4 ms·

> Opinion pieces are strewn throughout regular news links Sometimes I wonder if some folks want news, or just something to confirm their biases.

• vorpalhex 4y ago
  Most political positions are really about group membership and we want to read things that re-affirm that we belong to those groups. The easiest way to do this is to attack some "other".
  • rabuse 4y ago
    It's really just exploiting our biological tribal mentality. It'll never go away.
    • 0des 4y ago
      The most uncomfortable of ignored truths
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  • derevaunseraun 4y ago
    This is a platitude that gets parroted way too often. It's like saying the highest function of humanity is eating and shitting The point of a political position is catalyzing political change, developing consensus, and holding interest groups accountable. Reducing news or politics in general to sensationalism just encourages disengagement
• tunesmith 4y ago
  Sometimes I wonder if folks want nutritious food, or just potato chips. It's the same sort of thing, I think. There's what we say we want, and there's how we behave, but (what is often lost on advertisers) how we behave is not always an indication of what we actually want. I'll eat potato chips, but I really do want nutritious food.
  • rubicon33 4y ago
    It's funny, I would phrase it as I really want potato chips, but I'll eat nutritious food.
    • pc86 4y ago
      I swing violently between the two, and it has little bearing on what I actually eat.
  • Retric 4y ago
    99+% of news is useless or redundant to most people so it’s only really consumed as entertainment either way. Imagine if they keep reusing headlines “Trump made a tweet that offended someone news at 11” could have been run hundreds of time slanted to the left or right but was it ever actually important for either side?
    • 0des 4y ago
      It used to not be this way... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine
      • housel 4y ago
        Fairness doctrine made sense at the time because broadcast spectrum was a very scarce resource. When cable and Internet are available to disseminate a broad range of viewpoints, it's no longer necessary for the FCC to be involved in regulating speech.
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        • asdff 4y ago
          That brings in the assumption that there will be a perfectly heterogeneous and broad range of viewpoints and not perhaps just a handful of viewpoints that serve to enrich a few people. Looking at the world today we really don't have that broad of viewpoints despite all of our connectivity. Comment sections play out identically when a given topic comes up on different forums. You can predict what the positions will be without even opening the thread, and if you offer an opinion that runs counter expect to be snuffed out by the majority opinions that have real marketing dollars fueling them.
• throwaway0a5e 4y ago
  To complicate things further, CNN customers are not necessarily a cross section of "folks". So what works for CNN may not work for Fox may not work for the Wall Street Journal may not work for your local news.
• l2silver 4y ago
  Actually, I think the real reason there are so many opinion pieces is because they're much cheaper. They don't require resources for discovering the story. Personally I skip right past opinion pieces that are labeled as such, but I find so much of CNN's stories are so slanted they all read as opinion pieces.
  • Clubber 4y ago
    I don't watch CNN much, but the format typically is, "story story story," (this is ok), then it's followed by, "here's so and so for more information." (this is a cut to opinion right after the story). I stop there.
• tablespoon 4y ago
  >> Opinion pieces are strewn throughout regular news links > Sometimes I wonder if some folks want news, or just something to confirm their biases. Many people just want their biases confirmed, which is pretty clear if you ever take a look at newspaper comment sections.
• drewcoo 4y ago
  Well if it confirmed someone else's biases it wouldn't be news, would it? It would be "propaganda."