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His post "I hate the news"(0) was(is) very influential for me personally. It was seminal in what become a rather significant change in my habits and view of t
by soneca 8y ago
His post "I hate the news"(0) was(is) very influential for me personally.
It was seminal in what become a rather significant change in my habits and view of the world. I am now very conscious that news are entertainment, purely and simply. With the goods and bads of any other entertainment form.
From time to time, while explaining my position to others (often seen as kind of radical), I refer this post. I hope it continues to be available.
http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews
- kadendogthing 8y agohttp://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Kp5EC2ZDiEcJ:www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Kp5EC2Z... Google currently has it cached.
- the_clarence 8y agoWhat is a good source of information? By that I mean: - not about daily information (which are usually as fast as possible and don’t take the time to really understand the situation) - not biased - not about juicy news, but world topics that are ~objectively important I feel like there should be a subreddit for that.
- theWheez 8y agoI have not found something like this on the internet, but if it exists I'd love to know about it. Otherwise, books are the only place that fill out those qualifications.
- GuiA 8y agoA few suggestions: academic papers, books, documentaries (including indie produced ones on Youtube), radio shows/podcasts.
- jwr 8y agoEvery source of information will be biased, and you have to take that into account by being critical. I found that the best source for me is The Economist: once per week, written by smart people, with good summaries of anything that is important. Delivered digitally (with an excellent audio version, too). It is "biased" in the sense that the editors hold a set of opinions and you have to be aware of it. I do not agree with all of their opinions, but I am aware of them. The news useful even if you disagree with their interpretation or recommendations. Surprisingly, it is the only intelligent and non-sensational news source that I have found.
- f055 8y agoI went from The Economist to Foreign Affairs few years ago when Eco became unbearably filled with an agenda. You might want to check FA out.
- sixo 8y agoCan you describe their agenda, or point to a description of it? It's conspicuously centrist and pro-global-capitalism (see: articles essentially saying "human lives on earth has definitely gotten better under capitalism" (and not explicitly saying "world-average QoL is the correct metric by which to measure progress", nor addressing counterfactual hypotheses), + anti-trump + pretty skeptical of brexit. These are sort of acceptable, manageable biases to my eye: is there more I'm missing?
- l9k 8y agoThe Economist is somehow accused to have a bias in every direction. Some would call it "Ecommunist"pushing a far-left agenda, others decrying a right capitalist ideology.
- dolessdrugs 8y agoEveryone has a different level of "acceptable, manageable biases"
- SuddsMcDuff 8y ago> "Every source of information will be biased, and you have to take that into account by being critical." A thousand times this. Bias is everywhere. I think people who say they're looking for an 'unbiased' source of information are really looking for a source of information they can just blindly consume without doing any pesky thinking. And if you're blindly consuming information without thinking, you're allowing someone else to think for you.
- athrun 8y agoI really like their Audio edition: it's a full version of the paper voiced by pro actors. I don't understand why this isn't more common. I'm already spending 8-hours a day at work, reading stuff or parsing information in some ways. I have found that I have no mental capacity left to read a full newspaper on top of that. Listening to a podcast while commuting is way less exhausting (to me at least).
- AndrewOMartin 8y agoThere is no source that ticks all boxes, you have to resign yourself to being well informed about a small number of things and become active in that community, for all other things simply take it on trust and be wary.
- throwawaymath 8y agoI can tell you what I do: 1. I don't consume any news from televised sources, 2. I read Foreign Policy, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, The Economist and Foreign Affairs, 3. I'm generally skeptical of everything I read and I try to assume every article's author has many unknown unknowns in their reporting (to counter Gelman Amnesia), 4. Every so often (once a week or so), I read something from a news source I actively distrust just to see what else a nontrivial portion of the population believes about the world. This isn't perfect, but if you have the free time to do that much reading I think it gets you pretty close to well-rounded. I think the only major way to improve upon this would be to add another major news source from another country for additional foreign perspective (this is why I like The Economist and Financial Times).
- smokeyj 8y agoGuessing you didn't read GP's link..
- b0bby_tabl3s 8y agoALL of #2 are very liberal leaning if not fully. You might consider rounding that out a bit? Check out Al Jazeera feeds, they have some good tidbits on there.
- 0xferruccio 8y agoHere's my secret stash: - https://www.quantamagazine.org https://www.quantamagazine.org - science-y - https://thebrowser.com https://thebrowser.com - sometimes too intellectual or focused on literature - https://waitbutwhy.com https://waitbutwhy.com - sometimes too simple - https://www.project-syndicate.org https://www.project-syndicate.org - sometimes written by people that are "talkers/politicians" not "doers" - https://www.gwern.net https://www.gwern.net - The monthly newsletter is great - https://chinai.substack.com https://chinai.substack.com - Chinese Papers and AI news translated - https://www.ribbonfarm.com https://www.ribbonfarm.com - great long form essays I also got asked a couple of times about starting my own monthly mailing list with the most interesting things I find. If you'd be interested in receiving it email me at hi[at]ferrucc[dot]io
- Jaruzel 8y agohttps://www.quantamagazine.org https://www.quantamagazine.org looks good. Thanks!
- 0xferruccio 8y agoyou're welcome :)
- nazka 8y agoHard to go wrong with these two: - NPR: https://www.npr.org https://www.npr.org - Reuters: https://www.reuters.com https://www.reuters.com They can be a little bit dry sometimes but that's what professional neutral news has to be. I like also: - Bloomberg: https://www.bloomberg.com https://www.bloomberg.com - And Politico: https://www.politico.com https://www.politico.com And finally a financial blog I love, Matt Levine Money Stuff (it's free from his newsletter): http://link.mail.bloombergbusiness.com/join/4wm/moneystuff-signup?source=msweb http://link.mail.bloombergbusiness.com/join/4wm/moneystuff-s...
- ChaseT 8y agoI think one of the takeaway's from Aaron's piece is that there IS no universally good source of information. That's okay, because the news you need to hear or that actually impacts you will make it's way to you through hearsay. The people you talk to in real life are a good filter. If you like podcasts, there's a nice discussion here http://www.hellointernet.fm/podcast/11 http://www.hellointernet.fm/podcast/11
- zabana 8y agoI'm not entirely sure non-biased publications exist. In a perfect world they would be a thing but in the world of humans quite impossible. As for my criteria: - I usually look at who owns the publication to get a sense of its positions in terms of important global affairs. - Are they reporting all the facts or simply "lying by omission" (which tends to be a very popular tactic these days, especially when it comes to geopolitical topics). - Balance, or what I like to call gray journalism. Because nothing is totally black or white in life. I'm of the opinion that the Internet simply killed traditional journalism, because now anybody (given the time) can go and check the facts for any given story published by the media.
- smokeyj 8y ago> What is a good source of information? Pamphlets. Road signs. Safety labels. As a general criteria, I would add "promotes action". What good is information if it doesn't bring any change?
- xsr24 8y agohttps://www.democracynow.org/ https://www.democracynow.org/
- bashmydotfiles 8y agoYou should check out allsides[0]. It's a new aggregator that presents news from the left, right, and center. They're constantly reevaluating what side of the spectrum news sources land on. They post about their findings and explain why they consider a new source left, center, or right. [0]: https://www.allsides.com/unbiased-balanced-news https://www.allsides.com/unbiased-balanced-news
- jacquesm 8y agoYou could possibly automate an aggregator that takes the various sources, see what at least all of them agree on and then spit that out as 'just the facts'.
- tangent128 8y agoThat algorithm empowers any source to suppress an inconvenient fact by making a baseless assertion of the contrary.
- samzub 8y agoOne of the papers I like reading is the monthly "Le Monde diplomatique". https://mondediplo.com/ https://mondediplo.com/ It has in-depth analysis of current events and world topics, and is a nice mix of recent news and long-term stories. I often find myself looking for more information after reading one of their articles, as they often include a lot of references to other topics or events I am not familiar with : it feeds my curiosity this way, and I get to read various news source about one topic.
- ForHackernews 8y agoSince 1998: https://aldaily.com/ https://aldaily.com/
- peterwwillis 8y agoIf you're into radio, PRI's The World (https://www.pri.org/programs/the-world https://www.pri.org/programs/the-world) and the BBC World Service (https://www.bbc.co.uk/worldserviceradio https://www.bbc.co.uk/worldserviceradio) both do a great job covering world news, as well as the Associated Press, Reuters, Al Jazeera, and the Christian Science Monitor.
- tracker1 8y agoThere is no such thing as unbiased... fact-based is often as close as you will get, which is increasingly rare.
- tyu1000 8y agoI like business news in general. You make money in finance by being right and people in the industry will gravitate towards accurate sources by definition. In general, business news tends to have the best qualified hosts as well, who can actually understand macroeconomic concepts.
- l9k 8y agoI used to think the same a few years ago. But nowadays, with the state of politics, the spread of fake news and false narrative on social media... this is what we have. "they could have read an entire book about most subjects covered and thereby learned about it with far more detail and far more impact than the daily doses they get dribbled out by the paper" This is not what people do. This is applicable to 1% of the population. Trump got elected and keeps supporters with dozens of 140-character messages everyday. There is no details, no analysis, lots of lies and inflammatory comments. But this is what works. Whether you agree with him or not, this is the winning method to gain influence. This is also because escaping news on social media and TV is harder and harder, and the more susceptible to get trapped are not the one that would make the better choices for everyone. So you need to use the same tactics to fight him or support him or support something in general. Or you virtually don't exist. And the opinion and vote of the people is more important than we realized just ten years ago when he wrote that. Would Swarz stay silent and disconnected in the Trump era?
- hopler 8y agoYou are talking about some different. Aaron was talking about reading news to learn about the world. You are talking about political activism. For your activism goals, reading Twitter might help (although your time is likely better spent with algorithmic summarization than with reading garbage tweets one at a time)
- l9k 8y agoSwarz was an activist himself. You might say, not a "political" activist, but today even acknowledging science is political... I think reading Twitter is generally a terrible idea, unless you carefully select who you follow, but you risk staying in your bubble, and adventuring yourself outside of it is even worse.
- ataturk 8y agoJust because WaPo and NYT are more verbose doesn't mean what they are feeding you isn't lies you know. Which of Trump's tweets do you take issue with? That the Mueller investigation is a witch hunt (it is)? That FBI agents were used to infiltrate Trump's campaign in an attempt to submarine it (they were)? That all of this behavior was highly illegal (it is). That foreign spy apparatus (5 Eyes) was engaged to spy in the Trump campaign (it was)? That anyone who colluded with 5 Eyes committed treason in doing so? This is what is really at stake, this is really what took place. And oh, by the way, I would really like to know who murdered Seth Rich and how his attempted leaks about the shenanigans by the DNC got him killed, because you know, that guy was a hero to bringing to light that corruption. Which, by the way, NOTHING has been done about. What is most disturbing about everything going on right now is how muddied the waters are and it is the MSM doing the muddying. Journalism has failed us. If you can't see that, you are part of the problem. The media needs to follow the story wherever it goes, even if it implicates their friends and colleagues. If they don't, our next step is an uprising to right this ship.
- nikodunk 8y agoThank you for sharing this! Excellently argued article, and has aged surprisingly well.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- ChaseT 8y agoHaving been introduced to this idea by CGPgrey on the Hello Internet podcast, I didn't know there was such a concise version of this idea written so well. I've tried to spread this message to my friends irl, and Aaron puts it better than I ever could.
- olivermarks 8y ago@soneca thank you for that link, I hadn't read this particular post. rolf dobelli's 'the art of thinking clearly' has a similar essay which greatly affected me to avoid 'news'. Ironically he also wrote a piece in the UK Guardian newspaper https://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/apr/12/news-is-bad-rolf-dobelli https://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/apr/12/news-is-bad-ro... recommending people stop consuming news...
- igneo676 8y agoI love the ideas centered around summaries: 1. Weekly 2. Monthly 3. At the end of significant events Is there anything out there that provides this sort of service?
- chubot 8y agoFor Hacker News, there's https://www.hackernewsletter.com/ https://www.hackernewsletter.com/ The idea is that instead of reading HN every day, you get an e-mail once a week. People apparently use it, because one article I wrote was selected for it, and I saw that it drove significant traffic. I'd like something for the nytimes and similar outlets too.
- pbhjpbhj 8y agoAside: the UK there are a couple of satirical news quizzes (The News Quiz, Mock The Week, Have I Got News For You). At times I've got most/all my World news through those; it works quite well as a means to get hot-takes on major events.
- josefresco 8y agoWhile I like and respect who Aaron was and what he did for us all, I cringed when reading "I Hate the News" because it came across as very naive. It's the same logic young people use to justify not voting, also the same logic my fellow parents use as reason for not attending town meeting. Find new sources, find your news. While today's news doesn't effect you directly, it might tomorrow, or it might effect your friend, loved one or neighbor. What Aaron is ranting about is the "business" of news which is fair. If the nightly news on your TV news network of choice offers nothing for you, find your local news, follow a reporter, a journalist and get involved. Actual journalism is what informs, enriches and protects American democracy. See also the "fourth estate".
- chickenfries 8y agoYeah this post is literally the same argument as “my vote has never changed the outcome of an election so why vote?”
- capulate89 8y agoAnd what's wrong with that argument? Democracy and voting aren't unquestionable goods. Just look at what became of most of the non-democratic countries that the US decided to "liberate" via forcing them to adopt democracy over the years.
- sudoscript 8y ago> What’s wrong with that argument? At an individual, probably nothing. But at a macro level, apathy is equivalent to a lack of legitimacy, which is a big problem. If the cancer of apathy spreads too far, the entire system comes crashing down. It’s like a party where your job is to bring one of the mixers. You don’t bring yours, nothing that terrible happens. No one brings any, and the party becomes a disaster.
- alasdair_ 8y ago>a lack of legitimacy Well... yes. And I view this as a good thing. The current US voting system is broken and I am not sure it is fixable simply by voting more - that simply entrenches the current system. I prefer to use illegitimacy and disenfranchisement to spur useful change to the systems themselves. I want to see somethink like ranked choice with an instant runoff, the abolition of the electoral college and a simple one person, one vote choice for president, without dividing people into small groups first. Reforming the senate is likely also a good idea. Apathy and illegitimacy are the kindling needed to foster real change.
- sigi45 8y agoBut 'purley and simple' doesn't fit. News/consume gives you the zeitgeist. No popculture/news no zeitgeist. Also news doesn't work when no one reads them. So for him it works and for you also but it would probably remove an important organ if noone would spend any money on it. Yes we are far from it and yes there is too much news but his viewpoint is too simple.
- qwerty456127 8y agoHacker News are [almost] enough.
- e40 8y agoPerhaps this will be of interest: https://thecorrespondent.com/ https://thecorrespondent.com/ I donated to them on the weekend, after watching The Daily Show interview with a founder.
- __d 8y agoI have been on the waiting list since they announced the international edition a while back. I'm looking forward to seeing how it works out. It's still a biased source, of course, but at least it's outside the advertising-driven bubble.
- ChicagoBoy11 8y agoAn extension to this principle would be to focus all of that energy into consuming news that, for you, ISN'T a closed circuit, and that potential could have a direct impact in your life. I'm not in any position now or in the near future to do a darn thing about the soldiers in Iraq, but topics covered by my trade association publication, or news items about work that is going on around me, etc., might. Likelihood of that reading having an impact on my life (and equally of my life impacting the thing reported) is far, far higher, so it would seem the returns to that reading heavily outweigh the returns to reading the NYT.
- nouseforaname 8y agoI agree. Many organizations want to have their cake and eat it too. They are basically ad-driven and looking for eyeballs. "If it bleeds it leads" I don't know that I ever really have much faith in the whole "church and state" divide between advertising and editorial but to the extent that was ever true, it doesn't reflect the current direction of many papers. They are leaning in to "native advertising". I apologize for getting political, but my pet theory is that "the news" is largely to blame for our current political situation because reporting on boring candidates with boring opinions generates less page views than reporting on our current president. At the same time I'm supposed to put these people on a pedestal and donate to them so that they can save democracy on my behalf. So is there a function they could be doing that would be important for our democracy? I think so. Are they doing it? I think the jury is still out. Sorry, I know this seems cynical or "edgy". I just don't believe that a non-cynical view the journalism industry reflects reality.
- atwebb 8y agoThanks for the link, I find it interesting that he links his twitter at the bottom which is mostly news/headline links near the end: https://twitter.com/aaronsw https://twitter.com/aaronsw Wonder if it was a head change over those 7 years or something unintended, a way that it drags us all in.
- markhalonen 8y agoI prefer to regard journalists as "pageview collectors"
- fishtank 8y agoNeil Postman has a lot to say on this topic, which he terms the "news of the day" throughout Amusing Ourselves to Death. For example: "This idea — that there is a content called “the news of the day” — was entirely created by the telegraph (and since amplified by newer media), which made it possible to move decontextualized information over vast spaces at incredible speed. The news of the day is a figment of our technological imagination. It is quite, precisely, a media event. We attend to fragments of events from all over the world because we have multiple media whose forms are well suited to fragmented conversation." “How often does it occur that information provided you on morning radio or television, or in the morning newspaper, causes you to alter your plans for the day, or to take some action you would not otherwise have taken, or provides insight into some problem you are required to solve? For most of us, news of the weather will sometimes have consequences; for investors, news of the stock market; perhaps an occasional story about crime will do it, if by chance it occurred near where you live or involved someone you know. But most of our daily news is inert, consisting of information that gives us something to talk about but cannot lead to any meaningful action." "You may get a sense of what this means by asking yourself another series of questions: What steps do you plan to take to reduce the conflict in the Middle East? Or the rates of inflation, crime and unemployment? What are your plans for preserving the environment or reducing the risk of nuclear war? What do you plan to do about NATO, OPEC, the CIA, affirmative action, and the monstrous treatment of the Baha’is in Iran? I shall take the liberty of answering for you: You plan to do nothing about them. You may, of course, cast a ballot for someone who claims to have some plans, as well as the power to act. But this you can do only once every two or four years by giving one hour of your time, hardly a satisfying means of expressing the broad range of opinions you hold. Voting, we might even say, is the next to last refuge of the politically impotent. The last refuge is, of course, giving your opinion to a pollster, who will get a version of it through a desiccated question, and then will submerge it in a Niagara of similar opinions, and convert them into—what else?—another piece of news. Thus, we have here a great loop of impotence: The news elicits from you a variety of opinions about which you can do nothing except to offer them as more news, about which you can do nothing.”
- throwaway5250 8y agoGenerally I agree and aspire to this. I do wonder, though, how I would keep track of the list of phrases I'm no longer allowed to say without being fired, shunned, or worse.