6 ms·

I feel the name is a misnomer. These articles are opinion and analysis. News is different. Slow news would not be very interesting, either.

smarx007 6y ago
Well, I think that's the key observation: when you no longer chase "breaking" news, you have to provide more analysis. When "X does Y", you don't usually need to learn about it within 60 minutes. You usually need to understand "What are the implications of this? Is Y really necessary? What is the motivation driving X?". I can recommend subscribing to the paper version of The Economist, you will see that the "breaking" news section is usually just 2 pages long ("The world this week" in https://www.economist.com/weeklyedition/2020-12-05 https://www.economist.com/weeklyedition/2020-12-05). The rest is mostly analysis (of the current events) and opinion.
- fakedang 6y ago
  > when you no longer chase "breaking" news, you have to provide more analysis Which is why there's a sea of difference in the quality between an Economist opinion piece (which takes a week to craft), a Bloomberg opinion piece (which takes a couple of days unless it's an expert or Matt Levine), or a standard run of the mill media outlet opinion piece (usually the next day).
- laurent92 6y ago
  Providing analysis is one direction. But there is another: Reporting news that already happened. See, most news report on what will happen today, what is expected to happen within 3 days, 1 month. It builds expectations and stress in the mindset of the listener; It keeps the audience hung to the news stream but I think it is the most toxic characteristic, even before the divisive aspect of current news providers. It’s as if we got so fast that instead of reporting on news « within 1 day! » or « within 1 hour! », we provide the news within « -3 hours ».
CraigJPerry 6y ago
Is news different? If you’re reading the AP wire then yes it is different, it’s just dry facts with limited context or framing. That’s not how most people consume news though. That is far too dry for most and you’ll likely miss key observations because you can’t possibly be up to speed with every context. In mainstream news the correspondent for X will helpfully add that knowledge to the story being reported so you can understand the new facts in context. News as I’m thinking you’re meaning it, would be that model, the facts and a curtailed context, often eliding the “for and against” arguments to go straight to a ready to consume conclusion that should neatly fit the reader’s prior preferences. The exploration of the for and against is usually cut out of news since it sells better and costs less to produce.
- nojito 6y ago
  Yes news and opinions are different. Which is why there’s an entire editorial or opinion section in news. The internet has managed to blur the lines and people are convinced anything and everything is automatically news.
  - CraigJPerry 6y ago
    The choice to report or not report new information is itself an expression of opinion. I’m not sure there ever could be lines other than of the blurry variety? E.g. my OnlyTheFacts (tm) news org who doesn’t add any form of opinion to the news they report might still choose to just not report some types of story and choose to always cover a relatively rare type of event skewing the perception of reportable news in the world. I’m not aware of any news vendors who list the stories they choose not to cover. I don’t think this is anything new to the 21st or even to the 20th century.
    - webmaven 6y ago
      > I’m not aware of any news vendors who list the stories they choose not to cover. The only thing I am aware of that is even close is Project Censored, which aims to document the most important stories that have been ignored by all major news outlets each year: https://www.projectcensored.org/category/the-top-25-censored-stories-of-2019-2020/ https://www.projectcensored.org/category/the-top-25-censored...
philliphaydon 6y ago
Slow news would probably be more factual correct as the story can have time to be verified and researched. Rather than the... fake news that main stream media has fallen into. Write now fact check later and follow up later on a hidden post.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
briefcomment 6y ago
I’d like the opposite. A twitter feed with just facts, (or allegations with timely follow ups) relevant to a specific topic. The hard part is getting one entity to report this with no bias. Maybe this is a job for bots + AI.
- criley2 6y ago
  Facts are bad business. They don't sell well, people don't like hearing them, they're expensive to get, and provide only intangible benefit to fake facts. Many societies these days seem to be operating just fine purely on fake news, demonstrating the (at least temporary) irrelevance of the truth
- montagg 6y ago
  If one day we can solve for how AI is just bias enshrined in software.
- cup_of_joe 6y ago
  so something like this but with non-biased articles? https://www.memeorandum.com/ https://www.memeorandum.com/
- agakshat 6y ago
  I think the Reuters news website [0] comes close to this ideal. Generally neutral reporting of facts with few, if any, embellishments. [0] https://mobile.reuters.com/ https://mobile.reuters.com/
jonnycomputer 6y ago
Actually, I've been interested in reviving something that might be called slow news. Its more like the weekly news digest. Lots of times first reports are inaccurate, or woefully incomplete, and the corrections never get noticed; also, sometimes we need to slow down to cogitate on the news instead of just reacting to it.
- nostrademons 6y ago
  I'd like to see something that detects trends, not fads. Basically "slow news" that detects news that continues to be news long after the story has broken. Google actually had this c. 2012 - there was a portion of the SRP that was devoted to "long form" articles, long articles that continued to get searched for months after they came out. It surfaced some really good content, but the SRP was probably was the wrong format to put this on. I think it was unlaunched after a few years, unfortunately.
  - jonnycomputer 6y ago
    I have actually found that wikipedia articles on current events can fulfill this role (or at least the one I imagined) in a decent way (ie. constructing more and more complete news pictures).
- chasely 6y ago
  The best news for me would be a service that would be okay with reporting "there was no important news", but that is not how the industry works. I'd be willing to pay for that if when news did happen, the reporting/analysis was exceptional. Not sure where I read this idea first, may have been Taleb, but it's something I've seen pop up as wanted in this hyperactive news environment.
skybrian 6y ago
Slower news should be a bit more like writing history. You probably already remember the top-level facts for the stuff that made headlines for a few days, but what about specialized fields? I’d be happy to read a well-written yearly summary of the most important news in neuroscience, for example.
- theoka 6y ago
  https://www.slow-journalism.com/ https://www.slow-journalism.com/ I can't speak on their printed work but my first issue is arriving any day.

smarx007 6y ago

Well, I think that's the key observation: when you no longer chase "breaking" news, you have to provide more analysis. When "X does Y", you don't usually need to learn about it within 60 minutes. You usually need to understand "What are the implications of this? Is Y really necessary? What is the motivation driving X?". I can recommend subscribing to the paper version of The Economist, you will see that the "breaking" news section is usually just 2 pages long ("The world this week" in https://www.economist.com/weeklyedition/2020-12-05 https://www.economist.com/weeklyedition/2020-12-05). The rest is mostly analysis (of the current events) and opinion.

fakedang 6y ago
> when you no longer chase "breaking" news, you have to provide more analysis Which is why there's a sea of difference in the quality between an Economist opinion piece (which takes a week to craft), a Bloomberg opinion piece (which takes a couple of days unless it's an expert or Matt Levine), or a standard run of the mill media outlet opinion piece (usually the next day).
laurent92 6y ago
Providing analysis is one direction. But there is another: Reporting news that already happened. See, most news report on what will happen today, what is expected to happen within 3 days, 1 month. It builds expectations and stress in the mindset of the listener; It keeps the audience hung to the news stream but I think it is the most toxic characteristic, even before the divisive aspect of current news providers. It’s as if we got so fast that instead of reporting on news « within 1 day! » or « within 1 hour! », we provide the news within « -3 hours ».

CraigJPerry 6y ago

Is news different? If you’re reading the AP wire then yes it is different, it’s just dry facts with limited context or framing. That’s not how most people consume news though. That is far too dry for most and you’ll likely miss key observations because you can’t possibly be up to speed with every context. In mainstream news the correspondent for X will helpfully add that knowledge to the story being reported so you can understand the new facts in context. News as I’m thinking you’re meaning it, would be that model, the facts and a curtailed context, often eliding the “for and against” arguments to go straight to a ready to consume conclusion that should neatly fit the reader’s prior preferences. The exploration of the for and against is usually cut out of news since it sells better and costs less to produce.

nojito 6y ago
Yes news and opinions are different. Which is why there’s an entire editorial or opinion section in news. The internet has managed to blur the lines and people are convinced anything and everything is automatically news.
- CraigJPerry 6y ago
  The choice to report or not report new information is itself an expression of opinion. I’m not sure there ever could be lines other than of the blurry variety? E.g. my OnlyTheFacts (tm) news org who doesn’t add any form of opinion to the news they report might still choose to just not report some types of story and choose to always cover a relatively rare type of event skewing the perception of reportable news in the world. I’m not aware of any news vendors who list the stories they choose not to cover. I don’t think this is anything new to the 21st or even to the 20th century.
  - webmaven 6y ago
    > I’m not aware of any news vendors who list the stories they choose not to cover. The only thing I am aware of that is even close is Project Censored, which aims to document the most important stories that have been ignored by all major news outlets each year: https://www.projectcensored.org/category/the-top-25-censored-stories-of-2019-2020/ https://www.projectcensored.org/category/the-top-25-censored...

philliphaydon 6y ago

Slow news would probably be more factual correct as the story can have time to be verified and researched. Rather than the... fake news that main stream media has fallen into. Write now fact check later and follow up later on a hidden post.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

briefcomment 6y ago

I’d like the opposite. A twitter feed with just facts, (or allegations with timely follow ups) relevant to a specific topic. The hard part is getting one entity to report this with no bias. Maybe this is a job for bots + AI.

criley2 6y ago
Facts are bad business. They don't sell well, people don't like hearing them, they're expensive to get, and provide only intangible benefit to fake facts. Many societies these days seem to be operating just fine purely on fake news, demonstrating the (at least temporary) irrelevance of the truth
montagg 6y ago
If one day we can solve for how AI is just bias enshrined in software.
cup_of_joe 6y ago
so something like this but with non-biased articles? https://www.memeorandum.com/ https://www.memeorandum.com/
agakshat 6y ago
I think the Reuters news website [0] comes close to this ideal. Generally neutral reporting of facts with few, if any, embellishments. [0] https://mobile.reuters.com/ https://mobile.reuters.com/

jonnycomputer 6y ago

Actually, I've been interested in reviving something that might be called slow news. Its more like the weekly news digest. Lots of times first reports are inaccurate, or woefully incomplete, and the corrections never get noticed; also, sometimes we need to slow down to cogitate on the news instead of just reacting to it.

nostrademons 6y ago
I'd like to see something that detects trends, not fads. Basically "slow news" that detects news that continues to be news long after the story has broken. Google actually had this c. 2012 - there was a portion of the SRP that was devoted to "long form" articles, long articles that continued to get searched for months after they came out. It surfaced some really good content, but the SRP was probably was the wrong format to put this on. I think it was unlaunched after a few years, unfortunately.
- jonnycomputer 6y ago
  I have actually found that wikipedia articles on current events can fulfill this role (or at least the one I imagined) in a decent way (ie. constructing more and more complete news pictures).
chasely 6y ago
The best news for me would be a service that would be okay with reporting "there was no important news", but that is not how the industry works. I'd be willing to pay for that if when news did happen, the reporting/analysis was exceptional. Not sure where I read this idea first, may have been Taleb, but it's something I've seen pop up as wanted in this hyperactive news environment.

skybrian 6y ago

Slower news should be a bit more like writing history. You probably already remember the top-level facts for the stuff that made headlines for a few days, but what about specialized fields? I’d be happy to read a well-written yearly summary of the most important news in neuroscience, for example.

theoka 6y ago
https://www.slow-journalism.com/ https://www.slow-journalism.com/ I can't speak on their printed work but my first issue is arriving any day.