5 ms·

I disagree. The quality of news media is massively better today. I have access to much more and higher quality information than I would have in the 80s. E.g. I

I disagree. The quality of news media is massively better today. I have access to much more and higher quality information than I would have in the 80s. E.g. I was able to watch live combat footage of the war in Ukraine right as it happened. I have access to peer reviewed research just with the click of a button. I can discuss the news with other people right here on HN. A highly regulated media oligopoly with massive barriers to entry is a terrible system compared to what we have today.

femiagbabiaka 2y ago
> E.g. I was able to watch live combat footage of the war in Ukraine right as it happened. I agree that this was interesting to do, but Telegram and Reddit are not high quality media. Some people with high levels of media literacy can distill the information gained through such channels to understand the world, but a lot of people cannot. Most people still use legacy media (even if it is through digital channels) as primary sources. And those legacy media sources are worse than ever. On top of that the digital channels are massively astroturfed, especially those whose consumer base are in the west. For example, the state of the war as described by Western-targetted media vs. Ukrainian-targetted sources differs greatly. Same applies for the Hamas-Israel conflict. We need high quality and impartial (for some definition of impartial) sources to complement the raw feed for people with lower media literacy. Substack is great but not enough when Fox News and MSNBC exist.
- roenxi 2y ago
  > Telegram and Reddit are not high quality media... Says who? Back in the day people made a big deal about how Wikipedia was a low quality source of information until it turned out to be by far the best public repository of information humanity has ever seen and one of the best institutions ever built for neutral and informative coverage of various issues. Reddit is a fantastic resource too. It sometimes gets long-form discussion involving domain experts and is much better at representing multiple viewpoints than any pre-internet media channel (which, given the bias of the major subreddits, is pretty amazing).
  - femiagbabiaka 2y ago
    Reddit is a platform that is openly and intentionally opening itself up to astroturfing. https://thefederalist.com/2024/10/29/busted-the-inside-story-of-how-the-kamala-harris-campaign-manipulates-reddit-and-breaks-the-rules-to-control-the-platform/ https://thefederalist.com/2024/10/29/busted-the-inside-story... Matter of fact the owners of the platform take part in astroturfing as a part of day to day business — see the moderation takeover.
    - roenxi 2y ago
      They're a media company; that is what they do. The difference is that Reddit is a lot more transparent about what is going on. The real question is what media channels do you believe are not publishing opinions in exchange for money or favours? Because most of them would be. There is no way the coverage of US politics is organic in the major corporations; it is too uniformly unhinged. Reddit having flaws doesn't make it low quality. The baseline for media companies is well below sea level.
      - femiagbabiaka 2y ago
        1. Reddit is NOT open about media manipulation. At all. And, no offense, but the idea that even most people can get quality news from that website is ridiculous. For example, the narratives around the reality of the situation on the Ukrainian frontlines are completely and totally wrong on that site. I had to go to Ukrainian media and military sources through Substack and elsewhere to get a non-propagandized sense of things. If you got your news from Reddit, you’d be completely and totally wrong. And I see this in the real world all the time: woefully misinformed people literally repeating word for word arguments they read on Reddit instead of distilling information from a myriad of reliable sources into independent and realistic viewpoints. 2. Again, the situation that we’re in is not natural, it is a reality that was created by political and ideological extremists. You’re talking about insane levels of media corruption as if it is a natural and unavoidable phenomenon, but it’s not. We can change it.
        2y ago

femiagbabiaka 2y ago

> E.g. I was able to watch live combat footage of the war in Ukraine right as it happened. I agree that this was interesting to do, but Telegram and Reddit are not high quality media. Some people with high levels of media literacy can distill the information gained through such channels to understand the world, but a lot of people cannot. Most people still use legacy media (even if it is through digital channels) as primary sources. And those legacy media sources are worse than ever. On top of that the digital channels are massively astroturfed, especially those whose consumer base are in the west. For example, the state of the war as described by Western-targetted media vs. Ukrainian-targetted sources differs greatly. Same applies for the Hamas-Israel conflict. We need high quality and impartial (for some definition of impartial) sources to complement the raw feed for people with lower media literacy. Substack is great but not enough when Fox News and MSNBC exist.

roenxi 2y ago
> Telegram and Reddit are not high quality media... Says who? Back in the day people made a big deal about how Wikipedia was a low quality source of information until it turned out to be by far the best public repository of information humanity has ever seen and one of the best institutions ever built for neutral and informative coverage of various issues. Reddit is a fantastic resource too. It sometimes gets long-form discussion involving domain experts and is much better at representing multiple viewpoints than any pre-internet media channel (which, given the bias of the major subreddits, is pretty amazing).
- femiagbabiaka 2y ago
  Reddit is a platform that is openly and intentionally opening itself up to astroturfing. https://thefederalist.com/2024/10/29/busted-the-inside-story-of-how-the-kamala-harris-campaign-manipulates-reddit-and-breaks-the-rules-to-control-the-platform/ https://thefederalist.com/2024/10/29/busted-the-inside-story... Matter of fact the owners of the platform take part in astroturfing as a part of day to day business — see the moderation takeover.
  - roenxi 2y ago
    They're a media company; that is what they do. The difference is that Reddit is a lot more transparent about what is going on. The real question is what media channels do you believe are not publishing opinions in exchange for money or favours? Because most of them would be. There is no way the coverage of US politics is organic in the major corporations; it is too uniformly unhinged. Reddit having flaws doesn't make it low quality. The baseline for media companies is well below sea level.
    - femiagbabiaka 2y ago
      1. Reddit is NOT open about media manipulation. At all. And, no offense, but the idea that even most people can get quality news from that website is ridiculous. For example, the narratives around the reality of the situation on the Ukrainian frontlines are completely and totally wrong on that site. I had to go to Ukrainian media and military sources through Substack and elsewhere to get a non-propagandized sense of things. If you got your news from Reddit, you’d be completely and totally wrong. And I see this in the real world all the time: woefully misinformed people literally repeating word for word arguments they read on Reddit instead of distilling information from a myriad of reliable sources into independent and realistic viewpoints. 2. Again, the situation that we’re in is not natural, it is a reality that was created by political and ideological extremists. You’re talking about insane levels of media corruption as if it is a natural and unavoidable phenomenon, but it’s not. We can change it.
      - 2y ago