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I completely disagree with Aaron, but I respect his opinion. Reading the news is incredibly important, and it shapes your understanding of culture and circumsta

by pscsbs 14y ago

I completely disagree with Aaron, but I respect his opinion. Reading the news is incredibly important, and it shapes your understanding of culture and circumstances outside your social bubble, which in turn affects your future social interactions.

seanalltogether 14y ago
I agree with you. It feels this defense is akin to saying, "Why bother reading history, it has nothing to do with me"
- diego 14y ago
  Did you read the whole article? "With the time people waste reading a newspaper every day, they could have read an entire book about most subjects covered and thereby learned about it with far more detail and far more impact than the daily doses they get dribbled out by the paper. But people, of course, wouldn’t read a book about most subjects covered in the paper, because most of them are simply irrelevant."
  - enraged_camel 14y ago
    Events typically don't become book material until several years after they occur. You might say that by the time you read about an event in a book, it is already history. News coverage is more immediate. And while 95% of all news is useless bullshit, there is still stuff in there that is useful and relevant for shaping one's understanding of the current times.
rshlo 14y ago
You're right. Reading the New York Times isn't about news to me, as it a tool to generate ideas. Their magazine articles or in-depth coverage of topics made me re-evaluate many times my standings on various topics.
ewolf 14y ago
I think this highly depends on the what you consider "news". Aaron mentioned things you find on the front page — those usually are short pieces of the latest information without much context or in-depth analysis. I don't think he wanted to condemn background articles, no matter if they are published in a newspaper or elsewhere (he mentions "longer-form essays or thoughtful books"). With this in mind, I agree with him — I benefit more from comprehensive articles describing long-term developments than from the latest events in some affair that affects me way too little for these details to matter to me. This is not to say that the happenings in faraway countries are something I ought not to know about, however, a short summary after the events have passed would usually suffice.
kaliblack 14y ago
Does the news actually do that though? Does regularly and generally consuming the news do more than provide new topics for water cooler chat? I can understand the argument for being informed through selective reading/viewing (which the article makes), but not so much for being generally informed.
- andrewfelix 14y ago
  I think it does do more. It ads another degree of accountability to people with power. It might not be much, but it's something. One small anecdote; a development in a local suburb is hitting a brick wall because the media has revealed a relationship between the developer and the council. That development was going up on public land without proper oversight or tender. Couple of bigger anecdotes; - Watergate. A president's criminal behaviour was dug up by a newspaper, forcing him to resign. - Vietnam war coverage forced the US to reconsider their attitudes to weapons with high collateral damage, conscription and large scale land wars in general.
mehulkar 14y ago
Maybe opinion pieces do. The news, I'm not so sure.
obstacle1 14y ago
>and it shapes your understanding of culture and circumstances outside your social bubble This isn't really an argument against Aaron's position, because it is Aaron's position. News shapes your perception of culture and The World, which is a negative because it does so in a harmful way.
VigUi7vv8G2 14y ago
Well, I think it depends on whether you count only "news" or if you count stuff like blogs or "social media". I'm very up to date (I think) on politics, but I don't feel like I need to read the NYT every day. In the Essay Aaron isn't talking about just the concept of being informed about the world, but rather the up to the minute 24/7 generalist news stuff. It seems like most major events have books written about them later. There were good books written about the Iraq war, for example. I also think you could learn a lot more about culture by reading non-fiction books then by watching the news. I don't think I learn anything about culture from the news, other then which celebrities people are paying attention too these days.
dorian-graph 14y ago
I feel like your point was already covered in his essay though I could be missing something. > Others say that sure, most of the stuff in the news isn’t of use, but occasionally you’ll come across some story that will lead you to actually change what you’ve been working on. But really, how plausible is this? Most people’s major life changes don’t come from reading an article in the newspaper; they come from reading longer-form essays or thoughtful books, which are much more convincing and detailed. Most people I know who I would class as common, though I do not mean this in a demeaning or derogatory way, watch the unfiltered mass news daily or at least weekly—like Aaron described. They'll get home from work and turn on the 5PM news or have the radio going. Yet these people are common in that they work a 9-5 job they often complain about, they seek to buy a bigger TV and have a family holiday once a year or two. They know a hell of a lot more than others about current events but effect little change, it seems, in their own lives or those around them. If the majority of people watch the news regularly, why isn't there more change? If the TV was off, perhaps people would be outside a little bit more? Maybe us Westerners would know more about our local area than we do about popular topic x in foreign country y. Others who have agreed with you also seemed to have had their own comments already answered by Aaron and here have had others quote those parts back to them.

by pscsbs 14y ago

seanalltogether 14y ago

I agree with you. It feels this defense is akin to saying, "Why bother reading history, it has nothing to do with me"

diego 14y ago
Did you read the whole article? "With the time people waste reading a newspaper every day, they could have read an entire book about most subjects covered and thereby learned about it with far more detail and far more impact than the daily doses they get dribbled out by the paper. But people, of course, wouldn’t read a book about most subjects covered in the paper, because most of them are simply irrelevant."
- enraged_camel 14y ago
  Events typically don't become book material until several years after they occur. You might say that by the time you read about an event in a book, it is already history. News coverage is more immediate. And while 95% of all news is useless bullshit, there is still stuff in there that is useful and relevant for shaping one's understanding of the current times.

rshlo 14y ago

You're right. Reading the New York Times isn't about news to me, as it a tool to generate ideas. Their magazine articles or in-depth coverage of topics made me re-evaluate many times my standings on various topics.

ewolf 14y ago

I think this highly depends on the what you consider "news". Aaron mentioned things you find on the front page — those usually are short pieces of the latest information without much context or in-depth analysis. I don't think he wanted to condemn background articles, no matter if they are published in a newspaper or elsewhere (he mentions "longer-form essays or thoughtful books"). With this in mind, I agree with him — I benefit more from comprehensive articles describing long-term developments than from the latest events in some affair that affects me way too little for these details to matter to me. This is not to say that the happenings in faraway countries are something I ought not to know about, however, a short summary after the events have passed would usually suffice.

kaliblack 14y ago

Does the news actually do that though? Does regularly and generally consuming the news do more than provide new topics for water cooler chat? I can understand the argument for being informed through selective reading/viewing (which the article makes), but not so much for being generally informed.

andrewfelix 14y ago
I think it does do more. It ads another degree of accountability to people with power. It might not be much, but it's something. One small anecdote; a development in a local suburb is hitting a brick wall because the media has revealed a relationship between the developer and the council. That development was going up on public land without proper oversight or tender. Couple of bigger anecdotes; - Watergate. A president's criminal behaviour was dug up by a newspaper, forcing him to resign. - Vietnam war coverage forced the US to reconsider their attitudes to weapons with high collateral damage, conscription and large scale land wars in general.

mehulkar 14y ago

Maybe opinion pieces do. The news, I'm not so sure.

obstacle1 14y ago

>and it shapes your understanding of culture and circumstances outside your social bubble This isn't really an argument against Aaron's position, because it is Aaron's position. News shapes your perception of culture and The World, which is a negative because it does so in a harmful way.

VigUi7vv8G2 14y ago

Well, I think it depends on whether you count only "news" or if you count stuff like blogs or "social media". I'm very up to date (I think) on politics, but I don't feel like I need to read the NYT every day. In the Essay Aaron isn't talking about just the concept of being informed about the world, but rather the up to the minute 24/7 generalist news stuff. It seems like most major events have books written about them later. There were good books written about the Iraq war, for example. I also think you could learn a lot more about culture by reading non-fiction books then by watching the news. I don't think I learn anything about culture from the news, other then which celebrities people are paying attention too these days.

dorian-graph 14y ago

I feel like your point was already covered in his essay though I could be missing something. > Others say that sure, most of the stuff in the news isn’t of use, but occasionally you’ll come across some story that will lead you to actually change what you’ve been working on. But really, how plausible is this? Most people’s major life changes don’t come from reading an article in the newspaper; they come from reading longer-form essays or thoughtful books, which are much more convincing and detailed. Most people I know who I would class as common, though I do not mean this in a demeaning or derogatory way, watch the unfiltered mass news daily or at least weekly—like Aaron described. They'll get home from work and turn on the 5PM news or have the radio going. Yet these people are common in that they work a 9-5 job they often complain about, they seek to buy a bigger TV and have a family holiday once a year or two. They know a hell of a lot more than others about current events but effect little change, it seems, in their own lives or those around them. If the majority of people watch the news regularly, why isn't there more change? If the TV was off, perhaps people would be outside a little bit more? Maybe us Westerners would know more about our local area than we do about popular topic x in foreign country y. Others who have agreed with you also seemed to have had their own comments already answered by Aaron and here have had others quote those parts back to them.