5 ms·

Yep this. I’m a paid subscriber to the economist’s podcast. A lot of their journalism is excellent. I really enjoyed the recent Tocqueville road trip. And their

by josephg 3mo ago

Yep this. I’m a paid subscriber to the economist’s podcast. A lot of their journalism is excellent. I really enjoyed the recent Tocqueville road trip. And their coverage of AI a few months ago was great - it was really interesting to hear what AI adoption in companies looks like for non technical people. Yesterday I watched a fabulous piece by the Australian 4 Corners on food fraud in our country. They did forensic research into what food on our supermarket shelves actually contains. Shocking, but excellent journalism. Four Corners is a journalism arm of the Australian ABC - our national broadcaster. They’re funded by my tax dollars. I don’t know what people mean when they say “mainstream media”. There’s lots of organisations out there - some of them doing really great work. But journalism is time intensive to do well, so it costs money. News you get for free is often either junk or it’s propaganda.

coatmatter 3mo ago
Whenever I encounter someone who jumps at the first opportunity to criticise "mainstream media", I ask them what their preferred outlets are. I tend to not get a response, which to me is quite telling.
- NikolaNovak 3mo ago
  I think a mixture of BBC, cnn, al jazeera, economist, will get a casual reader to a decent spot, and they're all mainstream media. Possibly guardian but emlarhically not their opinion pages (I agree with them, but even so they're gratingly opinionated, hate to think what a die hard conservative will think of them :)
  - fsckboy 3mo ago
    BBC, CNN, and al jazeera are complete trash. Economist always was good but I have not read it in a while so I can't speak to it. If it has not changed, that would be great.
    - michaelmrose 3mo ago
      Let's pick one. Why is the BBC trash?
      - inigyou 3mo ago
        It only covers Israel/Palestine from the pro-Israel side?
        Arkhaine_kupo 3mo ago
        That is a weird accusation considering the fact that the BBC is still hiding an internal report they made about their Israel / Palestine reporting after they were accused of antisemitism in the early 2000s. If the report exonerated them, and showed they even have a Israeli bias, why would they spend 50k in lawyer fees (disclosed so far, real number is probably higher) to hide that report? There is obvious distrust on western sources of the conflict and the UK active participation in the creation of the 2 state solution, as well as its alliance with America all taint the possible impartiality or accuracy of the BBC. But the accusations against them for antisemitism and anti israeli bias go back decades
        Poacher5 3mo ago
        The BBC's "impartiality" is frequently it's biggest downfall - It's a very standard UK joke that if the BBC was discussing if the earth was flat you'd get a 5 minute interview with a top geographer or physicist from Cambridge followed by an equally credulous 5 minute interview with a madman in his basement claiming it's all the work of the lizard people. The covererage of the Genocide in Palestine (and I'm betraying my view just by calling it that) just brings this into incredibly sharp relief as there are, to a first approximation, no real centrists in that discussion. And yet you still get the same 5 minutes of interview for a doctor on the ground in Palestine and for Ben Gvir, presented as if there's some kind of happy middle ground that everyone can broadly agree on.
      - Arkhaine_kupo 3mo ago
        The CEO was placed by the conservative party in 2017 ending decades of impartiality. He is a hack with a background in tabloid news, which has slowly swept into BBC entire ecosystem. Their entire political reporting side is headlined by Laura Kuenssberg who is on her best day mediocre and on her worst actively participatory on the decline of democratic principles in the UK. Her "mistakes" such as giving her questions to Boris Johnson ahead of time, would be fireable offenses in any other high stakes job. But despite repeated mistakes all somehow helping the more radical, anti democratic, side of the conservative spectrum her position has never been in danger. She also hosts far right parties 500% more time than their current seats in parliment and is directly responsible for the cleaning of image of repudiable characters such as Nigel Farage. So if becoming a slightly less abrasive Daily Mail while being paid with public money is not worthy of being called Trash, then idk what is. Its becoming the New York Post but without slurs
  - idiotsecant 3mo ago
    CNN is increasingly sensationalist junk. I've started just reading AP for what I might read CNN for
    - conductr 3mo ago
      I used to defend CNN as decent, but it’s almost entirely sensational OpEd talk show type stuff these days. The stuff I criticized FoxNews about. Although, CNN does lean liberal, they sometimes still invite a person from the conservative camp into the discussion. I never see that on FoxNews. They double down and have right and far right takes in their discussions as far as I can tell. It’s effective for brainwashing a populace. I personally don’t think the 24 hour news cycle is healthy. I pretty much abstain from it except it’s so prevalent in our culture there’s a lot of second hand exposure.
- fsckboy 3mo ago
  if mainstream media has gone downhill, why would somebody have a preferred outlet? What's your preferred outlet?
  - hhh 3mo ago
    your preferred outlet would be something not mainstream then, it doesn't mean it has to be some mega conglomerate.
  - Citizen_Lame 3mo ago
    I personally do astral travelling during the night and get my news and knowledge from various entities. Can't say what others are doing but so far this has never let me down.
- tehjoker 3mo ago
  Dropsite news is good, but are you familiar with manufacturing consent’s propaganda model of the mass media? A simplified explanation: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=34LGPIXvU5M&ra=m https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=34LGPIXvU5M&ra=m
- econ 3mo ago
  Depends on the topic. For some it is possible to find sources without a horse in the race. (Different countries) Sometimes you just have to accept that you still know nothing despite 100 articles describing a topic. I think we have over a million games that visualize war more clearly than any news agency.
- samspot 3mo ago
  There's a cool site I like: news.ycombinator.com

by josephg 3mo ago

coatmatter 3mo ago

Whenever I encounter someone who jumps at the first opportunity to criticise "mainstream media", I ask them what their preferred outlets are. I tend to not get a response, which to me is quite telling.

NikolaNovak 3mo ago
I think a mixture of BBC, cnn, al jazeera, economist, will get a casual reader to a decent spot, and they're all mainstream media. Possibly guardian but emlarhically not their opinion pages (I agree with them, but even so they're gratingly opinionated, hate to think what a die hard conservative will think of them :)
- fsckboy 3mo ago
  BBC, CNN, and al jazeera are complete trash. Economist always was good but I have not read it in a while so I can't speak to it. If it has not changed, that would be great.
  - michaelmrose 3mo ago
    Let's pick one. Why is the BBC trash?
    - inigyou 3mo ago
      It only covers Israel/Palestine from the pro-Israel side?
      - Arkhaine_kupo 3mo ago
        That is a weird accusation considering the fact that the BBC is still hiding an internal report they made about their Israel / Palestine reporting after they were accused of antisemitism in the early 2000s. If the report exonerated them, and showed they even have a Israeli bias, why would they spend 50k in lawyer fees (disclosed so far, real number is probably higher) to hide that report? There is obvious distrust on western sources of the conflict and the UK active participation in the creation of the 2 state solution, as well as its alliance with America all taint the possible impartiality or accuracy of the BBC. But the accusations against them for antisemitism and anti israeli bias go back decades
        Poacher5 3mo ago
        The BBC's "impartiality" is frequently it's biggest downfall - It's a very standard UK joke that if the BBC was discussing if the earth was flat you'd get a 5 minute interview with a top geographer or physicist from Cambridge followed by an equally credulous 5 minute interview with a madman in his basement claiming it's all the work of the lizard people. The covererage of the Genocide in Palestine (and I'm betraying my view just by calling it that) just brings this into incredibly sharp relief as there are, to a first approximation, no real centrists in that discussion. And yet you still get the same 5 minutes of interview for a doctor on the ground in Palestine and for Ben Gvir, presented as if there's some kind of happy middle ground that everyone can broadly agree on.
    - Arkhaine_kupo 3mo ago
      The CEO was placed by the conservative party in 2017 ending decades of impartiality. He is a hack with a background in tabloid news, which has slowly swept into BBC entire ecosystem. Their entire political reporting side is headlined by Laura Kuenssberg who is on her best day mediocre and on her worst actively participatory on the decline of democratic principles in the UK. Her "mistakes" such as giving her questions to Boris Johnson ahead of time, would be fireable offenses in any other high stakes job. But despite repeated mistakes all somehow helping the more radical, anti democratic, side of the conservative spectrum her position has never been in danger. She also hosts far right parties 500% more time than their current seats in parliment and is directly responsible for the cleaning of image of repudiable characters such as Nigel Farage. So if becoming a slightly less abrasive Daily Mail while being paid with public money is not worthy of being called Trash, then idk what is. Its becoming the New York Post but without slurs
- idiotsecant 3mo ago
  CNN is increasingly sensationalist junk. I've started just reading AP for what I might read CNN for
  - conductr 3mo ago
    I used to defend CNN as decent, but it’s almost entirely sensational OpEd talk show type stuff these days. The stuff I criticized FoxNews about. Although, CNN does lean liberal, they sometimes still invite a person from the conservative camp into the discussion. I never see that on FoxNews. They double down and have right and far right takes in their discussions as far as I can tell. It’s effective for brainwashing a populace. I personally don’t think the 24 hour news cycle is healthy. I pretty much abstain from it except it’s so prevalent in our culture there’s a lot of second hand exposure.
fsckboy 3mo ago
if mainstream media has gone downhill, why would somebody have a preferred outlet? What's your preferred outlet?
- hhh 3mo ago
  your preferred outlet would be something not mainstream then, it doesn't mean it has to be some mega conglomerate.
- Citizen_Lame 3mo ago
  I personally do astral travelling during the night and get my news and knowledge from various entities. Can't say what others are doing but so far this has never let me down.
tehjoker 3mo ago
Dropsite news is good, but are you familiar with manufacturing consent’s propaganda model of the mass media? A simplified explanation: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=34LGPIXvU5M&ra=m https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=34LGPIXvU5M&ra=m
econ 3mo ago
Depends on the topic. For some it is possible to find sources without a horse in the race. (Different countries) Sometimes you just have to accept that you still know nothing despite 100 articles describing a topic. I think we have over a million games that visualize war more clearly than any news agency.
samspot 3mo ago
There's a cool site I like: news.ycombinator.com