5 ms·

Because you don't need "news". What do you need "news" for? To do what with it exactly? Are any of the "news" items actionable in any sort of benefitial way t

Because you don't need "news". What do you need "news" for? To do what with it exactly? Are any of the "news" items actionable in any sort of benefitial way to you? What's the signal to noise ratio? The answer of course is no, none of it is actionable, and almost all of it is garbage and noise. This would be mostly true even for highly accurate news and high quality reporting. And if the information was valuable, it wouldn't be called "news" to begin with.

cccybernetic 2y ago
I haven't seen it framed this way, but yeah - well put.
pnut 2y ago
I say this as a person who does not follow news, after a decades long news addiction. In its absence, there is no accountability pressure for any individual or organisational actor. It doesn't matter whether I as an individual know what's going on, nothing I can do anyway, but history is overflowing with societal change being forced to the surface through public scrutiny. All kinds of horrible things happen when nobody has to look over their shoulder to see who's watching, and very obviously, the legal system is designed only to address escalations, not to generate them.
- 0xbadcafebee 2y ago
  This is the modern justification of the news given in the 60s, but it ignores all the harm the news does too. For most of the existence of news media, they have been weapons used to push political or ideological themes by the people who could afford to fund them. It should still be possible for us to have public accountability without a sports and entertainment section. The funding for and publication of investigative journalism is definitely important, but we have not yet found a good model for it yet.
openrisk 2y ago
Not sure what is your definition of "news" but sticking to the common generic usage of the term this comes as an incredibly thick stance. There is a vast universe of information that is collected and reported by the news industry: from global news on wars, pandemics, disasters, to business / market / technology news, to political news, all the way to local news. All them are "actionable" one way or an other, although not in the same way for everyone. Biases and varying signal to noise ratios are real, but your remedy is akin to choping off your head because you have a headache.
- _Algernon_ 2y ago
  And one of the problems is that it is all intermingled together. For every useful / actionable piece of news there are a 100+ pieces of celebrity gossip, tweet-listicles, marketing PR releases, and irrelevant news pieces. The news is as if a restaurant served you your meal out of a filled trash can, and then acted surprised that you don't pay. It's not really shocking, is it?
- Johanx64 2y ago
  Seems like another attempt to rationalize infotainment addiction frankly. > your remedy is akin to choping off your head because you have a headache. Does anyone even remember a single instance where you have gone like "oh, shit, If only had I red the news" and then seriously regretting their choice of not reading the news? Yeah, that doesn't happen, now does it? There's virtually zero consequences for not reading any news. If anything, there's only positives. Whenever anything of substance and significance happens, you will get to know about it without reading any news. You're acting like there would be no information flow and information exchange without the "news". While the most actionable and relevant information comes exactly from those - other types of information exchange. Now on the small offchance, if some news source does actually contain some valuable and directly actionable (to you) information with high signal to noise ratio, then surely go ahead and read it, why wouldn't you, it's actionable.
carlosjobim 2y ago
> Are any of the "news" items actionable in any sort of benefitial way to you? Of course they are, if you live in a place with good local news coverage and you have some kind of stake in your local society. For example, news about infrastructure plans have a huge effect on how companies conduct their business, which will have an impact on the daily lives of people working there. This will never get national coverage, because it's not of national interest.
2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
Local news is highly actionable. I learn what's going on in my community.
- yunwal 2y ago
  This really depends on your local news source though. Mine is just listings of various petty crimes that happened this week.
  - vundercind 2y ago
    Local news has all but vanished over the last couple decades, except in large cities. I guarantee there’s a new wave of local corruption dragging down the economy and slowly getting worse, as local officials feel out just how corrupt they can get in this new environment.
rpdillon 2y ago
This stance is quite reminiscent of Aaron Swartz' take. http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews I think there's a lot of truth to it, though I wouldn't want to live in a society where I couldn't get news when I sought it out.
sebstefan 2y ago
I spoke to a guy who had the same opinion recently Absolutely refused to watch any kind of news or to follow politics whatsoever In the same beat he told me in complete seriousness that a small town near him in Michigan had apparently been turned into Ghana-city after getting a million migrants from Ghana. An information that he had heard from an older colleague on the shop floor of his factory That would be the entire yearly immigration flow of the united stated being exclusively from Ghana and going exclusively to a small town in Michigan It's a claim so outrageously easy to dismiss if you're even remotely informed that it makes you wonder what else that guy might believe Just how exactly are you supposed to have a working critical thinking mind when you don't have any data in your brain to lay the foundation for it? The guy has the right to vote, by the way So, yeah, obviously I'd disagree. You can't make smart choices without good data and getting the news contributes to this whether you realize it or not. Plus, democracy is more than voting freely, it relies on having educated and informed citizens to function.
- blargey 2y ago
  There's a logical leap between "read the news" and "become more credulous, or well-informed about underlying statistics like broad immigration rates".
- yunwal 2y ago
  > Just how exactly are you supposed to have a working critical thinking mind when you don't have any data in your brain to lay the foundation for it Should the news be this foundation though? I think you'd be better off reading a few non-fiction books or magazines every year, perhaps informed on your choices by top headlines. Reading the news for detailed analysis on highly partisan topics is likely to make you less informed, not more.
  - BeFlatXIII 2y ago
    A quarterly magazine is all that's needed for (inter)national news. Perhaps monthly for local.
  - sebstefan 2y ago
almatabata 2y ago
> Are any of the "news" items actionable in any sort of benefitial way to you? I have read multiple articles detailing corrupt activities from politicians. Knowing this I made the explicit decision not to vote for them when I had the opportunity to do so. I would consider at least part of it actionable.
godshatter 2y ago
I'm similar, I don't follow the news right as it comes out very closely because it's too much and too obviously working on emotions. I do later read semi-historical information after enough time has passed that a more rational perspective can be discussed, though. I do this to avoid being corralled into one way of thinking through manipulation of the narrative (in purpose or by bias) in the moment, but later I want to see how the chips fell after time has allowed for a more balanced perspective with nuances.

cccybernetic 2y ago

I haven't seen it framed this way, but yeah - well put.

pnut 2y ago

I say this as a person who does not follow news, after a decades long news addiction. In its absence, there is no accountability pressure for any individual or organisational actor. It doesn't matter whether I as an individual know what's going on, nothing I can do anyway, but history is overflowing with societal change being forced to the surface through public scrutiny. All kinds of horrible things happen when nobody has to look over their shoulder to see who's watching, and very obviously, the legal system is designed only to address escalations, not to generate them.

0xbadcafebee 2y ago
This is the modern justification of the news given in the 60s, but it ignores all the harm the news does too. For most of the existence of news media, they have been weapons used to push political or ideological themes by the people who could afford to fund them. It should still be possible for us to have public accountability without a sports and entertainment section. The funding for and publication of investigative journalism is definitely important, but we have not yet found a good model for it yet.

openrisk 2y ago

Not sure what is your definition of "news" but sticking to the common generic usage of the term this comes as an incredibly thick stance. There is a vast universe of information that is collected and reported by the news industry: from global news on wars, pandemics, disasters, to business / market / technology news, to political news, all the way to local news. All them are "actionable" one way or an other, although not in the same way for everyone. Biases and varying signal to noise ratios are real, but your remedy is akin to choping off your head because you have a headache.

_Algernon_ 2y ago
And one of the problems is that it is all intermingled together. For every useful / actionable piece of news there are a 100+ pieces of celebrity gossip, tweet-listicles, marketing PR releases, and irrelevant news pieces. The news is as if a restaurant served you your meal out of a filled trash can, and then acted surprised that you don't pay. It's not really shocking, is it?
Johanx64 2y ago
Seems like another attempt to rationalize infotainment addiction frankly. > your remedy is akin to choping off your head because you have a headache. Does anyone even remember a single instance where you have gone like "oh, shit, If only had I red the news" and then seriously regretting their choice of not reading the news? Yeah, that doesn't happen, now does it? There's virtually zero consequences for not reading any news. If anything, there's only positives. Whenever anything of substance and significance happens, you will get to know about it without reading any news. You're acting like there would be no information flow and information exchange without the "news". While the most actionable and relevant information comes exactly from those - other types of information exchange. Now on the small offchance, if some news source does actually contain some valuable and directly actionable (to you) information with high signal to noise ratio, then surely go ahead and read it, why wouldn't you, it's actionable.

carlosjobim 2y ago

> Are any of the "news" items actionable in any sort of benefitial way to you? Of course they are, if you live in a place with good local news coverage and you have some kind of stake in your local society. For example, news about infrastructure plans have a huge effect on how companies conduct their business, which will have an impact on the daily lives of people working there. This will never get national coverage, because it's not of national interest.

2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago

Local news is highly actionable. I learn what's going on in my community.

yunwal 2y ago
This really depends on your local news source though. Mine is just listings of various petty crimes that happened this week.
- vundercind 2y ago
  Local news has all but vanished over the last couple decades, except in large cities. I guarantee there’s a new wave of local corruption dragging down the economy and slowly getting worse, as local officials feel out just how corrupt they can get in this new environment.

rpdillon 2y ago

This stance is quite reminiscent of Aaron Swartz' take. http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews I think there's a lot of truth to it, though I wouldn't want to live in a society where I couldn't get news when I sought it out.

sebstefan 2y ago

I spoke to a guy who had the same opinion recently Absolutely refused to watch any kind of news or to follow politics whatsoever In the same beat he told me in complete seriousness that a small town near him in Michigan had apparently been turned into Ghana-city after getting a million migrants from Ghana. An information that he had heard from an older colleague on the shop floor of his factory That would be the entire yearly immigration flow of the united stated being exclusively from Ghana and going exclusively to a small town in Michigan It's a claim so outrageously easy to dismiss if you're even remotely informed that it makes you wonder what else that guy might believe Just how exactly are you supposed to have a working critical thinking mind when you don't have any data in your brain to lay the foundation for it? The guy has the right to vote, by the way So, yeah, obviously I'd disagree. You can't make smart choices without good data and getting the news contributes to this whether you realize it or not. Plus, democracy is more than voting freely, it relies on having educated and informed citizens to function.

blargey 2y ago
There's a logical leap between "read the news" and "become more credulous, or well-informed about underlying statistics like broad immigration rates".
yunwal 2y ago
> Just how exactly are you supposed to have a working critical thinking mind when you don't have any data in your brain to lay the foundation for it Should the news be this foundation though? I think you'd be better off reading a few non-fiction books or magazines every year, perhaps informed on your choices by top headlines. Reading the news for detailed analysis on highly partisan topics is likely to make you less informed, not more.
- BeFlatXIII 2y ago
  A quarterly magazine is all that's needed for (inter)national news. Perhaps monthly for local.
- sebstefan 2y ago

almatabata 2y ago

> Are any of the "news" items actionable in any sort of benefitial way to you? I have read multiple articles detailing corrupt activities from politicians. Knowing this I made the explicit decision not to vote for them when I had the opportunity to do so. I would consider at least part of it actionable.

godshatter 2y ago

I'm similar, I don't follow the news right as it comes out very closely because it's too much and too obviously working on emotions. I do later read semi-historical information after enough time has passed that a more rational perspective can be discussed, though. I do this to avoid being corralled into one way of thinking through manipulation of the narrative (in purpose or by bias) in the moment, but later I want to see how the chips fell after time has allowed for a more balanced perspective with nuances.