4 ms·

Ignoring news outlets leaves you without a chance though. Yeah, there's lots of news coming out of many mainstream outlets but if you tune then out completely t

Ignoring news outlets leaves you without a chance though. Yeah, there's lots of news coming out of many mainstream outlets but if you tune then out completely then you leave yourself without even the chance to filter signal from noise. It doesn't take that much effort that it becomes not even worth trying anymore. Just because there's lots of noise in your signal doesn't mean you throw away the signal with the noise (or the baby out with the bath water).

quesera 14y ago
That argument can go both ways. Some people, on a steady diet of noise, are even less able to discern sense from nonsense. Anchoring and all that. When the national news was 30 minutes every night, maybe there was time between that and the next 'cast to assimilate and critically consider what you heard. Nowadays, if you're thinking about the news, you're less than a click away from the next iteration of someone else's marginally considered opinion, presented with gravitas and authority. Heck, why think? Turn it off. Check in every week or two -- they'll still be talking about all of the same things, there's nothing to miss.
- bpatrianakos 14y ago
  I feel like everyone is taking what I said to be an extreme opinion. I'm not arguing for daily monitoring of the the news. I'm not advancing the exact opposite of what Joel suggests. I'm suggesting something very moderate. So yeah, checking in every week or two works. That's fine. Religiously following news is just as bad as not following any news. So we can agree on that part - the checking in part. I'm not sure how often is necessary but picking up a newspaper or watching a news cast here or there is enough. When you say "Heck, why think?" you seem to say it with disdain as if it were a bad thing. It certainly can be and these days it's doing more harm than good but part of what was great about the news is that it took the burden of thinking away from people. So then when you hear news, instead of trying to make sense of it yourself all you have to do is ask two questions: 1. "Do I trust the way this reporter has put together this story and why?" 2. "Do I agree with the viewpoint presented" (applies for opinions mostly) News was biased from the start and news anchors did the a lot of the legwork of thinking for the viewer and it was okay because they could be trusted. It was only once "the powers that be" caught on to the fact that Americans trusted what they heard and once they mostly stopped evaluating it that they took advantage. There was a time when Edward R. Murrow presented the facts to the American Public and very plainly presented his own opinions to the viewers and it was valuable and trustworthy. He used his position to help take down McCarthy when the House Unamerican Activities investigations were going on. In that situation it was well worth staying informed. People felt it was their civic duty to do so. It was also a situation where me opinion had merit and the other was clearly wrong. The news used to have nuance and it wasn't childish like today's choice of either "everything has to seem equal" or "all our biased opinions are right" type news networks/shows. But I digress and romanticize the news. You're right. You're basically saying news in moderation is good. I couldn't agree more. Being a news junkie and ignoring the news is detrimental while moderate news intake is helpful. That's all I'm saying.
  - adrianbravo 14y ago
    > It certainly can be and these days it's doing more harm than good but part of what was great about the news is that it took the burden of thinking away from people. This is absurd.
    - bpatrianakos 14y ago
      No, it's the truth. Absurd is taking a single sentence of what I wrote and pretending like that was my entire point. Put that in context and you'll understand how it isn't absurd (didn't Joel recently write about that too). The news is about reporting facts but facts are meaningless without context. Journalists take facts and put them into the proper context so that we don't have to. This isn't a new idea. It's been around for as long as there's been news and while some hacks do it badly and purposely distort the facts it doesn't mean doing it in and of itself is a bad thing. I stand by what I said. Unless you've got a whole lot of time on your hands it's awful hard to put facts into context the way journalists do. I'm glad they take the work out of it for me because I have a job and I need to eat and I don't have time to play reporter and get my own facts so that I can some pure ideal version of the news. But I still need the news because I need to make informed decisions about things that affect me like where political candidates stand, how the new health care law affects me and if they recalled my car or some toy because the engine spontaneously explodes or the toy has some chemical that's going to kill my kid. I want to hear these things from people whose jobs it is to find out these things and not from Joe Schmoe who works at the local Walmart who read it from a guy who works for the guy that some news is about.
      - ghshephard 14y ago
        Re: recent health care legislation. I can help you there. If you gross > $350k/year it is not good for you personally, if you gross <$ 100k a year it is a great law for you personally. Spend 15 minutes talking to a Canadian, an American without insurance and medical bills, and anybody rich enough to have been able to afford health care at the mayo clinic, and you would discover this. The meta point I'm trying to make here, is that we would be better served by discovering these things on our own, than into buying the propaganda around "death panels" or believing Obama when he says we won't make you wait in line for health care - both positions advocated by the various mainstream media channels.

quesera 14y ago

That argument can go both ways. Some people, on a steady diet of noise, are even less able to discern sense from nonsense. Anchoring and all that. When the national news was 30 minutes every night, maybe there was time between that and the next 'cast to assimilate and critically consider what you heard. Nowadays, if you're thinking about the news, you're less than a click away from the next iteration of someone else's marginally considered opinion, presented with gravitas and authority. Heck, why think? Turn it off. Check in every week or two -- they'll still be talking about all of the same things, there's nothing to miss.

bpatrianakos 14y ago
I feel like everyone is taking what I said to be an extreme opinion. I'm not arguing for daily monitoring of the the news. I'm not advancing the exact opposite of what Joel suggests. I'm suggesting something very moderate. So yeah, checking in every week or two works. That's fine. Religiously following news is just as bad as not following any news. So we can agree on that part - the checking in part. I'm not sure how often is necessary but picking up a newspaper or watching a news cast here or there is enough. When you say "Heck, why think?" you seem to say it with disdain as if it were a bad thing. It certainly can be and these days it's doing more harm than good but part of what was great about the news is that it took the burden of thinking away from people. So then when you hear news, instead of trying to make sense of it yourself all you have to do is ask two questions: 1. "Do I trust the way this reporter has put together this story and why?" 2. "Do I agree with the viewpoint presented" (applies for opinions mostly) News was biased from the start and news anchors did the a lot of the legwork of thinking for the viewer and it was okay because they could be trusted. It was only once "the powers that be" caught on to the fact that Americans trusted what they heard and once they mostly stopped evaluating it that they took advantage. There was a time when Edward R. Murrow presented the facts to the American Public and very plainly presented his own opinions to the viewers and it was valuable and trustworthy. He used his position to help take down McCarthy when the House Unamerican Activities investigations were going on. In that situation it was well worth staying informed. People felt it was their civic duty to do so. It was also a situation where me opinion had merit and the other was clearly wrong. The news used to have nuance and it wasn't childish like today's choice of either "everything has to seem equal" or "all our biased opinions are right" type news networks/shows. But I digress and romanticize the news. You're right. You're basically saying news in moderation is good. I couldn't agree more. Being a news junkie and ignoring the news is detrimental while moderate news intake is helpful. That's all I'm saying.
- adrianbravo 14y ago
  > It certainly can be and these days it's doing more harm than good but part of what was great about the news is that it took the burden of thinking away from people. This is absurd.
  - bpatrianakos 14y ago
    No, it's the truth. Absurd is taking a single sentence of what I wrote and pretending like that was my entire point. Put that in context and you'll understand how it isn't absurd (didn't Joel recently write about that too). The news is about reporting facts but facts are meaningless without context. Journalists take facts and put them into the proper context so that we don't have to. This isn't a new idea. It's been around for as long as there's been news and while some hacks do it badly and purposely distort the facts it doesn't mean doing it in and of itself is a bad thing. I stand by what I said. Unless you've got a whole lot of time on your hands it's awful hard to put facts into context the way journalists do. I'm glad they take the work out of it for me because I have a job and I need to eat and I don't have time to play reporter and get my own facts so that I can some pure ideal version of the news. But I still need the news because I need to make informed decisions about things that affect me like where political candidates stand, how the new health care law affects me and if they recalled my car or some toy because the engine spontaneously explodes or the toy has some chemical that's going to kill my kid. I want to hear these things from people whose jobs it is to find out these things and not from Joe Schmoe who works at the local Walmart who read it from a guy who works for the guy that some news is about.
    - ghshephard 14y ago
      Re: recent health care legislation. I can help you there. If you gross > $350k/year it is not good for you personally, if you gross <$ 100k a year it is a great law for you personally. Spend 15 minutes talking to a Canadian, an American without insurance and medical bills, and anybody rich enough to have been able to afford health care at the mayo clinic, and you would discover this. The meta point I'm trying to make here, is that we would be better served by discovering these things on our own, than into buying the propaganda around "death panels" or believing Obama when he says we won't make you wait in line for health care - both positions advocated by the various mainstream media channels.