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I have, sadly, given up. I can't stand watching/reading the news and feeling that I am quite possibly being manipulated, so I have completely given up. Anything

I have, sadly, given up. I can't stand watching/reading the news and feeling that I am quite possibly being manipulated, so I have completely given up. Anything I do read, I mistrust. I don't want to be ignorant towards what is happening around me, but I feel like I have no choice, I don't want to become bitter and "pick a side", I prefer to remain ignorant. Even when friends say "Oh, but try this source, they are soooo much better", it doesn't take long to realise there is ALWAYS an agenda behind it, a political leaning... It's exhausting.

tekmate 7y ago
identify potential biases in a source and then filter the information of that source through a bias lense, then use another source and do the same thing to triangulate "the truth" giving up on consuming news because everything might be biased is simply lazy
- jl6 7y ago
  Beware that the truth is not necessarily the midpoint between opposing opinions. Sometimes a source with a general bias gets it exactly right in a specific case.
  - tekmate 7y ago
    true, triangulating doesn't mean the middle necessarily
  - lowmagnet 7y ago
    And there aren't always "two sides" to an issue; there are arguments made in bad faith and those in good faith and it's hard to tell the difference.
- dexen 7y ago
  >giving up on consuming news because everything might be biased is simply lazy Not at all; it's a valid strategy. The events and the state of the world can be deduced from observing the (near) past just as well as from reading the news, perhaps even better. A person can stay reasonably well informed by skipping on the news, and instead observing actual events, actual outcomes, that is the (near) history. Both in person and through social circles, in particular friends and family. You could call it "the slow way" of getting the news. As noted in OP and elsewhere in discussion, the news are rife with misinformation. It follows news listeners, subject to the misinformation, end up with various misconceptions and strong emotions, thus prone to doing things no well informed person would do. Having a sizable segment of population not subject to the news, and instead informed via others means is a natural counter-balance, a safety mechanism against single mindedness imparted by the centralized news.
  - pnutjam 7y ago
    You just described "the news", which is different then opinion shows which are very common. Many people with a personal agenda lump the news in with opinion shows when they hear things they don't like.
- tasogare 7y ago
  That works if there are enough different sources with different biais. That might not be the case i lot of countries.
Joe-Z 7y ago
I've done exactly the same and have the complete opposite feeling of you. Why not 'be ignorant'? What are you really ignorant towards when ignoring the news? Most of its use, it seems to me, is to have something to talk about, with people you otherwise have have nothing to talk about. If you really need certain/real news (like investors basing decisions on earnings reports) you will have your quality, non-mass-media sources anyway.
iagovar 7y ago
Being informed is hard. Now, I'd be talking about the spanish speaking-sphere, but I guess some of this may apply to the US too. Every time I want to dig in a subject it always comes down to this: 1. If the topic has scientific coverage, try to find meta-analysis. If there isn't any the field has a high chance of lacking ground truth. Sadly you need at least statistics knowledge to know where are you getting into, and some times this isn't enough because domain knowledge is a must. Some words may be used in a different meaning than you're used to. 2. If there isn't any scientific coverage, try to find specialized sources. Most of them are not open access though. 3. If your only resource is main stream media or internet outlets, then try to balance out different approaches. This is a very hard task because the amount of noise is staggering. It's not only agendas but journalist really doing a poor/cheap/lazy work or a combination of them all. If you happen to know a domain, then try to avoid anything other than specialized media upwards, because you'll get angry or at least you won't believe how weird some realities are depicted to the general public. It's also a good exercise to read info that doesn't reinforce your beliefs, try to break the famous "eco chamber", it's probably the only way to not become an idiot, even if you know the truth from first hand, because it's useful to know what people are being told to think and how some other people can reach other conclusions.
pjc50 7y ago
This is exactly the effect that the news-spammers want to achieve. If you don't pick a side, you're not voting, or you're not an informed voter. So you've opted out of democracy. Which is nice, you've relieved yourself of a whole bunch of stress, and nothing changes in the short term. Until something goes wrong. It's not that there won't be elections, they'll just be won by the same party for years on end. You personally will be fine, but there's an uptick in the number of journalists and activists killed in car bombs or more mysterious circumstances. The quality of the roads deteriorates and the number of homeless you have to step over increases. Still, best not to have an agenda.
- hoorayimhelping 7y ago
  >This is exactly the effect that the news-spammers want to achieve. If you don't pick a side, you're not voting, or you're not an informed voter How does this follow at all? You're doing exactly what the news spammers want. You're believing that they are the gatekeepers to knowledge and being informed. You're buying into the story that you need them to understand the world. This is a load of hogshit. Candidates post their platforms and their ideas and encourage you to read them before you vote. How does watching the news make me more informed of their platform? They have values and they apply those values to the issues at hand. They say things like, "I believe in universal healthcare," or "I am tough against gun rights." How does being super up to date on the news help me understand how they will react to hypothetical situations, which is what I'm voting on? Why do I need to know that there's massive protests going on in Hong Kong, the middle east and South America? Those are irrelevant to the domestic issues we face at home. The same domestic issues we face every election cycle (in the US): jobs, health care, food, guns, infrastructure. How does being well informed of the news help me make decisions based on my values and on the alignment of values with a candidate?
  - roenxi 7y ago
    > Why do I need to know that there's massive protests going on in Hong Kong, the middle east and South America? Given the poor quality of the reporting on local political issues it seems highly unlikely that the news is even reporting foreign political situations in a helpful fashion. Even assuming good faith; it just seems unlikely that the facts will all get identified and accurately synthesised.
the_af 7y ago
> Even when friends say "Oh, but try this source, they are soooo much better", it doesn't take long to realise there is ALWAYS an agenda behind it, a political leaning... It's exhausting. Journalism is always biased; even supposedly "objective" news outlets, by just picking which stories to emphasize or even report at all, are engaging in bias -- even when you think that the stories they do choose are "fair". This is not a bad thing, it's just a reality of life (it could be argued that objective reporting is impossible, philosophically speaking). You just have to be aware of the bias and take it into consideration.
donmatito 7y ago
what if you assume that objectivity shouldn't even be a goal? I feel like reading/watching multiple sources of informations, of which you understand their bias, is quite useufl. I feel like twitter is actually the best place to that process, and to "defragment" the complexity of information flow. You can follow "mainstream" opinion makers and "rebels", "experts/specialists" for narrow but deep insights, and so on

tekmate 7y ago

identify potential biases in a source and then filter the information of that source through a bias lense, then use another source and do the same thing to triangulate "the truth" giving up on consuming news because everything might be biased is simply lazy

jl6 7y ago
Beware that the truth is not necessarily the midpoint between opposing opinions. Sometimes a source with a general bias gets it exactly right in a specific case.
- tekmate 7y ago
  true, triangulating doesn't mean the middle necessarily
- lowmagnet 7y ago
  And there aren't always "two sides" to an issue; there are arguments made in bad faith and those in good faith and it's hard to tell the difference.
dexen 7y ago
>giving up on consuming news because everything might be biased is simply lazy Not at all; it's a valid strategy. The events and the state of the world can be deduced from observing the (near) past just as well as from reading the news, perhaps even better. A person can stay reasonably well informed by skipping on the news, and instead observing actual events, actual outcomes, that is the (near) history. Both in person and through social circles, in particular friends and family. You could call it "the slow way" of getting the news. As noted in OP and elsewhere in discussion, the news are rife with misinformation. It follows news listeners, subject to the misinformation, end up with various misconceptions and strong emotions, thus prone to doing things no well informed person would do. Having a sizable segment of population not subject to the news, and instead informed via others means is a natural counter-balance, a safety mechanism against single mindedness imparted by the centralized news.
- pnutjam 7y ago
  You just described "the news", which is different then opinion shows which are very common. Many people with a personal agenda lump the news in with opinion shows when they hear things they don't like.
tasogare 7y ago
That works if there are enough different sources with different biais. That might not be the case i lot of countries.

Joe-Z 7y ago

I've done exactly the same and have the complete opposite feeling of you. Why not 'be ignorant'? What are you really ignorant towards when ignoring the news? Most of its use, it seems to me, is to have something to talk about, with people you otherwise have have nothing to talk about. If you really need certain/real news (like investors basing decisions on earnings reports) you will have your quality, non-mass-media sources anyway.

iagovar 7y ago

Being informed is hard. Now, I'd be talking about the spanish speaking-sphere, but I guess some of this may apply to the US too. Every time I want to dig in a subject it always comes down to this: 1. If the topic has scientific coverage, try to find meta-analysis. If there isn't any the field has a high chance of lacking ground truth. Sadly you need at least statistics knowledge to know where are you getting into, and some times this isn't enough because domain knowledge is a must. Some words may be used in a different meaning than you're used to. 2. If there isn't any scientific coverage, try to find specialized sources. Most of them are not open access though. 3. If your only resource is main stream media or internet outlets, then try to balance out different approaches. This is a very hard task because the amount of noise is staggering. It's not only agendas but journalist really doing a poor/cheap/lazy work or a combination of them all. If you happen to know a domain, then try to avoid anything other than specialized media upwards, because you'll get angry or at least you won't believe how weird some realities are depicted to the general public. It's also a good exercise to read info that doesn't reinforce your beliefs, try to break the famous "eco chamber", it's probably the only way to not become an idiot, even if you know the truth from first hand, because it's useful to know what people are being told to think and how some other people can reach other conclusions.

pjc50 7y ago

This is exactly the effect that the news-spammers want to achieve. If you don't pick a side, you're not voting, or you're not an informed voter. So you've opted out of democracy. Which is nice, you've relieved yourself of a whole bunch of stress, and nothing changes in the short term. Until something goes wrong. It's not that there won't be elections, they'll just be won by the same party for years on end. You personally will be fine, but there's an uptick in the number of journalists and activists killed in car bombs or more mysterious circumstances. The quality of the roads deteriorates and the number of homeless you have to step over increases. Still, best not to have an agenda.

hoorayimhelping 7y ago
>This is exactly the effect that the news-spammers want to achieve. If you don't pick a side, you're not voting, or you're not an informed voter How does this follow at all? You're doing exactly what the news spammers want. You're believing that they are the gatekeepers to knowledge and being informed. You're buying into the story that you need them to understand the world. This is a load of hogshit. Candidates post their platforms and their ideas and encourage you to read them before you vote. How does watching the news make me more informed of their platform? They have values and they apply those values to the issues at hand. They say things like, "I believe in universal healthcare," or "I am tough against gun rights." How does being super up to date on the news help me understand how they will react to hypothetical situations, which is what I'm voting on? Why do I need to know that there's massive protests going on in Hong Kong, the middle east and South America? Those are irrelevant to the domestic issues we face at home. The same domestic issues we face every election cycle (in the US): jobs, health care, food, guns, infrastructure. How does being well informed of the news help me make decisions based on my values and on the alignment of values with a candidate?
- roenxi 7y ago
  > Why do I need to know that there's massive protests going on in Hong Kong, the middle east and South America? Given the poor quality of the reporting on local political issues it seems highly unlikely that the news is even reporting foreign political situations in a helpful fashion. Even assuming good faith; it just seems unlikely that the facts will all get identified and accurately synthesised.

the_af 7y ago

> Even when friends say "Oh, but try this source, they are soooo much better", it doesn't take long to realise there is ALWAYS an agenda behind it, a political leaning... It's exhausting. Journalism is always biased; even supposedly "objective" news outlets, by just picking which stories to emphasize or even report at all, are engaging in bias -- even when you think that the stories they do choose are "fair". This is not a bad thing, it's just a reality of life (it could be argued that objective reporting is impossible, philosophically speaking). You just have to be aware of the bias and take it into consideration.

donmatito 7y ago

what if you assume that objectivity shouldn't even be a goal? I feel like reading/watching multiple sources of informations, of which you understand their bias, is quite useufl. I feel like twitter is actually the best place to that process, and to "defragment" the complexity of information flow. You can follow "mainstream" opinion makers and "rebels", "experts/specialists" for narrow but deep insights, and so on