4 ms·

I try to not read that much news and instead try to read books. The quality of the news is decreasing to Facebook/reddit levels and designed to increase engage

I try to not read that much news and instead try to read books. The quality of the news is decreasing to Facebook/reddit levels and designed to increase engagement by preying on your emotions. It’s much like marketing. The book Factfulness by Hans Rosling has some good thoughts on this - mostly the world is getting better, but the news has to sell ads, which means telling dramatic stories. If something is truly important, I’ll find out about it somehow (word of mouth etc). That’s not to say I don’t skim the headlines once in a while, but let’s face it, it’s not really my job to know what is going on 24/7, so why worry about it?

jmkni 8y ago
Not a massive Red Hot Chilli Peppers fan, but always loved Throw Away Your Television - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmbN4yRu0Us https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmbN4yRu0Us Exactly this sentiment.
rktkrnfbjrkdkd 8y ago
> The quality of the news is decreasing to Facebook/reddit levels News doesn’t try to be objective anymore. Nowadays almost all tv hosts show their bias outright, even though they might invite people from the other side. It’s sometimes like watching a daytime talk show. I just started ignoring anything news related lately on YouTube and reddit, and I can feel my negativity decreasing.
- iso1337 8y ago
  Many of the article titles on Bloomberg etc seem to have turned into clickbait in the last few years. I suppose that’s what works for driving clicks or maybe I have just wised up to it as I grew older. I remember a 10th or 11th grade English class (US public school) where they brought in a guest journalist. She basically told the class that readers would rather read about the story of a family who went through a tornado rather than stats about how fewer people are dying from tornados... so I suppose things haven’t really changed.
atakiel 8y ago
> I try to not read that much news and instead try to read books. This is pretty much it: it's better to avoid reading news as a habit, and instead use the limited resources on finding quality information, regardless of the medium. That is, don't stop following news. Instead, try to control, what news, where, when and on how often you consume. Prefer quality over quantity. The biggest confusion regarding news stems from the semantics. Even though the name would imply that there is, or needs to be, something new in news, as in something fresh related to today's events that should be read the same day it was published. That's rarely the case. News is a medium of information delivery. It doesn't really matter when you consume it, or how often. News don't really get stale, if you read them a day later. For a large part, news are already old the time they are published. They depict things that have taken place possibly days earlier, or have been published way before in other mediums, or don't actually matter whether they are published or read today or tomorrow. That being said, there are cases when news deliver breaking information relevant to events taking place at the very same time, just in time to affect outcomes. Many times, reading about these things the same day is not relevant for average person. This kind of information is primarily important for the greater public discussion. It is relevant for specialists, whether that's people or organisations, which in their position need to stay up to date with live events, or need to follow chronological order of information on events. For an average reader, majority of news are not day specific. It's okay to read about them on a later date, or even from different sources, other than the ones initially breaking the news, with possibly additional commentary that provides greater insight on the topic. It's totally okay to follow news non-daily. Weekly is still a plenty regular. If you get depressed on a specific type of news, read less of them, take pauses, air your thoughts, and try to vary your news sources. There's a great many interesting and important things taking place daily. It's totally okay to know about some of them a bit later.

jmkni 8y ago

Not a massive Red Hot Chilli Peppers fan, but always loved Throw Away Your Television - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmbN4yRu0Us https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmbN4yRu0Us Exactly this sentiment.

rktkrnfbjrkdkd 8y ago

> The quality of the news is decreasing to Facebook/reddit levels News doesn’t try to be objective anymore. Nowadays almost all tv hosts show their bias outright, even though they might invite people from the other side. It’s sometimes like watching a daytime talk show. I just started ignoring anything news related lately on YouTube and reddit, and I can feel my negativity decreasing.

iso1337 8y ago
Many of the article titles on Bloomberg etc seem to have turned into clickbait in the last few years. I suppose that’s what works for driving clicks or maybe I have just wised up to it as I grew older. I remember a 10th or 11th grade English class (US public school) where they brought in a guest journalist. She basically told the class that readers would rather read about the story of a family who went through a tornado rather than stats about how fewer people are dying from tornados... so I suppose things haven’t really changed.

atakiel 8y ago

> I try to not read that much news and instead try to read books. This is pretty much it: it's better to avoid reading news as a habit, and instead use the limited resources on finding quality information, regardless of the medium. That is, don't stop following news. Instead, try to control, what news, where, when and on how often you consume. Prefer quality over quantity. The biggest confusion regarding news stems from the semantics. Even though the name would imply that there is, or needs to be, something new in news, as in something fresh related to today's events that should be read the same day it was published. That's rarely the case. News is a medium of information delivery. It doesn't really matter when you consume it, or how often. News don't really get stale, if you read them a day later. For a large part, news are already old the time they are published. They depict things that have taken place possibly days earlier, or have been published way before in other mediums, or don't actually matter whether they are published or read today or tomorrow. That being said, there are cases when news deliver breaking information relevant to events taking place at the very same time, just in time to affect outcomes. Many times, reading about these things the same day is not relevant for average person. This kind of information is primarily important for the greater public discussion. It is relevant for specialists, whether that's people or organisations, which in their position need to stay up to date with live events, or need to follow chronological order of information on events. For an average reader, majority of news are not day specific. It's okay to read about them on a later date, or even from different sources, other than the ones initially breaking the news, with possibly additional commentary that provides greater insight on the topic. It's totally okay to follow news non-daily. Weekly is still a plenty regular. If you get depressed on a specific type of news, read less of them, take pauses, air your thoughts, and try to vary your news sources. There's a great many interesting and important things taking place daily. It's totally okay to know about some of them a bit later.