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So much to unpack here. For starters, being informed makes for more interesting conversations with others. It means that you get to reflect on what you stand f

So much to unpack here. For starters, being informed makes for more interesting conversations with others. It means that you get to reflect on what you stand for, and grow as an individual with an opinion. News is also the gateway for deeper information. If you stick to just the news, that's one thing, but if you then go deeper into the topic (what is the relationship between Ukraine and Russia?) then you get invaluable context. Without following current events, how would you know what is an important topic to follow? Finally (but not lastly), news makes you informed when it comes time to vote at the municipal, state, and federal level. If you don't follow the developments in your community, your vote is at best useless, at worst it's harming the democratic process. Edit: I should be clear on what I mean by news. In the traditional sense, it's reporting on facts, checking sources, and providing two sides to every story. Opinions and partisan "news" are not that.

teucris 5y ago
Finding news sources that meet your “traditional” definition is extremely difficult. Even the most dry, informative outlets are often complicated by the need to grab eyeballs. > News is also the gateway for deeper information. When the news you watch makes you feel informed on a topic but is actually misleading or omits major nuance, it hinders motivation to seek deeper information.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
wnolens 5y ago
But you're not truly informed, at best you know the opinions of others. Or more typically, you're informed as to what media outlet publishes to get eyeballs for advertising revenue. Your conversations with others are only more interesting because you're engaging with people who are themselves very interested in discussing the opinions of others. My friends are not like this. And the ones that are, I try to avoid endlessly musing about some complex foreign policy which no one has enough accurate information to have an opinion about. It's all good, but it's a hobby when it doesn't affect your community.
- ppeetteerr 5y ago
  I agree with much of what you wrote. Finding curious and open minded people is super important and I would encourage you to spend the time to find people who actively participate in their society. Unless, of course, you'd rather not. > But you're not truly informed, at best you know the opinions of others. Or more typically, you're informed as to what media outlet publishes to get eyeballs for advertising revenue. I do disagree that you're not truly informed. If you're coming at News from this point of view, you're essentially lumping all publications, from the Economist to OANN to RT to Huffpo to War Room together. This is a naive approach and leads to the rise of partisan publications and channels that distort reality.
  - wnolens 5y ago
    I'm a bit of a pessimist here. Finding open minded people has been very difficult. I've got a set, they are my oldest and best friends, spread across the continent now. What is your reading list and hours per week spent? If you are regularly reading several publications like the economist and keeping tabs on diverse set of news outlets, then you might be able to see the forest. But that takes significant time, and I don't know anyone who does that or has the time to in between working and taking care of themselves/family - which is why I view it as more of a niche hobby nowadays.
    - ppeetteerr 5y ago
      I agree that it's difficult. I am very selective with friends and it takes months if not years to find a new friend. However, when one is found, they are a friend for life. > What is your reading list and hours per week spent? It's a combination of local (municipal, state) and national/international news. Local is easy and tends to be very factual. If you're in the US, there are a lot of smaller publication that report on local events related to your city or state. For international news, something like r/worldnews is a good start. National news is the trickiest one because it tends to be the most partisan and requires reading from multiple sources. I also ignore it the most for that reason (US national politics are a shitshow: no one cares about the house and senate, and over indexes on the president, which should have very limited power compared to congress). I read about 10/12 hours per week.
mirceal 5y ago
yes but no. you only have so much mental energy. i think it’s important to adopt a JIT attitude and be able to learn and filter things when you need them, not as a matter of day to day activities. being informed most definitely does not make for more interesting conversations. everyone is biased + critical thinking is severely lacking. nowadays i feel like any conversation quickly devolves into a us-vs-them and “politics”
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
avgcorrection 5y ago
> Finally (but not lastly), news makes you informed when it comes time to vote at the municipal, state, and federal level. If you don't follow the developments in your community, your vote is at best useless, at worst it's harming the democratic process. Election time is when candidates (or some of them) pump out propaganda against their opponents. Negative ads about what some candidate said 15 years ago. Who wins in that race? Often the one who has the most marketing money. Not just ads though; the propaganda could be part of The News as well if there is a coalition in the media that thinks of the candidate as a threat. (And it was either CNN or MSNBC (the news as the article in question defines it) that said that they covered Trump so much (free press in his case because he fed off the notoriety) because he was good for ratings.) I’ve seen perfectly reasonable candidates lose in part because their more corporate-friendly opponents were better funded by private interests. I’ve begun to think that an intentionally random vote might be better for the venerable “democratic process”.
- ppeetteerr 5y ago
  It may be a good idea for you to follow up on your elected officials outside of the election period in that case. See what bills are being proposed, and signed. Who they choose to put in their cabinet, what leaders they meet with and public statements they make. If your idea of political news is opinionated partisan coverage during elections, then you're doing it wrong.
  - avgcorrection 5y ago
    > If your idea of political news is opinionated partisan coverage during elections, then you're doing it wrong. But that’s the news. That’s what “following the news” means. The American media covers each federal election for, what, two years? Who except people who follow politics as a hobby will remember whatever “the news” was before that? (Sure, in more local elections things are bound to be better than that.) And you already have to be savvy in order to distinguish the partisan coverage from things that are more substantial—you don’t know what you don’t know. Whatever you are talking about is not on the topic of The News.
ok123456 5y ago
>Edit: I should be clear on what I mean by news. In the traditional sense, it's reporting on facts, checking sources, and providing two sides to every story. Opinions and partisan "news" are not that. Yeah, good luck with that. Even what appears to be purely factual reporting is subject to bias in the form of what gets factually reported and what is simply ignored. Several good examples of this were documented in "Manufacturing Consent." Opinion and national bias often creep in to so-called factual reporting by 'expert analysis.' You really have to go to primary sources and evaluate them for yourself. Putin giving a speech is easier to evaluate than a talking head from the Brookings Institute who somehow ended up as their 'Russia Expert' because he studied abroad there 15 years ago for a semester.
- ppeetteerr 5y ago
  You may be right that you could read the speech yourself to form an opinion, but you wouldn't know there was a speech to begin with without someone reporting it.
  - ok123456 5y ago
    Yes, you have to seek it out. When was the last time you saw, on an American news outlet, a foreign spokesman or leader giving a direct statement? Other than showing them walk across the stage to shake the American president's hand or, in Saddam's case him waving a shotgun in the air on very old b-footage, I can't recall an instance of that. You only get 'expert analysis'. That's by design. It's actually possible to get a wider exposure to foreign primary sources on TikTok than CNN. This was especially true at the beginning of COVID, when the consensus in Washington was deeply confused on what the messaging should be, and now on Russia where I can see clips of Putin laying out his case with subtitles.
ziggus 5y ago
Hard disagree. Watching/reading/consuming modern news is too stress-inducing (as it is designed to be) just to have something to chat about or become more well-informed about issues that in large part have no bearing on me. I pay attention to issues that are important to me at scopes that matter - state and municipal. Everything else is noise.
- BeetleB 5y ago
  > Watching/reading/consuming modern news is too stress-inducing Let's not project. I was a news junkie for years, and the news itself was not stress inducing.
  - Domenic_S 5y ago
    You're both projecting, and the only answer is data. This APA survey shows that: > While most adults (95 percent) say they follow the news regularly, 56 percent say that doing so causes them stress https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2017/11/lowest-point https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2017/11/lowest-point
    - BeetleB 5y ago
      Which is consistent with what I said: It is not stressful to many. I did not claim it didn't stress some people out.
  - asdff 5y ago
    The news itself is often pretty boring but the tone being used is meant to be stressful and keep you reading with baited breath. Looking at stale news like a web archive from cnn from months ago is always funny. Almost hysterical titles and sentences for things that just end up not mattering or being significant at all, but its all written up as if Japan has bombed Pearl Harbor and war were declared.
parkingrift 5y ago
Strong disagree with the idea that watching or reading mainstream news is informative. I don't think it's unfair at all to label mainstream news (US) as propaganda. Have you ever compared the home pages of major mainstream media companies? It's as if they are reporting on a completely different country. It begs the question of whether it is better to be uninformed or misinformed. Consuming mainstream media in the US will misinform you. Not consuming any media will leave you uninformed. If I had to pick I'd rather have an electorate of uninformed than an electorate of misinformed.
- ppeetteerr 5y ago
  How would you have found out about the Texas power outages last year or the rising Opioid epidemic if it were not for news (unless you lived in Texas or knew someone addicted to Oxy)? Or any other event from your city all the way to your federal government? You can dismiss all news as being misinformation, but even the shadiest outlets report some semblance of facts. It's the cause of the news that's often up for debate.
  - User23 5y ago
    The most powerful manipulation the so-called news uses is not what it reports, but what it refuses to. I'm not going to give examples because I see no upside in violating other HN readers' widely held taboos, but they're pretty obvious with a little consideration.
  - parkingrift 5y ago
    I have a different question. What does it matter if I am uninformed on those two topics? What does it matter if I am uninformed on most topics? There are (almost) never any single issue items on the federal ballot. On local or state ballots there are single issue items maybe once every two to four years. I can inform myself on those topics or I can cast an uninformed vote. Again, I would consider an uninformed vote to be a better outcome than a misinformed vote.
    - ppeetteerr 5y ago
throwaway984393 5y ago
> makes for more interesting conversations If "interesting" is talking about the latest outrage that everyone will forget in a week, sure. If on the other hand you find "interesting" to be debate on the philosophical principles of private ownership or the moral relativism of a state's relationship to vulnerable populations, ya ain't gettin that from the news. > It means that you get to reflect on what you stand for, and grow as an individual with an opinion. You can do that without the news. And having an opinion is like having an asshole: everyone has one, and you should probably keep it to yourself. > Without following current events, how would you know what is an important topic to follow? There is no objective importance other than what will directly affect your life. The news is mostly national and international information, which rarely ever directly impacts you (unless it is "impacting" your amygdala). Local and state actions are much more likely to impact you, but I doubt you follow local or state news, if it's even covered at all by journalists as more than "here's all the local crime to scare you and keep you tuning in". > news makes you informed when it comes time to vote The news rarely (if ever) lays out out all the positions, track records, or experience of candidates in local and state elections. But they do parrot talking points and promote the candidates with the most money and influence.
basscomm 5y ago
A lot of this is addressed in Amusing Ourselves to Death (which I can highly recommend), but to address some specific points > it's reporting on facts, checking sources Right, but which facts? Local restaurant inspections is probably useful since it has the potential to impact my daily life. Reporting on some kid who fell down a well in some country on the other side of the planet probably isn't, since the situation will not affect me in any tangible way. Not to downplay the event, of course. To those involved it's very important, but telling me does nothing except make me feel bad. > and providing two sides to every story. Opinions and partisan "news" are not that. The thing is, though, not every news story or societal issue has two sides. Some have more, some have fewer. Trying to find someone to provide an opposing viewpoint on an issue that reasonably shouldn't have one means that every time the news does that in the name of giving equal time it has to go further into the fringe to find some wingnut who will provide it, legitimizing and amplifying their viewpoint instead of dismissing it. Repeat that a few times over a couple of decades and you start to see the televised discourse we 'enjoy' today.
BeetleB 5y ago
> For starters, being informed makes for more interesting conversations with others. Depends on the crowd. In my experience, that's true with only 10% of the people I know. Most of them are more interested in having an opinion than understanding what is going. When I expand the circle to the population in general, it probably drops to about 2% of the population. > If you stick to just the news, that's one thing, but if you then go deeper into the topic (what is the relationship between Ukraine and Russia?) then you get invaluable context. As a former news junkie, I agree - with the caveat that to get to what I call the minimum threshold of deep understanding will take many, many hours.[1] You have to seek out many different interpretations, sources, etc. It's a very active thing. If you spend merely an hour a day on the news, you won't get there (or perhaps you'll only get "there" for a topic or two). At that point, you start doing a cost-benefit analysis, as I had to. And then you realize that in the universe of things you could be doing, there are plenty of things that give you a better cost/benefit ratio. > In the traditional sense, it's reporting on facts, checking sources, and providing two sides to every story Strong disagree. For many (most?) issues, if you can itemize only two sides to the story, you have a very narrow picture of what is going on. [1] No, definitely just reading the Economist will not do. The quest for reducing news sources to just 1-2 quality sources is a flawed one, and you'll always have a skewed view of the world that way.
- fleddr 5y ago
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
titzer 5y ago
> In the traditional sense, it's reporting on facts, checking sources, and providing two sides to every story. Opinions and partisan "news" are not that. Unfortunately, the mad scramble for eyeballs for advertising dollars coupled a particularly virulent set of political objectives has completely decimated news, morphing it into nothing but a massive reality distortion field designed to keep you completely uninformed, pissed off, powerless, and addicted.

teucris 5y ago

Finding news sources that meet your “traditional” definition is extremely difficult. Even the most dry, informative outlets are often complicated by the need to grab eyeballs. > News is also the gateway for deeper information. When the news you watch makes you feel informed on a topic but is actually misleading or omits major nuance, it hinders motivation to seek deeper information.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

wnolens 5y ago

But you're not truly informed, at best you know the opinions of others. Or more typically, you're informed as to what media outlet publishes to get eyeballs for advertising revenue. Your conversations with others are only more interesting because you're engaging with people who are themselves very interested in discussing the opinions of others. My friends are not like this. And the ones that are, I try to avoid endlessly musing about some complex foreign policy which no one has enough accurate information to have an opinion about. It's all good, but it's a hobby when it doesn't affect your community.

ppeetteerr 5y ago
I agree with much of what you wrote. Finding curious and open minded people is super important and I would encourage you to spend the time to find people who actively participate in their society. Unless, of course, you'd rather not. > But you're not truly informed, at best you know the opinions of others. Or more typically, you're informed as to what media outlet publishes to get eyeballs for advertising revenue. I do disagree that you're not truly informed. If you're coming at News from this point of view, you're essentially lumping all publications, from the Economist to OANN to RT to Huffpo to War Room together. This is a naive approach and leads to the rise of partisan publications and channels that distort reality.
- wnolens 5y ago
  I'm a bit of a pessimist here. Finding open minded people has been very difficult. I've got a set, they are my oldest and best friends, spread across the continent now. What is your reading list and hours per week spent? If you are regularly reading several publications like the economist and keeping tabs on diverse set of news outlets, then you might be able to see the forest. But that takes significant time, and I don't know anyone who does that or has the time to in between working and taking care of themselves/family - which is why I view it as more of a niche hobby nowadays.
  - ppeetteerr 5y ago
    I agree that it's difficult. I am very selective with friends and it takes months if not years to find a new friend. However, when one is found, they are a friend for life. > What is your reading list and hours per week spent? It's a combination of local (municipal, state) and national/international news. Local is easy and tends to be very factual. If you're in the US, there are a lot of smaller publication that report on local events related to your city or state. For international news, something like r/worldnews is a good start. National news is the trickiest one because it tends to be the most partisan and requires reading from multiple sources. I also ignore it the most for that reason (US national politics are a shitshow: no one cares about the house and senate, and over indexes on the president, which should have very limited power compared to congress). I read about 10/12 hours per week.

mirceal 5y ago

yes but no. you only have so much mental energy. i think it’s important to adopt a JIT attitude and be able to learn and filter things when you need them, not as a matter of day to day activities. being informed most definitely does not make for more interesting conversations. everyone is biased + critical thinking is severely lacking. nowadays i feel like any conversation quickly devolves into a us-vs-them and “politics”

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

avgcorrection 5y ago

> Finally (but not lastly), news makes you informed when it comes time to vote at the municipal, state, and federal level. If you don't follow the developments in your community, your vote is at best useless, at worst it's harming the democratic process. Election time is when candidates (or some of them) pump out propaganda against their opponents. Negative ads about what some candidate said 15 years ago. Who wins in that race? Often the one who has the most marketing money. Not just ads though; the propaganda could be part of The News as well if there is a coalition in the media that thinks of the candidate as a threat. (And it was either CNN or MSNBC (the news as the article in question defines it) that said that they covered Trump so much (free press in his case because he fed off the notoriety) because he was good for ratings.) I’ve seen perfectly reasonable candidates lose in part because their more corporate-friendly opponents were better funded by private interests. I’ve begun to think that an intentionally random vote might be better for the venerable “democratic process”.

ppeetteerr 5y ago
It may be a good idea for you to follow up on your elected officials outside of the election period in that case. See what bills are being proposed, and signed. Who they choose to put in their cabinet, what leaders they meet with and public statements they make. If your idea of political news is opinionated partisan coverage during elections, then you're doing it wrong.
- avgcorrection 5y ago
  > If your idea of political news is opinionated partisan coverage during elections, then you're doing it wrong. But that’s the news. That’s what “following the news” means. The American media covers each federal election for, what, two years? Who except people who follow politics as a hobby will remember whatever “the news” was before that? (Sure, in more local elections things are bound to be better than that.) And you already have to be savvy in order to distinguish the partisan coverage from things that are more substantial—you don’t know what you don’t know. Whatever you are talking about is not on the topic of The News.

ok123456 5y ago

>Edit: I should be clear on what I mean by news. In the traditional sense, it's reporting on facts, checking sources, and providing two sides to every story. Opinions and partisan "news" are not that. Yeah, good luck with that. Even what appears to be purely factual reporting is subject to bias in the form of what gets factually reported and what is simply ignored. Several good examples of this were documented in "Manufacturing Consent." Opinion and national bias often creep in to so-called factual reporting by 'expert analysis.' You really have to go to primary sources and evaluate them for yourself. Putin giving a speech is easier to evaluate than a talking head from the Brookings Institute who somehow ended up as their 'Russia Expert' because he studied abroad there 15 years ago for a semester.

ppeetteerr 5y ago
You may be right that you could read the speech yourself to form an opinion, but you wouldn't know there was a speech to begin with without someone reporting it.
- ok123456 5y ago
  Yes, you have to seek it out. When was the last time you saw, on an American news outlet, a foreign spokesman or leader giving a direct statement? Other than showing them walk across the stage to shake the American president's hand or, in Saddam's case him waving a shotgun in the air on very old b-footage, I can't recall an instance of that. You only get 'expert analysis'. That's by design. It's actually possible to get a wider exposure to foreign primary sources on TikTok than CNN. This was especially true at the beginning of COVID, when the consensus in Washington was deeply confused on what the messaging should be, and now on Russia where I can see clips of Putin laying out his case with subtitles.

ziggus 5y ago

Hard disagree. Watching/reading/consuming modern news is too stress-inducing (as it is designed to be) just to have something to chat about or become more well-informed about issues that in large part have no bearing on me. I pay attention to issues that are important to me at scopes that matter - state and municipal. Everything else is noise.

BeetleB 5y ago
> Watching/reading/consuming modern news is too stress-inducing Let's not project. I was a news junkie for years, and the news itself was not stress inducing.
- Domenic_S 5y ago
  You're both projecting, and the only answer is data. This APA survey shows that: > While most adults (95 percent) say they follow the news regularly, 56 percent say that doing so causes them stress https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2017/11/lowest-point https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2017/11/lowest-point
  - BeetleB 5y ago
    Which is consistent with what I said: It is not stressful to many. I did not claim it didn't stress some people out.
- asdff 5y ago
  The news itself is often pretty boring but the tone being used is meant to be stressful and keep you reading with baited breath. Looking at stale news like a web archive from cnn from months ago is always funny. Almost hysterical titles and sentences for things that just end up not mattering or being significant at all, but its all written up as if Japan has bombed Pearl Harbor and war were declared.

parkingrift 5y ago

Strong disagree with the idea that watching or reading mainstream news is informative. I don't think it's unfair at all to label mainstream news (US) as propaganda. Have you ever compared the home pages of major mainstream media companies? It's as if they are reporting on a completely different country. It begs the question of whether it is better to be uninformed or misinformed. Consuming mainstream media in the US will misinform you. Not consuming any media will leave you uninformed. If I had to pick I'd rather have an electorate of uninformed than an electorate of misinformed.

ppeetteerr 5y ago
How would you have found out about the Texas power outages last year or the rising Opioid epidemic if it were not for news (unless you lived in Texas or knew someone addicted to Oxy)? Or any other event from your city all the way to your federal government? You can dismiss all news as being misinformation, but even the shadiest outlets report some semblance of facts. It's the cause of the news that's often up for debate.
- User23 5y ago
  The most powerful manipulation the so-called news uses is not what it reports, but what it refuses to. I'm not going to give examples because I see no upside in violating other HN readers' widely held taboos, but they're pretty obvious with a little consideration.
- parkingrift 5y ago
  I have a different question. What does it matter if I am uninformed on those two topics? What does it matter if I am uninformed on most topics? There are (almost) never any single issue items on the federal ballot. On local or state ballots there are single issue items maybe once every two to four years. I can inform myself on those topics or I can cast an uninformed vote. Again, I would consider an uninformed vote to be a better outcome than a misinformed vote.
  - ppeetteerr 5y ago

throwaway984393 5y ago

> makes for more interesting conversations If "interesting" is talking about the latest outrage that everyone will forget in a week, sure. If on the other hand you find "interesting" to be debate on the philosophical principles of private ownership or the moral relativism of a state's relationship to vulnerable populations, ya ain't gettin that from the news. > It means that you get to reflect on what you stand for, and grow as an individual with an opinion. You can do that without the news. And having an opinion is like having an asshole: everyone has one, and you should probably keep it to yourself. > Without following current events, how would you know what is an important topic to follow? There is no objective importance other than what will directly affect your life. The news is mostly national and international information, which rarely ever directly impacts you (unless it is "impacting" your amygdala). Local and state actions are much more likely to impact you, but I doubt you follow local or state news, if it's even covered at all by journalists as more than "here's all the local crime to scare you and keep you tuning in". > news makes you informed when it comes time to vote The news rarely (if ever) lays out out all the positions, track records, or experience of candidates in local and state elections. But they do parrot talking points and promote the candidates with the most money and influence.

basscomm 5y ago

A lot of this is addressed in Amusing Ourselves to Death (which I can highly recommend), but to address some specific points > it's reporting on facts, checking sources Right, but which facts? Local restaurant inspections is probably useful since it has the potential to impact my daily life. Reporting on some kid who fell down a well in some country on the other side of the planet probably isn't, since the situation will not affect me in any tangible way. Not to downplay the event, of course. To those involved it's very important, but telling me does nothing except make me feel bad. > and providing two sides to every story. Opinions and partisan "news" are not that. The thing is, though, not every news story or societal issue has two sides. Some have more, some have fewer. Trying to find someone to provide an opposing viewpoint on an issue that reasonably shouldn't have one means that every time the news does that in the name of giving equal time it has to go further into the fringe to find some wingnut who will provide it, legitimizing and amplifying their viewpoint instead of dismissing it. Repeat that a few times over a couple of decades and you start to see the televised discourse we 'enjoy' today.

BeetleB 5y ago

> For starters, being informed makes for more interesting conversations with others. Depends on the crowd. In my experience, that's true with only 10% of the people I know. Most of them are more interested in having an opinion than understanding what is going. When I expand the circle to the population in general, it probably drops to about 2% of the population. > If you stick to just the news, that's one thing, but if you then go deeper into the topic (what is the relationship between Ukraine and Russia?) then you get invaluable context. As a former news junkie, I agree - with the caveat that to get to what I call the minimum threshold of deep understanding will take many, many hours.[1] You have to seek out many different interpretations, sources, etc. It's a very active thing. If you spend merely an hour a day on the news, you won't get there (or perhaps you'll only get "there" for a topic or two). At that point, you start doing a cost-benefit analysis, as I had to. And then you realize that in the universe of things you could be doing, there are plenty of things that give you a better cost/benefit ratio. > In the traditional sense, it's reporting on facts, checking sources, and providing two sides to every story Strong disagree. For many (most?) issues, if you can itemize only two sides to the story, you have a very narrow picture of what is going on. [1] No, definitely just reading the Economist will not do. The quest for reducing news sources to just 1-2 quality sources is a flawed one, and you'll always have a skewed view of the world that way.

fleddr 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

titzer 5y ago

> In the traditional sense, it's reporting on facts, checking sources, and providing two sides to every story. Opinions and partisan "news" are not that. Unfortunately, the mad scramble for eyeballs for advertising dollars coupled a particularly virulent set of political objectives has completely decimated news, morphing it into nothing but a massive reality distortion field designed to keep you completely uninformed, pissed off, powerless, and addicted.