There’s just more of that shallow content in our faces now.
glup 8y ago
Have you tried reading the 2-3 "meat" articles in the middle of the New Yorker each week? I find that these 8-15 page articles are hugely informative in comparison to the Associated Press funnel format and clickbait drivel that dominates the web these days; you'll notice a lot of them make the front page here. Of course the New Yorker has restaurant reviews, events, and other sections that are New York-specific, but these are remarkably easy to skip regardless of medium. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/23/welcoming-our-new-robot-overlords https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/23/welcoming-our-... (title is in jest) https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/06/25/the-reputation-laundering-firm-that-ruined-its-own-reputation https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/06/25/the-reputation... (astroturfing and politics) https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/07/23/how-e-commerce-is-transforming-rural-china https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/07/23/how-e-commerce...
roel_v 8y ago
Then read the Economist.

ryanstorm 8y ago

I started reading The Economist last year for this reason. Their Special Reports are similar to what you're looking for. The New Yorker also puts out minibook-length articles. Nautilus is another mag that I've been happy with for more science-oriented stuff. They put out monthly issues with a cohesive theme.

DanielBMarkham 8y ago

But most people don't want that, sadly. Instant mass media has shown us that people want to consume media about other real people -- that they admire in some fashion -- going through life. Not reporting, explanation, facts, or science. So reporters have responded with tweets and instant feedback on anything that's happening. Many times even when nothing is happening, they know they have to put out some kind of personal emotional response to keep the audience. Newspaper and in-depth reporting worked for the most part because nobody really cared about the author. They cared about the material. That's flipped upside down now. The material doesn't matter as much as the author. Even the reall good occasional long-form material you might find is all geared to get you into a personal, minute-by-minute "relationship" with the author. To become part of the tribe.

dalbasal 8y ago
Oh I don't know... there are wants and there are wants. I wouldn't put it down to some moral failing of humanity. The problem is more of a systemic one than a fundamental one.. I think. The way we use our phones/computers, our time and such... it adds up to a system where decisions are instant and reflexive. It adds up to a medium, with all its trappings.
- jdo20bbx 8y ago
  Does humanity want shallow news or are media corps addicted to selling cheap to produce shallow news to wide audiences?
ntsplnkv2 8y ago
How true is this really? So many times we hear "people are stupid now they don't want to do science or read fact." I'm sure that sentiment has always been said throughout history. Yet a large deal of my millennial colleagues are the most progressively scientific, rejecting religion, embracing global warming legislation, very strongly against anti-vax movements. How many people really read the newspaper back in the day? Every period piece shows the adult male reading the paper. No one else. Do you think 26 year olds back then just read the news all the time and now it's different and no one does? > So reporters have responded with tweets and instant feedback on anything that's happening. It has more to do with managers and companies pushing reporters and journalists to feed page views. That's it. It's not reporters responding to the end user. It's reporters responding to the fact they don't have good jobs anymore and have to generate ad revenue.
chasil 8y ago
I have a streak of journalism about me, and I when I found malware on a cheap, mass-market tablet a year ago I used my soapbox to great effect, forcing a promise from a CTO to rectify the problem. Search on "Barnes Noble malware" if you're curious. Anyway, that was my only writing that really went viral, and it was not about a person. It was about a corporation, a device, and a set of security policies. Anyway, I've written incendiary things, informative things, and I guess some bad things. I now understand the basic math behind "stochastic gradient descent." Maybe after some practice, I can help.

bendavis381 8y ago

For global political analysis, read Foreign Affairs. Long-form analysis as far removed from click-bait journalism I think is possible. https://www.foreignaffairs.com https://www.foreignaffairs.com.

jdo20bbx 8y ago

Not a new notion. I can remember my 6th grade civics teacher, Mr Everson, explaining it exactly so. Important details front loaded into the first paragraph of a newspaper. Meandering narrative throughout the rest. That was in 1996. There’s just more of that shallow content in our faces now.

glup 8y ago

Have you tried reading the 2-3 "meat" articles in the middle of the New Yorker each week? I find that these 8-15 page articles are hugely informative in comparison to the Associated Press funnel format and clickbait drivel that dominates the web these days; you'll notice a lot of them make the front page here. Of course the New Yorker has restaurant reviews, events, and other sections that are New York-specific, but these are remarkably easy to skip regardless of medium. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/23/welcoming-our-new-robot-overlords https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/23/welcoming-our-... (title is in jest) https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/06/25/the-reputation-laundering-firm-that-ruined-its-own-reputation https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/06/25/the-reputation... (astroturfing and politics) https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/07/23/how-e-commerce-is-transforming-rural-china https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/07/23/how-e-commerce...

roel_v 8y ago

Then read the Economist.