7 ms·

Do not stop reading news. Be selective with your sources. Be a discerning news consumer. An uninformed populace is a malleable one. Controlling and limiting in

• holografix 8y ago
  Thank you.
• taude 8y ago
  >> Being well informed isn’t regurgitating the opinion of some twenty-two-year-old with no life experience telling me what to think or how outraged to be. > This isn't news, it's opinion. Don't read this. Sometimes this is harder than you think, even with popular news sources. I subscribe to the NY Times, but if I go by notifications on my phone for the "popular" stories, many of them are opinion pieces. In fact, I'm looking right now at "Most Popular" in my NYTimes app and I'm seeing multiple "opinion" pieces in that list (actually 5 of the top 10) and only after you click into them do you know that they aren't hard news.
• justtopost 8y ago
  You seem to mean well, but your post is also a recipie for creating a personal bubble, no matter how well spoken.
  • nkozyra 8y ago
    News literacy is a critical problem today, moreso than ever before. It may seem as though I glossed over that, but my larger point is people need to understand what news is and means first. A bubble is inevitable in either event, finite time ensures that.
  • pjc50 8y ago
    The "bubble" expression I've only ever encountered used by people from a rightish perspective to complain that other people aren't listening to them and that their perspective isn't the completely dominant one. Whereas people of the opposite view always know what the opposing view is - it gets shouted at them a lot - they just don't agree with it. Anti-vaxers and flat-earthers might be called "bubbles", but then so is the pro-vax round-world view. After all, if you only ever read round-world media, aren't you closing your mind to alternative facts? /s
    • coldtea 8y ago
      >The "bubble" expression I've only ever encountered used by people from a rightish perspective That's perhaps because you live in a bubble.
    • whatshisface 8y ago
      I've read enough flat Earth stuff to safely say I can reject it on its merits. Anti vax got started as a response to a series of industrial accidents that weren't handled right by the business side, but industrial accidents are rare so I think that's not sufficient reason to abandon vaccines entirely. The only people you hear complain about bubbles are the people that are marginalized, if you agree with the bubble you will love every second of it and hate everyone outside. So, watch out before you speak in support of your bubble, that probably just means you are in the center.
  • hirundo 8y ago
    It's not clear to me that living in a personal bubble should be seen as derogatory. Since there's more media than any of us can consume, and none of us surf randomly over all of it, we all live in such a bubble. To acknowledge that is a start on improving its quality. For instance we can steel-man our bubbles by consciously including the highest quality perspectives from the tribes we oppose. We can think of that in terms of know-your-enemy, but often the effect of hearing from the best of those enemies is to find the ways in which they are either allies, or at least to learn to empathize with their positions. If we had no bubble, and just took in the loudest most amplified opinions at random, we'd be more likely to inaccurately conclude that those positions had no steel-man positions to learn from. So a well curated bubble is better than the illusion of none at all.
• welly 8y ago
  Well said. Exactly what I thought but more eloquent than I'd have responded.
• rjtavares 8y ago
  > Don't read that then. Read sources you believe are important to you and deliver information that is important. Yes, but also make an offer to read sources that provide a different point of view from your own. There should be smart people who you disagree with. Find those people.
• dgellow 8y ago
  You can be informed without following news. Often reading books/articles produced some time after an event gives a more nuanced and in-depth analysis.
  • nkozyra 8y ago
    I don't disagree, but the time that passes limits your ability to respond in the present. Don't eschew current news because it's slight, because it's invite, because it's simplistic in form. That's the point.
    • coldtea 8y ago
      >I don't disagree, but the time that passes limits your ability to respond in the present. What examples are there of any meaningful "responding in the present" that happened because of news (as opposed because of directly suffering some oppression on yourself)?
      • zimpenfish 8y ago
        > What examples are there of any meaningful "responding in the present" Protest marches? Strikes? You could even include terrorism if you wanted.
        • nkozyra 8y ago
          Pending legislation? Environmental, economic peril? Our ability to react to news is often personal, but it can operate on a macro level as well.
  • yesenadam 8y ago
    >some time after an event Or before. I learnt more about 21st C USA by reading Tocqueville's Democracy in America (1835) than anything written since.
• afiori 8y ago
  > An uninformed populace is a malleable one. A overreacting population is even more malleable. >This isn't news, it's opinion. Don't read this. >Be a discerning news consumer. Media, even big mainstream media, is very flexible regarding the distinction between news and opinion; the latest big example being the maga-kids and how people were rewriting the same articles over and over on debunked facts. I am not saying to stop following the news, but more than reading trusted sources you should mostly distrust most news. In this context I like how Tim Pool describe how too many journalist are in a twitter bubble.
  • jshowa3 8y ago
    How does this make any sense? Why should you distrust news because they report on inconsequential stuff? Whatever is on twitter is still a real fact because they repeat, verbatim what people post on it. Distrust implies they're lying to you, when most of the time they aren't.
    • mistermann 8y ago
      How do you know most of the time they aren't lying?
      • jshowa3 8y ago
        Because I can check the sources. I can go to the Twitter profile and search the tweet. I can corroborate sources. Whether its the correct interpretation or whether the content of the tweet itself is factual depends on several factors. And I agree, the news has some play in interpreting the information because they have to generate content through additional discussion (ie. business), and because everything needs some form of interpretation. The irony is, the OP might as well say stop reading Hacker News, because this site is a publicly curated news outlet filled with BS and non-BS content everyday. So, should we stop reading Hacker News because it could spread lies or opinion?
    • koheripbal 8y ago
      > "Whatever is on twitter is still a real fact because they repeat, verbatim what people post on it." This, right here, is the problem. Something is not a FACT just because it's being repeated over and over on Twitter. In fact, I have a feeling the correlation between accuracy and Twitter-repetition is probably inverse.
• skh 8y ago
  Have you heard of the Murray Gellmann Amnesia Effect? How do you know the source you are reading is trustworthy? I've witnessed the Murray Gellmann effect in my area of specialty which is mathematics. It makes me wonder about articles in areas outside of my specialty. I recently watched the Netflix documentary on the Fyre Festival. I also watched the one on Hulu. One of the documentaries was produced by a company involved in that whole mess but you wouldn't be able to tell by watching the documentary. Due to consolidation of media it seems to me that it is easier to spin and control a narrative. I don't think any of the popular sources of information are trustworthy.
  • casefields 8y ago
    For those that don't know, here is Michael Crichton's speech where it comes from: "Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.” Whole speech here: http://docdro.id/4wgVecr http://docdro.id/4wgVecr
    • zimpenfish 8y ago
      > then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read Surely that only works if the same combination of journalists and subeditors work on all the stories? Just because Margaret has written some pop-sci junk about robots doesn't suddenly make Malcolm's commentary on Botswana any less valid.
      • skh 8y ago
• birksherty 8y ago
  I don't read news, don't use social media. I find it working fine. Although hacker news kind of works like a news source to me. I find almost everything in news noise now. Don't following any of that on purpose makes me feel calm. Now if there is something that I should really know, it comes to me. I meet people all the time and then they tell me if something important is going on. I don't have to go after news. I adopted this after going through all the political bs in last few years. It works like a filter and I enjoy it.
  • Datsundere 8y ago
    >I find almost everything in news noise now. Don't following any of that on purpose makes me feel calm. Yes, that's what ignorants do. It's easier to ignore what's happening around the world. Vietnam war could've gone longer had it not for the public to come out and tell the government to pull out of Vietnam. It's easier to ignore things and live a blissful life, but then you have the no right to complain when laws are passed that don't align to your values.
    • hycaria 8y ago
      Well I feel that following news for the sake of... following news ? is also very ignorant. Like people getting angry at stuff that they don't fully understand, is that reasonable ? >but then you have the no right to complain when laws are passed that don't align to your values. Who says that ever happens ?
      • platz 8y ago
        > following news for the sake of... following news That's not what they are asking or claiming.
      • untog 8y ago
        How about following news in order to be an informed citizen, who makes informed choices about how to vote, what to protest and what to support?
• cjslep 8y ago
  I agree. I am currently reading the classic "Manufacturing Consent" and I find it a great critique of the mainstream media in such a way that can be emulated on a personal level. I like that it shows how to be critical of mainstream media while consuming it and without needing to adopt a pseudo-conspiracy "alternative fact" mindset.
• douglaswlance 8y ago
  News media does not inform, it purposefully misinforms. You are being shaped by the media. You are the malleable one. The line between opinion and actual reporting is gone. It no longer exists. All reporting is activism. Read books to be informed. Specifically the books that have stood the test of time and shaped history. Our media is owned by the most powerful people in the world. You are conceding your most critical faculties, the power to think for yourself, to the most powerful people in the world. And they've gaslit you into believing that the exact opposite is true.
  • nkozyra 8y ago
    I love this caricature of the media. It's become very pervasive of late. I went to journalism school. I've worked in news rooms - from small to the world's largest and prestigious. What you describe is fantasy. In good news organizations the editorial side has autonomy by design. The corporate part is intentionally insulated away from the news producing side. I've seen fights between publishers and ad directors over content. It doesn't happen often but those conflicts are real. I've never seen editorial lose.
    • douglaswlance 8y ago
      It doesn't matter how it is done, just that it is done. You can't extract bias only from how the news is created; one must merely read the news to detect bias. Even the NYT news section is littered with activism and bias. Which isn't to the mention the total lack of clarity between what is and is not opinion in the vast majority of papers. Media-types live in an echo chamber that distorts their reality. Over time, the echos grow stronger and stronger, but those in the media still believe them; while those outside of the media see an ever escalating cacophony of noise.
• koonsolo 8y ago
  > But rejecting information from the media is a concession to power. Mainstream news is not information, it's entertainment. The sooner your realize it the better. Journalists have nor the time, nor the expertise or the means to write a purely accurate objective articles (that nobody wants to read because it's purely informational). I cannot count the times I read articles about my field of expertise, that are laughably inaccurate or pain false. Journalists crunch out quick stories that are exaggerated or come from one angle, so that people would read it after seeing the headline, and get agitated enough to share it. Remark that this is not the fault of the journalists, but just how that whole system works. You should read "Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator" by Ryan Holiday, and see how fragile that whole system is. And because of its fragility, can be easily manipulated on top of it. If you want to get informed, either read books written by experts (like suggested), read the original scientific paper and draw your own conclusions, or stay ahead of your game by getting news from sources other than media. That last part will show you that by the time it's covered by main stream news, it's already old news (think bitcoin etc.) When I read something, first thing I check is "who is this person?". If it's an expert on the subject, or has his own experience and tells the story, I'm happy to read it. If it's a journalist that is crunching out stories every week, I skip it.
  • nkozyra 8y ago
    > Mainstream news is not information, it's entertainment. The sooner your realize it the better. A gross generalization. I've been in the biggest newsrooms in the country, seen the autonomy of editorial up front and personal. You're conflating the bad with the good. You're not alone.
  • untog 8y ago
    > Mainstream news is not information, it's entertainment. The sooner your realize it the better. This is, and always has been, an utterly dumb argument that only persists because it sounds clever. Mainstream news informs people about what is going on in the world around them. What their elected representatives are doing. What the weather is doing (an underrated one, in terms of every day utility, especially in hurricane season). The mainstream TV news also happens to wrap this information up in a package fronted by two or more telegenic presenters, and often finishes off with a nice feel good story. That doesn't diminish the information being conveyed. Perhaps the world would be better informed if everyone set aside two hours a day to read academic journals, but that's never going to happen.
• apatters 8y ago
  Ironically it's easier than ever to be informed, but harder than ever to maintain self-discipline and avoid consuming junk. The Media Bias Chart is a good tool for assessing the quality of sources: https://www.adfontesmedia.com/ https://www.adfontesmedia.com/ Select one or two sources at the absolute pinnacle of the chart (bias score of between -6 and 6, quality score of 56+). Once a day, spend 10 minutes scanning the headlines in their Top News sections. Once a week, select a source with a quality score of 32+ and set aside an hour or two reading their opinions/analysis columns. For bonus points, alternate between the left and right sides of the pyramid. On a few hours a week you will quickly become, by far, one of the most well-informed people you know. You'll develop a balanced and even-minded view of world and local affairs (if you're currently stressed out about the state of the world, this will have a therapeutic effect). You'll rarely get sucked into clickbait, filter bubbles, etc. and when you do you'll recognize them quickly. The opposite of this strategy is to spend several hours a day consuming "news" from Facebook, Twitter, and the "sources" on the far left and right of the pyramid. This is what the OP warns about. Abandon all hope ye who enter here. This will warp your view of reality and damage your mental health. If you want to have a healthy body you need to select a diet of quality foods. If you want to have a healthy mind you need to select a diet of quality information. (In both cases, some light fasting can be beneficial too.)
• godelmachine 8y ago
  >>Read fewer articles and more books. This is a weird argument. His point is news is a stupid fodder to feed your mind with and its better to get indulged with books like literature, biographies, self help books et al.
• deleted 8y ago
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