6 ms·

> and misery the news (Twitter) was bringing into my life. That's because you were not getting news. You were getting social media. It amazes me that comments

by _whbj 7y ago

> and misery the news (Twitter) was bringing into my life. That's because you were not getting news. You were getting social media. It amazes me that comments here don't distinguish between these. Facebook, twitter, google news, hackernews etc. are not news. They may all use or perhaps disseminate "news" but they are not sources of news.

archeantus 7y ago
I mainly used Twitter as my source for news content. I accomplished this by not only following “smart” political people that shared their opinions on things, but also by following most major news organizations as well. The partisan politics, the faux outrage, the hyped up drama, it’s what drives clicks and ad $ and it’s awful for our mental health.
dredmorbius 7y ago
Following news -- a large city daily paper, CBC, BBC, NPR, ABC (Australia), commercial national television news, local television news -- is much the same. Information is wrong, irrelevant, intentionally aggrevating, or all of the above. Sometimes more so, sometimes less, but very nearly always. I'd started buring out on a noncommercial radio news habit by the late 2010s. Yes, that corresponded with an increased use of social media -- mostly Google+ and Reddit, and not Facebook or Twitter. My social life was entirely offline, I've long had the view that the Internet is for acquiring and discussing information, but not personal details. I began reading more books and articles. And finding that what was revealed through those was that much of what is encountered through news, journalism, and broadcast ... just misses massive amounts of relevant information. You spend so much time caught up in the malinformed focus on the present that you lose any sense of connection with earlier periods and thought, much of which informs the now. And the notion isn't new, it's an age-old criticism of the press. Neil Postman wrote of this in Amusing Ourselves to Death (1987) (https://www.worldcat.org/title/amusing-ourselves-to-death/oclc/1110823573&referer=brief_results https://www.worldcat.org/title/amusing-ourselves-to-death/oc...). I.F. Stone and George Seldes both made a life's work of this, from the 1920s through the 1980s. There's an excellent Stone interview online: https://www.invidio.us/watch?v=qV3gO3zxQ1g https://www.invidio.us/watch?v=qV3gO3zxQ1g And a trailer for "Tell the Truth and Run", about George Seldes: https://www.invidio.us/watch?v=xBJ7hDVvAI0 https://www.invidio.us/watch?v=xBJ7hDVvAI0 The book Commercialism and Journalism details the problem. In 1909. It's one of those great "things really haven't changed all that much" insights: https://archive.org/details/commercialismjou00holt https://archive.org/details/commercialismjou00holt There are exceptions; there always are. But they are the exception, and the bulk of news really isn't worth bothering about. The stuff that is worth bothering about ... generally doesn't make the news.
- catchmilk 7y ago
  So where do you source your daily news from generally?
  - dredmorbius 7y ago
    I don't really have a daily news habit. It's hard to miss the larger stories -- they intrude into discussions and conversations. If that story is something I perceive as not useful to know or engage with I'll state as much. This includes most crime and political stories, to the extent those focus on crisis de jour, immediate and personal impacts, horse race, or some orange running its mouth off. I'm more interested in deeper undercurrents. My guiding question over the past seven or eight years has been "what are the Big Problems". And information that doesn't address this isn't particularly interesting. Specific major stories are. I've been following hurricane Dorian, for example, though my entry point to that wasn't news, but the https://earth.nullschool.org https://earth.nullschool.org weather visualiser, which shows interesting phenomena. And Dorian showed up initially as a minor swirl just off the coast of Venezuela, then developed rapidly. Then it started turning up in news mentions. I occasionally catch On the Media's weekly deep-dive into major stories of the week, or longer. That's about the right frequency for me to catch up on news, and it's no longer every week. Mostly I'm looking at larger themes and patterns that repeat through history. Models, frames, context. Philosophy, history, systems theory, cybernetics. Focusing exclusively on the new and now takes away from that.
asdff 7y ago
I mainly only read local news coverage now from my paper of record (LA times), and a couple local magazines with good journalists. I read less of it (as there really is less of it), but what I do read is more impactful and about the area I live in, and the stories are much more likely to have a tangible impact on my life than whatever national gaffe is being talked about currently in every publication and agency at once. I don't care that I'm out of the loop on a lot of the national soap opera. The loop is pretty dumb usually and not worth wasting much time on. I loooove reading about local transit projects, housing development, and other local matters on the other hand. That stuff I actually use in my life. I also only use RSS for content, which really saves me time. I think a lot of people could stand taking a step back from the national drama and studying local issues more closely.

by _whbj 7y ago

archeantus 7y ago

I mainly used Twitter as my source for news content. I accomplished this by not only following “smart” political people that shared their opinions on things, but also by following most major news organizations as well. The partisan politics, the faux outrage, the hyped up drama, it’s what drives clicks and ad $ and it’s awful for our mental health.

dredmorbius 7y ago

Following news -- a large city daily paper, CBC, BBC, NPR, ABC (Australia), commercial national television news, local television news -- is much the same. Information is wrong, irrelevant, intentionally aggrevating, or all of the above. Sometimes more so, sometimes less, but very nearly always. I'd started buring out on a noncommercial radio news habit by the late 2010s. Yes, that corresponded with an increased use of social media -- mostly Google+ and Reddit, and not Facebook or Twitter. My social life was entirely offline, I've long had the view that the Internet is for acquiring and discussing information, but not personal details. I began reading more books and articles. And finding that what was revealed through those was that much of what is encountered through news, journalism, and broadcast ... just misses massive amounts of relevant information. You spend so much time caught up in the malinformed focus on the present that you lose any sense of connection with earlier periods and thought, much of which informs the now. And the notion isn't new, it's an age-old criticism of the press. Neil Postman wrote of this in Amusing Ourselves to Death (1987) (https://www.worldcat.org/title/amusing-ourselves-to-death/oclc/1110823573&referer=brief_results https://www.worldcat.org/title/amusing-ourselves-to-death/oc...). I.F. Stone and George Seldes both made a life's work of this, from the 1920s through the 1980s. There's an excellent Stone interview online: https://www.invidio.us/watch?v=qV3gO3zxQ1g https://www.invidio.us/watch?v=qV3gO3zxQ1g And a trailer for "Tell the Truth and Run", about George Seldes: https://www.invidio.us/watch?v=xBJ7hDVvAI0 https://www.invidio.us/watch?v=xBJ7hDVvAI0 The book Commercialism and Journalism details the problem. In 1909. It's one of those great "things really haven't changed all that much" insights: https://archive.org/details/commercialismjou00holt https://archive.org/details/commercialismjou00holt There are exceptions; there always are. But they are the exception, and the bulk of news really isn't worth bothering about. The stuff that is worth bothering about ... generally doesn't make the news.

catchmilk 7y ago
So where do you source your daily news from generally?
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  I don't really have a daily news habit. It's hard to miss the larger stories -- they intrude into discussions and conversations. If that story is something I perceive as not useful to know or engage with I'll state as much. This includes most crime and political stories, to the extent those focus on crisis de jour, immediate and personal impacts, horse race, or some orange running its mouth off. I'm more interested in deeper undercurrents. My guiding question over the past seven or eight years has been "what are the Big Problems". And information that doesn't address this isn't particularly interesting. Specific major stories are. I've been following hurricane Dorian, for example, though my entry point to that wasn't news, but the https://earth.nullschool.org https://earth.nullschool.org weather visualiser, which shows interesting phenomena. And Dorian showed up initially as a minor swirl just off the coast of Venezuela, then developed rapidly. Then it started turning up in news mentions. I occasionally catch On the Media's weekly deep-dive into major stories of the week, or longer. That's about the right frequency for me to catch up on news, and it's no longer every week. Mostly I'm looking at larger themes and patterns that repeat through history. Models, frames, context. Philosophy, history, systems theory, cybernetics. Focusing exclusively on the new and now takes away from that.

asdff 7y ago

I mainly only read local news coverage now from my paper of record (LA times), and a couple local magazines with good journalists. I read less of it (as there really is less of it), but what I do read is more impactful and about the area I live in, and the stories are much more likely to have a tangible impact on my life than whatever national gaffe is being talked about currently in every publication and agency at once. I don't care that I'm out of the loop on a lot of the national soap opera. The loop is pretty dumb usually and not worth wasting much time on. I loooove reading about local transit projects, housing development, and other local matters on the other hand. That stuff I actually use in my life. I also only use RSS for content, which really saves me time. I think a lot of people could stand taking a step back from the national drama and studying local issues more closely.