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I absolutely understand what you're saying. But part of me feels an obligation to be informed to hold those in power accountable. If everyone follows the advice

I absolutely understand what you're saying. But part of me feels an obligation to be informed to hold those in power accountable. If everyone follows the advice of avoiding the news, what effect would that have in our Govenment?

j-c-hewitt 7y ago
You can delegate your concern to a political party, which is essentially all you are able to do as a citizen in a country like the US particularly if you live in a state that does not have a lot of referenda. If you want to learn more you can spend more time on researching the issues. Otherwise you could vote on a single issue, or just pick the party that is supposed to represent people like you with a similar hierarchy of values. The US also doesn't have mandatory voting, so declining to vote just signals that you have delegated concern over civic issues to other people who are willing to make that (sometimes significant) sacrifice of time, energy, and money.
- daveFNbuck 7y ago
  The problem with the strategy you describe is that if too many people use it, politicians can just openly lie about what's happening in the world and what they're doing about it. A voter who has identified with a party and is no longer interested in learning the facts has no way to correct for this.
  - awb 7y ago
    Perhaps, but there are usually people in positions of power that care and for better or worse probably have more influence than the general electorate.
  - TallGuyShort 7y ago
    Do politicians who openly lie about what's happening in the world and what they're doing about it get corrected? Now THAT would be news.
    - daveFNbuck 7y ago
      Yes, it happens all the time. There are many news websites that track and correct lies made by public officials.
      - mg794613 7y ago
        I think he meant more in terms of "big media" instead of "you can find the actual truth if you go to these places"
        TallGuyShort 7y ago
        I also meant in terms of effect. Yes, you will find things exposed in various media outlets. But if I turn on CNN during a Republican presidency I see people on the edge of rage-quitting life and if I turn on Fox News during a Democratic presidency I see McCarthyism is alive and well. And if I do the opposite I see literal propaganda. I don't think most of their viewers are really looking for truth but are basking in deep, echo-ey pools (or sensory deprivation chambers, if you please) of confirmation bias. There are far better news outlets, and I agree that press and media need to exist and be free for the purpose proposed above, I would just argue that in the most popular media, that isn't really what's happening for most of their audience, and I personally am far happier not seeking out mainstream news myself because of how sensationalist and biased most of it is. I'll eat my hotel breakfasts and airport snacks somewhere other than in front of the complimentary TV.
  - effsey 7y ago
    It's not a strategy, it's a choice to be happy. I don't have control over other people, and I don't want it.
    - daveFNbuck 7y ago
      There's a simpler solution if you don't want to exert control over other people. Don't vote.
apodysophilia 7y ago
It might be a benefit. Being misinformed could be worse than being uninformed.
whatshisface 7y ago
>If everyone follows the advice of avoiding the news, That would be a similar situation to everyone following the advice of not becoming a musician (no music) or not becoming an astronaut (the international space station would have to shut down). Our society is based on specialization and every group of friends really only needs one person who knows what the news is talking about.
projektfu 7y ago
The news these days has no attention span and pounds on the most catchy story all day. Right now it's novel coronavirus. I bet people who watch CNN are highly stressed out about it. I caught a few minutes during a tour of the CNN center and I was glad I won't be seeing that reporting all day. As soon as a more gruesome story comes along, the reporting will change, it'll forget about the virus, and life will go on. There must be a better way to truly accomplish keeping government accountable. Think about your locus of control. Most reporting is about things that do not directly affect you, you cannot change them, and they have some emotional value that keeps them in the news. Where you can effect change is in your locality, or with your local representatives, voting in larger elections, writing letters to staff, joining advocacy groups, etc. I think the constant drumbeat of bad news makes people less likely to do any of these things.
- minusSeven 7y ago
  This is easy to say and hard to accomplish in reality. Unless you give specific to dos and don'ts, you will have to change a lot of your habits.
  - polishdude20 7y ago
    It's almost as if large scale change requires a great effort.
  - projektfu 7y ago
    I'm implying consuming more deliberative media, such as long-form journalism, research, "current" history, and the reports of advocacy groups you agree with to inform yourself and help decide what action you will take.
koonsolo 7y ago
I noticed that certain politicians do their best to reach the media and news, and others just do their job. Why would the news be the best source to judge your politicians?
- firethief 7y ago
  I'm struggling to think of anything that could serve as a better source, or even a reasonable runner-up. Am I taking a broader interpretation of "news"? I would agree that cable news is probably a net negative; web aggregators like Google are hazardous, and following individually-selected news sites is a lot of work, but what else is there?
  - banads 7y ago
    You can look at their voting record, or who they take money from. There a number of "non-news" websites that have this information.
    - firethief 7y ago
      Yes the important stuff is public record, but it's also hard to analyze the primary sources. Bills tend to have misleading names, mixed content, and non-obvious agendas. Context is important; it's not uncommon for someone to oppose a weak bill because politically the alternative is a stronger one, not inaction. The FEC database is hideously formatted anomaly-filled MS Access stuff. I generally let someone else do the analysis, but then that's "news" (or at least subject to the same pitfalls?).
coldtea 7y ago
>I absolutely understand what you're saying. But part of me feels an obligation to be informed to hold those in power accountable. So, how does that work out for you?
- leot 7y ago
  You could say the same about not voting.
  - sykick 7y ago
    In the context of the article and the point OP made it’s working out great not being informed or voting. At least for me. I don’t stress or get worked up by stuff. I feel like I’m a lot happier these days. Deliberate ignorance is not for everyone but it does work well for me.
  - coldtea 7y ago
    Well, if you can say the same thing about voting and not voting, then it makes not much of a difference either way...
- neltnerb 7y ago
  If you encourage your neighbors to vote, local politicians will pay more attention to your area. I doubt it goes much broader than that.
HuShifang 7y ago
A valid point. But I think that occasional (perhaps regularly scheduled) and mindful checks of select, thoughtful news sources that aren't overly focused on driving engagement with clickbait topics, article titles, etc allows you to stay sufficiently informed without succumbing to the stress-storm that is most news media. Think big picture, often long-form reporting vs. a heavy reliance on "breaking news", opinion pieces, and lifestyle-focused content. (Some sources I like: PBS Newshour, ProPublica, the Economist, the Financial Times, the New York Review of Books.)
mc32 7y ago
Problem is these days the news tends to be more narrative than plain news. Even things that weren’t typically political or politicized these days they are.
dionidium 7y ago
Here's how I solve this problem: I subscribe to the Sunday print edition [0] of the Boston Globe [1]. It comes on Sunday and I read it over coffee. There's no practical reason to be informed beyond what's in your city's Sunday print edition. Anything more than that is entertainment. [0] It occurs to me that city dailies are so out of fashion that some of you might not understand why I recommend the Sunday edition. The Sunday edition is the largest edition of the week and repeats stories that appeared on other days. It also includes some features and sections that are not included on any other day. If you only get one day, you want Sunday. [1] This could be any big-city paper (e.g. The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Boston Globe). It doesn't matter.
sykick 7y ago
The problem as I see it is that it is almost impossible to be informed enough to hold people accountable. In the U.S. at least the news is almost always of the form: “ Person from party A (which you are a member of) destroys person from Party B”. Or, “Party B seeks to destroy Issue C”. There is virtually no nuance in the reporting. There’s no dissection. For example, the situation with Syria is quite complicated as Turkey, U.S., Russia, Kurds, and Assad all have conflicting goals and desires. Yet all of the reporting I’ve seen on this conflict has been absurdly reductionist and used to garner support/hatred toward the party in power by the adherents/adversaries of said party in power. I understand the desire to have an informed populace but I think that is no longer possible. It is too easy to sway large swaths of the public. Witness the rise of anti-vaxers and other thoughtless beliefs. Even if I tried to be relatively informed it wouldn’t matter because the vast majority of the people are not psychologically prepared to withstand the pressure of subtle, sustained propaganda. I have resigned myself to the fact that the republic is dead in the sense of what the ideal of a republic ought to be. I too avoid news and social media. I don’t count this website to be what I call social media since there is no identifying information about myself on here and none of my friends knows about my posts on this website.
- leftyted 7y ago
  I was reading Plato recently and this stood out: > When they meet together, and the world sits down at an assembly, or in a court of law, or a theatre, or a camp, or in any other popular resort, and there is a great uproar, and they praise some things which are being said or done, and blame other things, equally exaggerating both, shouting and clapping their hands, and the echo of the rocks and the place in which they are assembled redoubles the sound of the praise or blame—at such a time will not a young man's heart, as they say, leap within him? Will any private training enable him to stand firm against the overwhelming flood of popular opinion? or will he be carried away by the stream? Will he not have the notions of good and evil which the public in general have—he will do as they do, and as they are, such will he be? People have been complaining about what you're complaining about for thousands of years. What I find truly puzzling -- given the supposed madness of crowds -- is that things are going so well.
NoInputSignal 7y ago
I think in a country like the US, where news networks can push a political bias (not needing to give both sides of an issue equal coverage), without accountability, it requires consumers to do their own homework on issues. I guess the question is, why not optimize and cut the news out of the middle?
Rudism 7y ago
I've been avoiding news as well since the last Presidential election. I can appreciate that this is terrible advice in general, but for the sake of my blood pressure, health in general, and mental well-being it's the best choice for me.
AJ007 7y ago
You are largely being informed by PR people and lobbyists. Also facts are generally missing or just wrong when published in real time. Books gives a much more accurate and accountable view of events.
- dave5104 7y ago
  Not sure how books really solve that. If I was interested in following the recent impeachment, what books am I going to read? I'm sure there will be plenty available within the year, but that's a little late for anyone who wants to know what's going on right now.
  - banads 7y ago
    Books definitely won't help you satisfy impulsive urges for 24/7 live updates on such minutiae; but then again, what practical use would you have for trying to stay perpetually up to date on the current status of the impeachment process?
    - zepto 7y ago
      The impeachment is already forgotten.
      - jtbayly 7y ago
        What impeachment?
        JohnClark1337 7y ago
        there was an impeachment?
  - jfengel 7y ago
    That's precisely it. There will be plenty of books available before November, and their authors will have had a few months to digest what happened and its aftermath. And November is the only time it really matters. Until then, you can shake your tiny fist, but in November you get to make a choice that counts, literally. You could follow it in real-time for the entertainment value, if you want. But if you actually want to make an informed choice when it matters, you'll have no trouble finding a book that summarizes it, and it will take far, far less time than trying to keep up with it (and remember it all come November).
sevilo 7y ago
I actually hold a more optimistic view toward the effect of people not staying up to date with the news, I feel like a good part of reason why there are so much anger in the world right now, and political spectrum becoming more extreme is partially due to how news get reported, you rarely rarely see an objective view of matters on news. They're often used as PR outlets for political parties.
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amurthy1 7y ago
Reading news is useful if it helps inform you about issues that you can take action to help address whether via voting or other political action. This is most pertinent at the local level where your vote has more impact and it's more feasible to take action on specific issues when you learn about them. Reading about presidential scandals every day when you likely already know who you're voting for just drags you down and benefits no one besides the media companies profiting off your attention.
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dabbledash 7y ago
“Hold those in power accountable” could mean many different things, but if you’re referring primarily to voting, then reviewing high quality sources every few weeks or once a month will probably give you better information then following the daily news cycle. I think if people in general took that approach, the effect on the government would be positive. Citizens consuming politics as entertainment and politicians approaching their job like YouTube celebrities are doing enormous damage.
- godelski 7y ago
  > reviewing high quality sources every few weeks or once a month will probably give you better information then following the daily news cycle. I have found this to be effective. I'll read something like Reuters a few times a month. Events that are major that I need to care about sooner are talked about and I can't escape, so I go read up on them. The truth is that there's not enough happening every day that needs your attention for you to stay informed (at least informed enough. Because we can't all be experts on everything, which I think the daily cycle gives you the impression that you are).
godelski 7y ago
May I suggest consuming news through text rather than video? In fact, the more boring the better. I see a big issue is that the news is frequently emotive based. In some cases this is helpful, when terrible stuff is going on. Other cases it makes mundane things seem worse. Or it makes things that don't affect us and/or we have no control over emotionally important. The latter is particularly harmful, imo. A lot of these make you feel like you are more informed than you are, because you're highly emotionally invested. I think video really promotes the emotional investment. But the boring stuff allows you to become emotionally invested in what __you__ care about. Then the lack of emotional forcing makes you feel less informed, so if you care you spend time finding out more. This prevents people from being "armchair researchers" and fighting.
- PTOB 7y ago
  Where do you get the boring stuff? Please, I'm drowning here.
  - godelski 7y ago
    To be honest, most of the major news sources have the boring stuff. The actual issue is that what goes viral and is passed around are opinion articles. I particularly like Reuters, they seem more middle of the road in terms of bias. But I think one of the keys is to read from both sides. You don't have to agree with the side that you don't lean towards, but it is extremely helpful to know the content that those people are ingesting. If you want nuance, you really have to try to see things from other peoples' perspectives. This is pretty hard. I think being "so connected" this is actually more challenging, because it is easier to find your niche inside of a niche inside of a niche and stay there, instead of having to deal with different niches.
  - pmichaud 7y ago
    Reuters and AP are the news wire services from which most new networks get their news. They are both super boring and terse, and there are RSS feeds for both.
  - cbhl 7y ago
    Audio also works well. I've been listening to the NPR News Now podcast, as well as NPR's Planet Money. When I'm feeling a little more capacity for the news cycle, I might also listen to NPR's Up First, NYT's The Daily, and NPR's The Indicator.
throwaway21320 7y ago
It seems like most of the people I know who spend hours a week watching political news end up having no clue who to vote for when it comes to local elections where they have the most impact. I've worked the polls multiple times and have seen this over and over. A lot of the news is mental junk food, and the idea that they are doing it for a better society is usually just an excuse for a bad habit. Even on the topics the news covers, people are usually left with a cartoonish narrative that's often worse than being completely ignorant on the issues.
r00fus 7y ago
> But part of me feels an obligation to be informed to hold those in power accountable. This falls into the "circle of concern > circle of influence" problem identified by Covey.
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skokage 7y ago
>But part of me feels an obligation to be informed to hold those in power accountable. I'm curious though, how does the average citizen hold those in power accountable? OK so you vote, but tons of other people vote and are often uninformed about what is going on or are completely apathetic. The recent news about Roger Stone's sentencing to me proves how little power we as average citizens have in actually holding others accountable, especially when those in power have ties to other rich, powerful, and well connected people.
- lizardking 7y ago
  What direction your outrage on that story points is a function of what media you consume. This is of course just the outrage du jour, there’s nothing unique about the Stone story in this regard.
apatters 7y ago
Here's the secret, most "news" makes your view of the world less accurate, not more. So like with many things, the key is quality over quantity. Check out the Media Bias Chart: https://www.adfontesmedia.com/static-mbc/?v=402f03a963ba https://www.adfontesmedia.com/static-mbc/?v=402f03a963ba To know what's going on you only need 10 minutes a day skimming stories from a few outlets at the top of the triangle. You can have a remarkably well rounded knowledge of global affairs just from following Reuters' freely available Top News RSS feed. 10min a day on that feed and you will have a better picture of the world than 90% of your peers. Most people's media consumption is far greater than 10min a day. They stick to one slope of the triangle or another. The problem with all these sites as you go down the slope is that they get increasingly more sensationalist, and even when they remain technically accurate they try to paint an engagement-driving, adversarial, perpetual crisis view of the world. When you slide down the slope of the triangle you end up feeling like the world is doomed, the enemy is on the rise, everything is broken, because that's how the publisher wants you to feel, because they know it keeps you coming back. Cut your media diet down, spend 80% of your time on the facts, and 20% on occasional long read analysis from both sides. You'll get smarter and your anxiety will disappear. As for social media... from a news/events standpoint at least, it's just garbage. A billion lost souls jockeying for imaginary status with imaginary people. Avoid.
- MockObject 7y ago
  > Check out the Media Bias Chart: https://www.adfontesmedia.com/static-mbc/?v=402f03a963ba https://www.adfontesmedia.com/static-mbc/?v=402f03a963ba Where NPR, NYT, and CNN are deemed neutral and balanced, eh? Such determinations say more about the determiner than the determined.
  - apatters 7y ago
    In point of fact they are all left of center on the chart, but less far left than say MSNBC, which I would say is pretty spot on.
hi41 7y ago
I think OP is referring to the news that only have entertainment value and one that does not empower the citizens but makes it a spectacle. There was a Hidden Brain episode just on the news topic. It is a great listen. Here is the link: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hidden-brain/id1028908750?i=1000465207626 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hidden-brain/id1028908...
psychanarch 7y ago
Informed how? What actionable information is the news providing that impacts you as a voter?
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pwrplus1 7y ago
If rightwing governments ever became the good guys I guarantee you'd hear about it.
arconis987 7y ago
Happy middle: subscribe to one or two high quality sources of news (eg. NYT, WSJ). Less clickbait overload than something like Google News or Facebook, and you get acquainted with the journalists’ styles, beliefs, and perspectives over time. Slower paced.
eru 7y ago
> If everyone follows the advice of avoiding the news, what effect would that have in our Govenment? Probably not much. Lots of information that people get from the news is misleading at best anyway. And you can do simple retrospective voting without reading the news: did I do well in the last four years? Then re-elect the party in power. Things are going badly? Then vote for an opposition party.
- pbourke 7y ago
  > did I do well in the last four years? As in you did you personally do well financially or what have you? So you're voting as the ethical equivalent of a four year old? The rule of law is threatened by a subtle erosion of norms in the administration of justice, but your 401k's up, so let's vote the incumbents back in?
  - eru 7y ago
    If you want a vote that actual changes things, vote with your feet. That vote has an enormous impact on your own life. Bigger than any ballot box. But it also has a comparatively big impact on the place you leave behind and the place you are joining. Just your tax revenue alone will be so much more impactful than your marginal vote was. > As in you did you personally do well financially or what have you? So you're voting as the ethical equivalent of a four year old? Yes. But that's not because I think it's a particularly good way to vote; I just think that it would be an improvement on what people are doing de facto. See eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_the_Rational_Voter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_the_Rational_Voter
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codetrotter 7y ago
I feel like the news are doing a bad job at keeping people informed about important matters anyways. They report on all kinds of other stuff just to get the eyeballs for the ads that will make them money. So yeah, I spend my time on other things. Like for example on reading stuff on HN.
agumonkey 7y ago
What if the news are so distorted and harmful that it's making you worse at holding them accountable ?
dwrodri 7y ago
Some other commenters have offered really good replies, but I’d like to reiterate the sentiment that most major (American) news outlets have heavily prioritized ad revenue and television ratings over their public duty to inform the people. These days, I get most of my headlines from Reuters and AP. I also respect The Economist, Propublica, FiveThirtyEight, Washington Post, The Intercept, Miami Herald, Buzzfeed News, and New York Times. Of course, some more than others, but it seems that the quality of the journalism emerging from these outlets is relying more on the integrity of individual journalists with great track records as opposed to great teams (think Spotlight). I’m sure just about every commenter here who follows the news knows of at least one article that tarnished the reputation of each of those outlets at some point in time. Maybe it was a low-effort payila piece, or a poorly written opinion column, or just straightup poor journalism that never got a retraction.
- dwrodri 7y ago
  payila -> payola
ImaCake 7y ago
Instead of reading the news you can try reading books about current and past events. History books of all stripes will inform you more than the goldfish memory of newspapers ever could. I like that I pay for a book. It makes the transaction very transparent, unlike the hidden costs of newspaper advertising.
kungtotte 7y ago
I've adapted a kind of middle road with regards to this. I don't use mainstream social media but I do use Mastodon; a certain amount of general news reach me that way by people sharing it. For regular news I don't read it during the week, but I will catch up on it during the weekend. It keeps me updated on ongoing situations (e.g. Corona virus, presidential elections) and let's me see what things stick around. If a story comes out Monday and it reappears Saturday it means it's worth considering since it survived the 24 hour cycle. Looking back I also pick headlines that seem interesting to me and read them even if it's something that's not reappearing for the weekend. This way I avoid all the SHOCKING BREAKING NEWS that generally amounts to nothing much, I stay up to date on major issues, and I see what things are actual stories as opposed to clickbait. If you read the news regularly you can quickly form the opinion that things are terrible. If you read up on things you'll find that in general things are better than they've ever been. Better obviously does not imply good, even so it's way better to be alive in 2020 than in 1920 everywhere on the planet.
0xEFF 7y ago
Not much information is necessary to hold the people in power at the national level accountable. More information has little upside and significant downside in a two party democracy. The exception I see is at the local level, where more information has more upside than downside. But I’ve also found social media dominated by national politics without much local information.
fit2rule 7y ago
There is no possible way that the means by which you might be informed today - mass media - is going to give you an impartial view of the world, without bias towards the ruling elite. The ruling elite long ago exercised masterful control over the masses through media manipulation - it has been a hundred years of refinement. If you want to hold your government accountable, you need to demand more leaks and whistleblowing. This is the only effective way of keeping the power structure on its toes - because it does everything it can to maintain power, including control mass information at scale. I've never found the "News" to be anything more than "what the elite want me to think about the world" which is why, switching it off, life got immediately better.
yahnu 7y ago
I agree. I went from long time news-junkie phase to no-news phase to just-enough-news phase. Being a citizen in a democracy is an active process and the active part doesn't have to take too much time. For example, you can check news just two times a week. For those who are saying there are no neutral news organizations, here is my take: All people are biased. Organizations are made up of people. Hence, you won't get an organization without bias. The goal is not to find organizations with no bias. The goal is to get your news from organizations with high standards of journalistic integrity and professionalism. Organizations that are aware of thier bias and try to seperate their news coverage from thier opinion section. There are many such news organizations (probably more than any time in history). Just pick two or three such outlets and you will stay informed.
perl4ever 7y ago
I was kind of shocked recently because my phone nudged me towards the "front page" of Wikipedia with top news stories, and it was completely different from other sources of online news. In particular I hadn't heard anything about Brexit finally happening. Someone who is older than me and mainly watches news on TV told me it had been reported there. But Google News and various internet sites I usually read seem to have omitted it. It seems like there is a distinct echo chamber, and maybe you don't have to give up news entirely to get out. It's crossed my mind I could start reading a local newspaper again, too.

j-c-hewitt 7y ago

You can delegate your concern to a political party, which is essentially all you are able to do as a citizen in a country like the US particularly if you live in a state that does not have a lot of referenda. If you want to learn more you can spend more time on researching the issues. Otherwise you could vote on a single issue, or just pick the party that is supposed to represent people like you with a similar hierarchy of values. The US also doesn't have mandatory voting, so declining to vote just signals that you have delegated concern over civic issues to other people who are willing to make that (sometimes significant) sacrifice of time, energy, and money.

daveFNbuck 7y ago
The problem with the strategy you describe is that if too many people use it, politicians can just openly lie about what's happening in the world and what they're doing about it. A voter who has identified with a party and is no longer interested in learning the facts has no way to correct for this.
- awb 7y ago
  Perhaps, but there are usually people in positions of power that care and for better or worse probably have more influence than the general electorate.
- TallGuyShort 7y ago
  Do politicians who openly lie about what's happening in the world and what they're doing about it get corrected? Now THAT would be news.
  - daveFNbuck 7y ago
    Yes, it happens all the time. There are many news websites that track and correct lies made by public officials.
    - mg794613 7y ago
      I think he meant more in terms of "big media" instead of "you can find the actual truth if you go to these places"
      - TallGuyShort 7y ago
        I also meant in terms of effect. Yes, you will find things exposed in various media outlets. But if I turn on CNN during a Republican presidency I see people on the edge of rage-quitting life and if I turn on Fox News during a Democratic presidency I see McCarthyism is alive and well. And if I do the opposite I see literal propaganda. I don't think most of their viewers are really looking for truth but are basking in deep, echo-ey pools (or sensory deprivation chambers, if you please) of confirmation bias. There are far better news outlets, and I agree that press and media need to exist and be free for the purpose proposed above, I would just argue that in the most popular media, that isn't really what's happening for most of their audience, and I personally am far happier not seeking out mainstream news myself because of how sensationalist and biased most of it is. I'll eat my hotel breakfasts and airport snacks somewhere other than in front of the complimentary TV.
- effsey 7y ago
  It's not a strategy, it's a choice to be happy. I don't have control over other people, and I don't want it.
  - daveFNbuck 7y ago
    There's a simpler solution if you don't want to exert control over other people. Don't vote.

apodysophilia 7y ago

It might be a benefit. Being misinformed could be worse than being uninformed.

whatshisface 7y ago

>If everyone follows the advice of avoiding the news, That would be a similar situation to everyone following the advice of not becoming a musician (no music) or not becoming an astronaut (the international space station would have to shut down). Our society is based on specialization and every group of friends really only needs one person who knows what the news is talking about.

projektfu 7y ago

The news these days has no attention span and pounds on the most catchy story all day. Right now it's novel coronavirus. I bet people who watch CNN are highly stressed out about it. I caught a few minutes during a tour of the CNN center and I was glad I won't be seeing that reporting all day. As soon as a more gruesome story comes along, the reporting will change, it'll forget about the virus, and life will go on. There must be a better way to truly accomplish keeping government accountable. Think about your locus of control. Most reporting is about things that do not directly affect you, you cannot change them, and they have some emotional value that keeps them in the news. Where you can effect change is in your locality, or with your local representatives, voting in larger elections, writing letters to staff, joining advocacy groups, etc. I think the constant drumbeat of bad news makes people less likely to do any of these things.

minusSeven 7y ago
This is easy to say and hard to accomplish in reality. Unless you give specific to dos and don'ts, you will have to change a lot of your habits.
- polishdude20 7y ago
  It's almost as if large scale change requires a great effort.
- projektfu 7y ago
  I'm implying consuming more deliberative media, such as long-form journalism, research, "current" history, and the reports of advocacy groups you agree with to inform yourself and help decide what action you will take.

koonsolo 7y ago

I noticed that certain politicians do their best to reach the media and news, and others just do their job. Why would the news be the best source to judge your politicians?

firethief 7y ago
I'm struggling to think of anything that could serve as a better source, or even a reasonable runner-up. Am I taking a broader interpretation of "news"? I would agree that cable news is probably a net negative; web aggregators like Google are hazardous, and following individually-selected news sites is a lot of work, but what else is there?
- banads 7y ago
  You can look at their voting record, or who they take money from. There a number of "non-news" websites that have this information.
  - firethief 7y ago
    Yes the important stuff is public record, but it's also hard to analyze the primary sources. Bills tend to have misleading names, mixed content, and non-obvious agendas. Context is important; it's not uncommon for someone to oppose a weak bill because politically the alternative is a stronger one, not inaction. The FEC database is hideously formatted anomaly-filled MS Access stuff. I generally let someone else do the analysis, but then that's "news" (or at least subject to the same pitfalls?).

coldtea 7y ago

>I absolutely understand what you're saying. But part of me feels an obligation to be informed to hold those in power accountable. So, how does that work out for you?

leot 7y ago
You could say the same about not voting.
- sykick 7y ago
  In the context of the article and the point OP made it’s working out great not being informed or voting. At least for me. I don’t stress or get worked up by stuff. I feel like I’m a lot happier these days. Deliberate ignorance is not for everyone but it does work well for me.
- coldtea 7y ago
  Well, if you can say the same thing about voting and not voting, then it makes not much of a difference either way...
neltnerb 7y ago
If you encourage your neighbors to vote, local politicians will pay more attention to your area. I doubt it goes much broader than that.

HuShifang 7y ago

A valid point. But I think that occasional (perhaps regularly scheduled) and mindful checks of select, thoughtful news sources that aren't overly focused on driving engagement with clickbait topics, article titles, etc allows you to stay sufficiently informed without succumbing to the stress-storm that is most news media. Think big picture, often long-form reporting vs. a heavy reliance on "breaking news", opinion pieces, and lifestyle-focused content. (Some sources I like: PBS Newshour, ProPublica, the Economist, the Financial Times, the New York Review of Books.)

mc32 7y ago

Problem is these days the news tends to be more narrative than plain news. Even things that weren’t typically political or politicized these days they are.

dionidium 7y ago

Here's how I solve this problem: I subscribe to the Sunday print edition [0] of the Boston Globe [1]. It comes on Sunday and I read it over coffee. There's no practical reason to be informed beyond what's in your city's Sunday print edition. Anything more than that is entertainment. [0] It occurs to me that city dailies are so out of fashion that some of you might not understand why I recommend the Sunday edition. The Sunday edition is the largest edition of the week and repeats stories that appeared on other days. It also includes some features and sections that are not included on any other day. If you only get one day, you want Sunday. [1] This could be any big-city paper (e.g. The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Boston Globe). It doesn't matter.

sykick 7y ago

The problem as I see it is that it is almost impossible to be informed enough to hold people accountable. In the U.S. at least the news is almost always of the form: “ Person from party A (which you are a member of) destroys person from Party B”. Or, “Party B seeks to destroy Issue C”. There is virtually no nuance in the reporting. There’s no dissection. For example, the situation with Syria is quite complicated as Turkey, U.S., Russia, Kurds, and Assad all have conflicting goals and desires. Yet all of the reporting I’ve seen on this conflict has been absurdly reductionist and used to garner support/hatred toward the party in power by the adherents/adversaries of said party in power. I understand the desire to have an informed populace but I think that is no longer possible. It is too easy to sway large swaths of the public. Witness the rise of anti-vaxers and other thoughtless beliefs. Even if I tried to be relatively informed it wouldn’t matter because the vast majority of the people are not psychologically prepared to withstand the pressure of subtle, sustained propaganda. I have resigned myself to the fact that the republic is dead in the sense of what the ideal of a republic ought to be. I too avoid news and social media. I don’t count this website to be what I call social media since there is no identifying information about myself on here and none of my friends knows about my posts on this website.

leftyted 7y ago
I was reading Plato recently and this stood out: > When they meet together, and the world sits down at an assembly, or in a court of law, or a theatre, or a camp, or in any other popular resort, and there is a great uproar, and they praise some things which are being said or done, and blame other things, equally exaggerating both, shouting and clapping their hands, and the echo of the rocks and the place in which they are assembled redoubles the sound of the praise or blame—at such a time will not a young man's heart, as they say, leap within him? Will any private training enable him to stand firm against the overwhelming flood of popular opinion? or will he be carried away by the stream? Will he not have the notions of good and evil which the public in general have—he will do as they do, and as they are, such will he be? People have been complaining about what you're complaining about for thousands of years. What I find truly puzzling -- given the supposed madness of crowds -- is that things are going so well.

NoInputSignal 7y ago

I think in a country like the US, where news networks can push a political bias (not needing to give both sides of an issue equal coverage), without accountability, it requires consumers to do their own homework on issues. I guess the question is, why not optimize and cut the news out of the middle?

Rudism 7y ago

I've been avoiding news as well since the last Presidential election. I can appreciate that this is terrible advice in general, but for the sake of my blood pressure, health in general, and mental well-being it's the best choice for me.

AJ007 7y ago

You are largely being informed by PR people and lobbyists. Also facts are generally missing or just wrong when published in real time. Books gives a much more accurate and accountable view of events.

dave5104 7y ago
Not sure how books really solve that. If I was interested in following the recent impeachment, what books am I going to read? I'm sure there will be plenty available within the year, but that's a little late for anyone who wants to know what's going on right now.
- banads 7y ago
  Books definitely won't help you satisfy impulsive urges for 24/7 live updates on such minutiae; but then again, what practical use would you have for trying to stay perpetually up to date on the current status of the impeachment process?
  - zepto 7y ago
    The impeachment is already forgotten.
    - jtbayly 7y ago
      What impeachment?
      - JohnClark1337 7y ago
        there was an impeachment?
- jfengel 7y ago
  That's precisely it. There will be plenty of books available before November, and their authors will have had a few months to digest what happened and its aftermath. And November is the only time it really matters. Until then, you can shake your tiny fist, but in November you get to make a choice that counts, literally. You could follow it in real-time for the entertainment value, if you want. But if you actually want to make an informed choice when it matters, you'll have no trouble finding a book that summarizes it, and it will take far, far less time than trying to keep up with it (and remember it all come November).

sevilo 7y ago

I actually hold a more optimistic view toward the effect of people not staying up to date with the news, I feel like a good part of reason why there are so much anger in the world right now, and political spectrum becoming more extreme is partially due to how news get reported, you rarely rarely see an objective view of matters on news. They're often used as PR outlets for political parties.

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amurthy1 7y ago

Reading news is useful if it helps inform you about issues that you can take action to help address whether via voting or other political action. This is most pertinent at the local level where your vote has more impact and it's more feasible to take action on specific issues when you learn about them. Reading about presidential scandals every day when you likely already know who you're voting for just drags you down and benefits no one besides the media companies profiting off your attention.

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dabbledash 7y ago

“Hold those in power accountable” could mean many different things, but if you’re referring primarily to voting, then reviewing high quality sources every few weeks or once a month will probably give you better information then following the daily news cycle. I think if people in general took that approach, the effect on the government would be positive. Citizens consuming politics as entertainment and politicians approaching their job like YouTube celebrities are doing enormous damage.

godelski 7y ago
> reviewing high quality sources every few weeks or once a month will probably give you better information then following the daily news cycle. I have found this to be effective. I'll read something like Reuters a few times a month. Events that are major that I need to care about sooner are talked about and I can't escape, so I go read up on them. The truth is that there's not enough happening every day that needs your attention for you to stay informed (at least informed enough. Because we can't all be experts on everything, which I think the daily cycle gives you the impression that you are).

godelski 7y ago

May I suggest consuming news through text rather than video? In fact, the more boring the better. I see a big issue is that the news is frequently emotive based. In some cases this is helpful, when terrible stuff is going on. Other cases it makes mundane things seem worse. Or it makes things that don't affect us and/or we have no control over emotionally important. The latter is particularly harmful, imo. A lot of these make you feel like you are more informed than you are, because you're highly emotionally invested. I think video really promotes the emotional investment. But the boring stuff allows you to become emotionally invested in what __you__ care about. Then the lack of emotional forcing makes you feel less informed, so if you care you spend time finding out more. This prevents people from being "armchair researchers" and fighting.

PTOB 7y ago
Where do you get the boring stuff? Please, I'm drowning here.
- godelski 7y ago
  To be honest, most of the major news sources have the boring stuff. The actual issue is that what goes viral and is passed around are opinion articles. I particularly like Reuters, they seem more middle of the road in terms of bias. But I think one of the keys is to read from both sides. You don't have to agree with the side that you don't lean towards, but it is extremely helpful to know the content that those people are ingesting. If you want nuance, you really have to try to see things from other peoples' perspectives. This is pretty hard. I think being "so connected" this is actually more challenging, because it is easier to find your niche inside of a niche inside of a niche and stay there, instead of having to deal with different niches.
- pmichaud 7y ago
  Reuters and AP are the news wire services from which most new networks get their news. They are both super boring and terse, and there are RSS feeds for both.
- cbhl 7y ago
  Audio also works well. I've been listening to the NPR News Now podcast, as well as NPR's Planet Money. When I'm feeling a little more capacity for the news cycle, I might also listen to NPR's Up First, NYT's The Daily, and NPR's The Indicator.

throwaway21320 7y ago

It seems like most of the people I know who spend hours a week watching political news end up having no clue who to vote for when it comes to local elections where they have the most impact. I've worked the polls multiple times and have seen this over and over. A lot of the news is mental junk food, and the idea that they are doing it for a better society is usually just an excuse for a bad habit. Even on the topics the news covers, people are usually left with a cartoonish narrative that's often worse than being completely ignorant on the issues.

r00fus 7y ago

> But part of me feels an obligation to be informed to hold those in power accountable. This falls into the "circle of concern > circle of influence" problem identified by Covey.

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skokage 7y ago

>But part of me feels an obligation to be informed to hold those in power accountable. I'm curious though, how does the average citizen hold those in power accountable? OK so you vote, but tons of other people vote and are often uninformed about what is going on or are completely apathetic. The recent news about Roger Stone's sentencing to me proves how little power we as average citizens have in actually holding others accountable, especially when those in power have ties to other rich, powerful, and well connected people.

lizardking 7y ago
What direction your outrage on that story points is a function of what media you consume. This is of course just the outrage du jour, there’s nothing unique about the Stone story in this regard.

apatters 7y ago

Here's the secret, most "news" makes your view of the world less accurate, not more. So like with many things, the key is quality over quantity. Check out the Media Bias Chart: https://www.adfontesmedia.com/static-mbc/?v=402f03a963ba https://www.adfontesmedia.com/static-mbc/?v=402f03a963ba To know what's going on you only need 10 minutes a day skimming stories from a few outlets at the top of the triangle. You can have a remarkably well rounded knowledge of global affairs just from following Reuters' freely available Top News RSS feed. 10min a day on that feed and you will have a better picture of the world than 90% of your peers. Most people's media consumption is far greater than 10min a day. They stick to one slope of the triangle or another. The problem with all these sites as you go down the slope is that they get increasingly more sensationalist, and even when they remain technically accurate they try to paint an engagement-driving, adversarial, perpetual crisis view of the world. When you slide down the slope of the triangle you end up feeling like the world is doomed, the enemy is on the rise, everything is broken, because that's how the publisher wants you to feel, because they know it keeps you coming back. Cut your media diet down, spend 80% of your time on the facts, and 20% on occasional long read analysis from both sides. You'll get smarter and your anxiety will disappear. As for social media... from a news/events standpoint at least, it's just garbage. A billion lost souls jockeying for imaginary status with imaginary people. Avoid.

MockObject 7y ago
> Check out the Media Bias Chart: https://www.adfontesmedia.com/static-mbc/?v=402f03a963ba https://www.adfontesmedia.com/static-mbc/?v=402f03a963ba Where NPR, NYT, and CNN are deemed neutral and balanced, eh? Such determinations say more about the determiner than the determined.
- apatters 7y ago
  In point of fact they are all left of center on the chart, but less far left than say MSNBC, which I would say is pretty spot on.

hi41 7y ago

I think OP is referring to the news that only have entertainment value and one that does not empower the citizens but makes it a spectacle. There was a Hidden Brain episode just on the news topic. It is a great listen. Here is the link: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hidden-brain/id1028908750?i=1000465207626 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hidden-brain/id1028908...

psychanarch 7y ago

Informed how? What actionable information is the news providing that impacts you as a voter?

deleted 7y ago

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pwrplus1 7y ago

If rightwing governments ever became the good guys I guarantee you'd hear about it.

arconis987 7y ago

Happy middle: subscribe to one or two high quality sources of news (eg. NYT, WSJ). Less clickbait overload than something like Google News or Facebook, and you get acquainted with the journalists’ styles, beliefs, and perspectives over time. Slower paced.

eru 7y ago

> If everyone follows the advice of avoiding the news, what effect would that have in our Govenment? Probably not much. Lots of information that people get from the news is misleading at best anyway. And you can do simple retrospective voting without reading the news: did I do well in the last four years? Then re-elect the party in power. Things are going badly? Then vote for an opposition party.

pbourke 7y ago
> did I do well in the last four years? As in you did you personally do well financially or what have you? So you're voting as the ethical equivalent of a four year old? The rule of law is threatened by a subtle erosion of norms in the administration of justice, but your 401k's up, so let's vote the incumbents back in?
- eru 7y ago
  If you want a vote that actual changes things, vote with your feet. That vote has an enormous impact on your own life. Bigger than any ballot box. But it also has a comparatively big impact on the place you leave behind and the place you are joining. Just your tax revenue alone will be so much more impactful than your marginal vote was. > As in you did you personally do well financially or what have you? So you're voting as the ethical equivalent of a four year old? Yes. But that's not because I think it's a particularly good way to vote; I just think that it would be an improvement on what people are doing de facto. See eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_the_Rational_Voter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_the_Rational_Voter

deleted 7y ago

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codetrotter 7y ago

I feel like the news are doing a bad job at keeping people informed about important matters anyways. They report on all kinds of other stuff just to get the eyeballs for the ads that will make them money. So yeah, I spend my time on other things. Like for example on reading stuff on HN.

agumonkey 7y ago

What if the news are so distorted and harmful that it's making you worse at holding them accountable ?

dwrodri 7y ago

Some other commenters have offered really good replies, but I’d like to reiterate the sentiment that most major (American) news outlets have heavily prioritized ad revenue and television ratings over their public duty to inform the people. These days, I get most of my headlines from Reuters and AP. I also respect The Economist, Propublica, FiveThirtyEight, Washington Post, The Intercept, Miami Herald, Buzzfeed News, and New York Times. Of course, some more than others, but it seems that the quality of the journalism emerging from these outlets is relying more on the integrity of individual journalists with great track records as opposed to great teams (think Spotlight). I’m sure just about every commenter here who follows the news knows of at least one article that tarnished the reputation of each of those outlets at some point in time. Maybe it was a low-effort payila piece, or a poorly written opinion column, or just straightup poor journalism that never got a retraction.

dwrodri 7y ago
payila -> payola

ImaCake 7y ago

Instead of reading the news you can try reading books about current and past events. History books of all stripes will inform you more than the goldfish memory of newspapers ever could. I like that I pay for a book. It makes the transaction very transparent, unlike the hidden costs of newspaper advertising.

kungtotte 7y ago

I've adapted a kind of middle road with regards to this. I don't use mainstream social media but I do use Mastodon; a certain amount of general news reach me that way by people sharing it. For regular news I don't read it during the week, but I will catch up on it during the weekend. It keeps me updated on ongoing situations (e.g. Corona virus, presidential elections) and let's me see what things stick around. If a story comes out Monday and it reappears Saturday it means it's worth considering since it survived the 24 hour cycle. Looking back I also pick headlines that seem interesting to me and read them even if it's something that's not reappearing for the weekend. This way I avoid all the SHOCKING BREAKING NEWS that generally amounts to nothing much, I stay up to date on major issues, and I see what things are actual stories as opposed to clickbait. If you read the news regularly you can quickly form the opinion that things are terrible. If you read up on things you'll find that in general things are better than they've ever been. Better obviously does not imply good, even so it's way better to be alive in 2020 than in 1920 everywhere on the planet.

0xEFF 7y ago

Not much information is necessary to hold the people in power at the national level accountable. More information has little upside and significant downside in a two party democracy. The exception I see is at the local level, where more information has more upside than downside. But I’ve also found social media dominated by national politics without much local information.

fit2rule 7y ago

There is no possible way that the means by which you might be informed today - mass media - is going to give you an impartial view of the world, without bias towards the ruling elite. The ruling elite long ago exercised masterful control over the masses through media manipulation - it has been a hundred years of refinement. If you want to hold your government accountable, you need to demand more leaks and whistleblowing. This is the only effective way of keeping the power structure on its toes - because it does everything it can to maintain power, including control mass information at scale. I've never found the "News" to be anything more than "what the elite want me to think about the world" which is why, switching it off, life got immediately better.

yahnu 7y ago

I agree. I went from long time news-junkie phase to no-news phase to just-enough-news phase. Being a citizen in a democracy is an active process and the active part doesn't have to take too much time. For example, you can check news just two times a week. For those who are saying there are no neutral news organizations, here is my take: All people are biased. Organizations are made up of people. Hence, you won't get an organization without bias. The goal is not to find organizations with no bias. The goal is to get your news from organizations with high standards of journalistic integrity and professionalism. Organizations that are aware of thier bias and try to seperate their news coverage from thier opinion section. There are many such news organizations (probably more than any time in history). Just pick two or three such outlets and you will stay informed.

perl4ever 7y ago

I was kind of shocked recently because my phone nudged me towards the "front page" of Wikipedia with top news stories, and it was completely different from other sources of online news. In particular I hadn't heard anything about Brexit finally happening. Someone who is older than me and mainly watches news on TV told me it had been reported there. But Google News and various internet sites I usually read seem to have omitted it. It seems like there is a distinct echo chamber, and maybe you don't have to give up news entirely to get out. It's crossed my mind I could start reading a local newspaper again, too.