3 ms·

Do you avoid the news? You’re in growing company

17 points by SkyMarshal 3y ago

SkyMarshal 3y ago
I post this b/c it’s reminiscent of Bruce Schneier’s take on the news: ”I tell people: if it's in the news, don't worry about it, because by definition, news is something that almost never happens. It's when something is so common that its no longer news - car crashes, domestic violence - that we should worry.”
- concinds 3y ago
  WaPo talks about backlash against constant negativity, but I avoid news for another reason: for any field I care about, I hear news weeks/months before it reaches mainstream press, and it's unpleasant and cringeworthy to read their oversimplified, dramatized retelling. For any field I don't care about, I can't evaluate their accuracy and don't trust them. As a rule, the bigger the target audience, the less it's worth, because the masses aren't discerning.
  - SkyMarshal 3y ago
    Good point. When you see how mainstream news mangles reporting on a subject you know, you have to extrapolate that they do the same for all the other subjects you don’t know.
  - concinds 3y ago
    Adding: For example of sheer propaganda, framing Privacy Pass (and by extension, Google's Web Environment Integrity proposal) as a "win", with zero discussion of downsides, see WaPo: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/07/25/captchas-hate-privacy-pass/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/07/25/captcha...
fullshark 3y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36593249 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36593249
OhMeadhbh 3y ago
It seems ironic that an article titled "Do You Avoid the News?" is published by WaPo. It's almost a threat. "Oh. So you avoid the news. Fine. We'll use our secret powers to get <insert name of politician you don't like here> elected." But no, that's not really what that article's about. The article is actually worth the few minutes it takes to read it. I think I had tuned out of the news well before the pandemic. I think it's because I had a growing sense that it didn't make sense. Maybe the reporting has changed. Maybe I've changed. Maybe the world has changed?
- _dujt 3y ago
  Also ironic that a paywalled news website is publishing something about people avoiding the news. Costing money isn’t the problem. The problem is that people already have too many subscriptions and they won’t want to pay for one, let alone multiple sources that would give them a balanced feed of opinions/ideas/political viewpoints. I’d argue checking out of news completely is more beneficial for society than paying for a single stream of ideas and the bias that comes along with that.
motohagiography 3y ago
From my early 20s and for well over a decade, the sunday NYT, FT weekend, weekend globe and mail, a full (expensive FT subscription), an Economist subscription were personal rituals. There was a coffee shop I would leave the weekend FT at and people would miss me if I didn't show up and leave it for them. News was a very big part of my life. I even wrote as a freelancer for some papers and magazines. I could probably name a few dozen journalists off the top of my head with an opinion about their writing. Today, I can't be bothered to even look at a mainstream news website, and pretty much discount anything written in a mainstream publication as too compromised to be a valuable use of time. The reason is that the essential ingredient in a story is a conflict or tension, and while the facts may be tenuously accurate, the tension and conflict the story is about is entirely synthesized from ideololgy. It's not the stress or anxiety the article states, it's the rote, turgid stupidity of cant and affected concern. When you can't tell the difference between writing in Vice and the NYT, it's not because either of them got better. I don't read the news because if I need something I can find original sources or hear an expert talk about it on a podcast for a couple of hours, and journalists today are just minor partisan operators who are less believable than soviet olympians or tour de france winners. Anxiety, pah.
- alpaca128 3y ago
  I agree except for the anxiety part. Just because it wasn't the problem for you that doesn't mean it's not widespread. I avoid news nowadays because most of it is just a depressing reminder of everything that doesn't get any better over time.
- concinds 3y ago
  Well put. I think the cause of the decline is this: The narrative used to be set by newspapers. Now, the narrative is set by a subset of Twitter/Fediverse users: the "respectable" users that journalists follow and are followed back by. These people determine the "respectable-views" Overton window, which is very narrow. Step outside of it, and the "respectable-people" mob will say that you're "amplifying bad-faith talking points"; do it too much and you'll be seen as tainted and ostracized. So the pressure to uphold this "respectable-views ideology" is huge. I think does contribute to real anxiety in some people, because this intense "us-versus-them" is very obvious in everything they write. And just like it would be toxic in a personal relationship, it turns the national narrative "toxic", so people who don't derive entertainment from it tune it out, because, like every other kind of toxicity, it makes them feel like shit.
poutinepapi 3y ago
[dead]
0xy 3y ago
Remember when Washington Post lied about Russians hacking a US power plant to sabre rattle for war? How about when the New York Times lied about WMDs which led to tens of thousands of deaths in Iraq and trillions of dollars wasted? The news should be avoided because news websites are ideological war drums controlled by billionaires with agendas to push. These websites have led to direct harm. The New York Times is smeared with the blood of Iraqi civilians. They don't even reflect the country or area they represent. Supposedly "neutral" websites like AP and NPR routinely lie and smear facts to the slant of their journalists, as well. Politifact and other "fact checking" organizations are a laughing stock because of extreme bias.
krapp 3y ago
I don't avoid it, but I don't seek it out, either. The way I see it, if it's relevant to me, I won't need the news to find out about it.
max_lameme 3y ago
My thesis is that more and more people notice that mainstream media is just propaganda. So many either avoid it at all or move to indi media
simonblack 3y ago
Avoid the news. If it's important enough, you will hear about it anyway by word of mouth. Having featured in several journalist's interviews and write-ups, I know how inaccurate they can be about stuff I actually said. If they're inaccurate about simple stuff, it stands to reason that they will be even more inaccurate about major stuff. Old, old saying. "Believe nothing that you hear and only half of what you see."

17 points by SkyMarshal 3y ago

I post this b/c it’s reminiscent of Bruce Schneier’s take on the news: ”I tell people: if it's in the news, don't worry about it, because by definition, news is something that almost never happens. It's when something is so common that its no longer news - car crashes, domestic violence - that we should worry.”

concinds 3y ago
WaPo talks about backlash against constant negativity, but I avoid news for another reason: for any field I care about, I hear news weeks/months before it reaches mainstream press, and it's unpleasant and cringeworthy to read their oversimplified, dramatized retelling. For any field I don't care about, I can't evaluate their accuracy and don't trust them. As a rule, the bigger the target audience, the less it's worth, because the masses aren't discerning.
- SkyMarshal 3y ago
  Good point. When you see how mainstream news mangles reporting on a subject you know, you have to extrapolate that they do the same for all the other subjects you don’t know.
- concinds 3y ago
  Adding: For example of sheer propaganda, framing Privacy Pass (and by extension, Google's Web Environment Integrity proposal) as a "win", with zero discussion of downsides, see WaPo: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/07/25/captchas-hate-privacy-pass/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/07/25/captcha...

fullshark 3y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36593249 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36593249

OhMeadhbh 3y ago

It seems ironic that an article titled "Do You Avoid the News?" is published by WaPo. It's almost a threat. "Oh. So you avoid the news. Fine. We'll use our secret powers to get <insert name of politician you don't like here> elected." But no, that's not really what that article's about. The article is actually worth the few minutes it takes to read it. I think I had tuned out of the news well before the pandemic. I think it's because I had a growing sense that it didn't make sense. Maybe the reporting has changed. Maybe I've changed. Maybe the world has changed?

_dujt 3y ago
Also ironic that a paywalled news website is publishing something about people avoiding the news. Costing money isn’t the problem. The problem is that people already have too many subscriptions and they won’t want to pay for one, let alone multiple sources that would give them a balanced feed of opinions/ideas/political viewpoints. I’d argue checking out of news completely is more beneficial for society than paying for a single stream of ideas and the bias that comes along with that.

motohagiography 3y ago

From my early 20s and for well over a decade, the sunday NYT, FT weekend, weekend globe and mail, a full (expensive FT subscription), an Economist subscription were personal rituals. There was a coffee shop I would leave the weekend FT at and people would miss me if I didn't show up and leave it for them. News was a very big part of my life. I even wrote as a freelancer for some papers and magazines. I could probably name a few dozen journalists off the top of my head with an opinion about their writing. Today, I can't be bothered to even look at a mainstream news website, and pretty much discount anything written in a mainstream publication as too compromised to be a valuable use of time. The reason is that the essential ingredient in a story is a conflict or tension, and while the facts may be tenuously accurate, the tension and conflict the story is about is entirely synthesized from ideololgy. It's not the stress or anxiety the article states, it's the rote, turgid stupidity of cant and affected concern. When you can't tell the difference between writing in Vice and the NYT, it's not because either of them got better. I don't read the news because if I need something I can find original sources or hear an expert talk about it on a podcast for a couple of hours, and journalists today are just minor partisan operators who are less believable than soviet olympians or tour de france winners. Anxiety, pah.

alpaca128 3y ago
I agree except for the anxiety part. Just because it wasn't the problem for you that doesn't mean it's not widespread. I avoid news nowadays because most of it is just a depressing reminder of everything that doesn't get any better over time.
concinds 3y ago
Well put. I think the cause of the decline is this: The narrative used to be set by newspapers. Now, the narrative is set by a subset of Twitter/Fediverse users: the "respectable" users that journalists follow and are followed back by. These people determine the "respectable-views" Overton window, which is very narrow. Step outside of it, and the "respectable-people" mob will say that you're "amplifying bad-faith talking points"; do it too much and you'll be seen as tainted and ostracized. So the pressure to uphold this "respectable-views ideology" is huge. I think does contribute to real anxiety in some people, because this intense "us-versus-them" is very obvious in everything they write. And just like it would be toxic in a personal relationship, it turns the national narrative "toxic", so people who don't derive entertainment from it tune it out, because, like every other kind of toxicity, it makes them feel like shit.

poutinepapi 3y ago

[dead]

0xy 3y ago

Remember when Washington Post lied about Russians hacking a US power plant to sabre rattle for war? How about when the New York Times lied about WMDs which led to tens of thousands of deaths in Iraq and trillions of dollars wasted? The news should be avoided because news websites are ideological war drums controlled by billionaires with agendas to push. These websites have led to direct harm. The New York Times is smeared with the blood of Iraqi civilians. They don't even reflect the country or area they represent. Supposedly "neutral" websites like AP and NPR routinely lie and smear facts to the slant of their journalists, as well. Politifact and other "fact checking" organizations are a laughing stock because of extreme bias.

krapp 3y ago

I don't avoid it, but I don't seek it out, either. The way I see it, if it's relevant to me, I won't need the news to find out about it.

max_lameme 3y ago

My thesis is that more and more people notice that mainstream media is just propaganda. So many either avoid it at all or move to indi media

simonblack 3y ago

Avoid the news. If it's important enough, you will hear about it anyway by word of mouth. Having featured in several journalist's interviews and write-ups, I know how inaccurate they can be about stuff I actually said. If they're inaccurate about simple stuff, it stands to reason that they will be even more inaccurate about major stuff. Old, old saying. "Believe nothing that you hear and only half of what you see."