14 ms·

TLDR: Author states we get sensational news stories, but soon forget them without seeing the big picture. The author proposes we need a new enlightenment of jo

by welder 13y ago

TLDR: Author states we get sensational news stories, but soon forget them without seeing the big picture. The author proposes we need a new enlightenment of journalism which can report on all sensational stories and how they relate to a currently unknown bigger picture. QUOTE: One newspaper editor writing about the loss of the independence of the farmers a hundred years ago summed up the new system: "The farmers farm the land, and the businessmen farm the farmers." Maybe today we are being farmed by the new system of power. But we can't see quite how it is happening - and we need a new journalism to explain what is really going on. REASONS FOR CURRENT SITUATION (according to Author): * private equity (company flippers) * giant news orgs focus on nasty sensational stories * increased inequality (top 1% own all wealth) * politicians helpless to make real reform * culture of spying on everyone (PIs, NSA, paranoid husbands, investigative journalists) * confused population wanting transparency & privacy at same time

ryanjshaw 13y ago
It's a pity the author can't start a part of this revolution by writing more clearly. I spent about 5 minutes reading before becoming completely lost and confused - was there a central thesis and was he ever going to get to a point substantiating it, or was I just reading somebody's fantasy about an old era glamour girl using journalism as a weak front story? I wasn't convinced he'd have the clarity of thought to put a coherent big picture together and gave up reading, coming here instead to see if somebody had managed to decipher it all. (That being said I think he has a point and it's something I've wondered about myself.)
- trendoid 13y ago
  >It's a pity the author can't start a part of this revolution by writing more clearly. By clearly you mean writing short articles that you can finish in five minutes? Adam Curtis always builds his stories with historical events to conclude with a point which is relevant today. You need to be patient to appreciate some of his stuff.
  - swalsh 13y ago
    Roughly 70% of the things I read on the internet are worthless reads, but I don't realize it until maybe about a third of the way through. I put up with it because the other 30% is typically pretty good at capturing my attention. Except, when the majority of things I read are crap (and honestly, a post littered with videos typically is) I tend to come at articles with a "prove I should finish reading you" kind of attitude. The beginning of this post wasn't very successful at capturing my attention. It would seem he has a very similar style as Venkat (though I think Venkat is a better writer) from RibbonFarm. I guess the difference is I have a general expectation that I realize he's building up to something bigger... and that conclusion might even be 3 or 4 posts from this long post. However he's earned my patience.
    - agilebyte 13y ago
      prove I should finish reading you Maybe you can persist with reading through an article when you see it being very popular on Hacker News?
      - swalsh 13y ago
        When I saw people "raving" about it, I did end up going back and reading the rest...
  - w_t_payne 13y ago
    I rather liked the way that he built up his "hook" to lead the reader on, deeper into the piece. I thought it was quite clever, and I enjoyed reading it.
    - JackFr 13y ago
      OTOH I enjoy reading Malcolm Gladwell, and he's been shown to be kind of wrong about most stuff.
    - dspeyer 13y ago
      Until he started talking about the history of the Yeardye family. One long digression about some specific people I have no previous reason to care about is tolerable. When he went back to them I decided to drop the article and just read comments, because the gossip/substance ratio was clearly too high.
- r0h1n 13y ago
  With no disrespect to you, this is sadly the state of us hyper-readers today. We expect straight and to-the-point prose, piddly word counts and a literal/predictable assortment of ideas. And when the occasional author decides to venture outside this straitjacket, we wonder what's wrong with him/her. Let's not forget that writing is still (I don't know how long it will remain) a creative art. And though the vast majority of it has been reduced to algorithmic, LCM commodities, surely we can allow a few artists to tell their stories the way they want to?
  - d23 13y ago
    While this may be a part of the explanation, I don't think it's solely responsible. It's the responsibility of the writer to set up the reader with an understanding of the point of what they are reading (i.e. "tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them, tell them what you told them"). If you're going to make a long digression, it's respectful (and less counter-intuitive) to at least give the reader an inkling as to why you might be doing such a thing. Between the random cat video, the shoe photo that looks like it was nabbed from google images, and the sudden jump back to the story of Mellon's father, I genuinely started questioning the quality of what I was reading and whether I should be wasting my time.
    - marrs 13y ago
      I thought I'd somehow managed to switch tabs and had to scroll back to the top to confirm that I hadn't.
    - EliRivers 13y ago
      (i.e. "tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them, tell them what you told them") That's what many subscribe to. There are schools of thought that disagree. Some readers enjoy not knowing where the text is going; done well, it makes the payoff significantly more pleasurable. What you said certainly does seem to be the fashion at the moment; the number of books whose first chapter is simply a dull forewarning of what each of the following chapters is going to be about certainly seems to have increased in recent years. I find it horrifically dull and generally skip that entirely. I see the same thing in presentations; it's just as dull (to me).
- hipsters_unite 13y ago
  I think probably you need the context: Adam Curtis usually makes multi-part documentaries that span several hours, so his blogs have a pretty serious load on the old attention-span. That said, I've never yet been disappointed by the way he puts them together. He's very much a storyteller, but at the same time as he admits to weaving in his own opinions, he does at least do his dues as regards research. Some of the archive material he unearths is unbelievable, I swear he must just live on a camp bed in the BBC archive.
- gcb1 13y ago
  my only gripe with the article is the meaningless title (if you are going for the cool title, at least add a descriptive subtitle) and the videos are now too standards compliant.
  - dredmorbius 13y ago
    If you look through his other blog articles, it's something of a theme with him. That said: I've encountered a number of otherwise good journos who can't write a headline to save their life. And many more who can't write a decent lede.
- cmiles74 13y ago
  This is probably the central issue: I wasn't convinved he'd have the clarity of thought to put a coherent big picture together and gave up reading... I found the style very entertaining, I thought the video clips were relevant and interesting as well. I think the big difference is that I decided to trust the author and take for granted that it would all make sense by the end. I also had as much time as I wanted to read the piece, if I was more pressed for time I may have had to abandon it as well. I think it's unfair to accuse people who distrust the author as having some sort of attention problem. Perhaps they have another heuristic for deciding if a longer article is worth it and this one simply didn't meet those requirements.
- dredmorbius 13y ago
  One of the things I appreciated about the piece was that the intro is a bit scattered. You kind of wonder where Alan's going with it, then it comes together. The build as the piece develops is pretty intense.
- rhizome 13y ago
  Perhaps it's a parody? Compare to something like this: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2009/06/the-best-spinach-salad-ever/ http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2009/06/the-best-spinach-... We've all seen and suffered through these, and the Upworthy/Buzzfeed crapstylebook dictates that the thesis be held out as long as possible.
JackFr 13y ago
"* politicians helpless to make real reform" s/helpless/not interested/
patrickk 13y ago
I like this explanation, which comes from a reddit comment[1]: "There are two kinds of journalism that get emotional reactions out of us. One has to do with exposing the 'puppet-masters' of society and their stranglehold on the way we live our lives. Clear and sustained reporting of this kind builds public resentment into effective political currents." "The second is the kind of scandalous, sordid stories of individual misconduct which keep us occupied, but just leave us throwing our hands up wondering 'what is this world coming to?'." "Curtis is saying that the lines between the two have become dangerously blurred, so that the latest banking scandal is reacted to as though it's a tale of private immorality that we should just shake our heads and tut about, in the same way we might about Miley Cyrus' latest exploits." "As always, Curtis pulls his interesting trick of exploring and linking the history of the two trends through the lives of individuals, but I agree that can sometimes be confusing. It's definitely worth a read though." [1] http://www.reddit.com/r/TrueReddit/comments/1s8a8v/what_the_fluck_adam_curtis_calls_for_a_new_kind/cdv0ytf http://www.reddit.com/r/TrueReddit/comments/1s8a8v/what_the_...
- Nimi 13y ago
  I think a lot of the confusion about the article is that Curtis himself doesn't claim to understand what's really going on: """Computers, "financial engineering" and credit, social media, algorithms that predict what you want, NSA surveillance, giant new holding corporations called Master Limited Partnerships - all of these surround us and wrap us into a complicated modern web. Some of it is wonderful, other parts of it are threatening - while even more parts are just incomprehensible.""" For him, """It is as if the scandals are part of a giant jigsaw puzzle - and what we are waiting for is someone to come along and click those pieces together to give a clear, big picture of what is happening.""" (Like others, I also found the writing style very unclear, and I'm actually kind-of a fan of his). What I think Curtis wants us to take from the piece is the suggestion of an overarching connection (possibly even a human-designed one) between these seemingly unconnected, aforementioned aspects of our lives. The guiding theme for the article seems to be the effort to "... find an oblique angle that offers a bit more perspective" - the life of Tamara Mellon, her father, and great-uncle of her husband, affected by aspects of current finance practices, (the alleged precursor to) social media and/or surveillance, and corporations. If I may add my personal opinion on this interpretation of Curtis' views: Nothing new here. Orwell and Huxley already warned us from the dangers of rising mass-surveillance and huge power structures, while people are kept docile with "Light Entertainment". I don't think there's anything more described in the article, but what a fascinating description it is.

by welder 13y ago

ryanjshaw 13y ago

It's a pity the author can't start a part of this revolution by writing more clearly. I spent about 5 minutes reading before becoming completely lost and confused - was there a central thesis and was he ever going to get to a point substantiating it, or was I just reading somebody's fantasy about an old era glamour girl using journalism as a weak front story? I wasn't convinced he'd have the clarity of thought to put a coherent big picture together and gave up reading, coming here instead to see if somebody had managed to decipher it all. (That being said I think he has a point and it's something I've wondered about myself.)

trendoid 13y ago
>It's a pity the author can't start a part of this revolution by writing more clearly. By clearly you mean writing short articles that you can finish in five minutes? Adam Curtis always builds his stories with historical events to conclude with a point which is relevant today. You need to be patient to appreciate some of his stuff.
- swalsh 13y ago
  Roughly 70% of the things I read on the internet are worthless reads, but I don't realize it until maybe about a third of the way through. I put up with it because the other 30% is typically pretty good at capturing my attention. Except, when the majority of things I read are crap (and honestly, a post littered with videos typically is) I tend to come at articles with a "prove I should finish reading you" kind of attitude. The beginning of this post wasn't very successful at capturing my attention. It would seem he has a very similar style as Venkat (though I think Venkat is a better writer) from RibbonFarm. I guess the difference is I have a general expectation that I realize he's building up to something bigger... and that conclusion might even be 3 or 4 posts from this long post. However he's earned my patience.
  - agilebyte 13y ago
    prove I should finish reading you Maybe you can persist with reading through an article when you see it being very popular on Hacker News?
    - swalsh 13y ago
      When I saw people "raving" about it, I did end up going back and reading the rest...
- w_t_payne 13y ago
  I rather liked the way that he built up his "hook" to lead the reader on, deeper into the piece. I thought it was quite clever, and I enjoyed reading it.
  - JackFr 13y ago
    OTOH I enjoy reading Malcolm Gladwell, and he's been shown to be kind of wrong about most stuff.
  - dspeyer 13y ago
    Until he started talking about the history of the Yeardye family. One long digression about some specific people I have no previous reason to care about is tolerable. When he went back to them I decided to drop the article and just read comments, because the gossip/substance ratio was clearly too high.
r0h1n 13y ago
With no disrespect to you, this is sadly the state of us hyper-readers today. We expect straight and to-the-point prose, piddly word counts and a literal/predictable assortment of ideas. And when the occasional author decides to venture outside this straitjacket, we wonder what's wrong with him/her. Let's not forget that writing is still (I don't know how long it will remain) a creative art. And though the vast majority of it has been reduced to algorithmic, LCM commodities, surely we can allow a few artists to tell their stories the way they want to?
- d23 13y ago
  While this may be a part of the explanation, I don't think it's solely responsible. It's the responsibility of the writer to set up the reader with an understanding of the point of what they are reading (i.e. "tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them, tell them what you told them"). If you're going to make a long digression, it's respectful (and less counter-intuitive) to at least give the reader an inkling as to why you might be doing such a thing. Between the random cat video, the shoe photo that looks like it was nabbed from google images, and the sudden jump back to the story of Mellon's father, I genuinely started questioning the quality of what I was reading and whether I should be wasting my time.
  - marrs 13y ago
    I thought I'd somehow managed to switch tabs and had to scroll back to the top to confirm that I hadn't.
  - EliRivers 13y ago
    (i.e. "tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them, tell them what you told them") That's what many subscribe to. There are schools of thought that disagree. Some readers enjoy not knowing where the text is going; done well, it makes the payoff significantly more pleasurable. What you said certainly does seem to be the fashion at the moment; the number of books whose first chapter is simply a dull forewarning of what each of the following chapters is going to be about certainly seems to have increased in recent years. I find it horrifically dull and generally skip that entirely. I see the same thing in presentations; it's just as dull (to me).
hipsters_unite 13y ago
I think probably you need the context: Adam Curtis usually makes multi-part documentaries that span several hours, so his blogs have a pretty serious load on the old attention-span. That said, I've never yet been disappointed by the way he puts them together. He's very much a storyteller, but at the same time as he admits to weaving in his own opinions, he does at least do his dues as regards research. Some of the archive material he unearths is unbelievable, I swear he must just live on a camp bed in the BBC archive.
gcb1 13y ago
my only gripe with the article is the meaningless title (if you are going for the cool title, at least add a descriptive subtitle) and the videos are now too standards compliant.
- dredmorbius 13y ago
  If you look through his other blog articles, it's something of a theme with him. That said: I've encountered a number of otherwise good journos who can't write a headline to save their life. And many more who can't write a decent lede.
cmiles74 13y ago
This is probably the central issue: I wasn't convinved he'd have the clarity of thought to put a coherent big picture together and gave up reading... I found the style very entertaining, I thought the video clips were relevant and interesting as well. I think the big difference is that I decided to trust the author and take for granted that it would all make sense by the end. I also had as much time as I wanted to read the piece, if I was more pressed for time I may have had to abandon it as well. I think it's unfair to accuse people who distrust the author as having some sort of attention problem. Perhaps they have another heuristic for deciding if a longer article is worth it and this one simply didn't meet those requirements.
dredmorbius 13y ago
One of the things I appreciated about the piece was that the intro is a bit scattered. You kind of wonder where Alan's going with it, then it comes together. The build as the piece develops is pretty intense.
rhizome 13y ago
Perhaps it's a parody? Compare to something like this: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2009/06/the-best-spinach-salad-ever/ http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2009/06/the-best-spinach-... We've all seen and suffered through these, and the Upworthy/Buzzfeed crapstylebook dictates that the thesis be held out as long as possible.

JackFr 13y ago

"* politicians helpless to make real reform" s/helpless/not interested/

patrickk 13y ago

I like this explanation, which comes from a reddit comment[1]: "There are two kinds of journalism that get emotional reactions out of us. One has to do with exposing the 'puppet-masters' of society and their stranglehold on the way we live our lives. Clear and sustained reporting of this kind builds public resentment into effective political currents." "The second is the kind of scandalous, sordid stories of individual misconduct which keep us occupied, but just leave us throwing our hands up wondering 'what is this world coming to?'." "Curtis is saying that the lines between the two have become dangerously blurred, so that the latest banking scandal is reacted to as though it's a tale of private immorality that we should just shake our heads and tut about, in the same way we might about Miley Cyrus' latest exploits." "As always, Curtis pulls his interesting trick of exploring and linking the history of the two trends through the lives of individuals, but I agree that can sometimes be confusing. It's definitely worth a read though." [1] http://www.reddit.com/r/TrueReddit/comments/1s8a8v/what_the_fluck_adam_curtis_calls_for_a_new_kind/cdv0ytf http://www.reddit.com/r/TrueReddit/comments/1s8a8v/what_the_...

Nimi 13y ago
I think a lot of the confusion about the article is that Curtis himself doesn't claim to understand what's really going on: """Computers, "financial engineering" and credit, social media, algorithms that predict what you want, NSA surveillance, giant new holding corporations called Master Limited Partnerships - all of these surround us and wrap us into a complicated modern web. Some of it is wonderful, other parts of it are threatening - while even more parts are just incomprehensible.""" For him, """It is as if the scandals are part of a giant jigsaw puzzle - and what we are waiting for is someone to come along and click those pieces together to give a clear, big picture of what is happening.""" (Like others, I also found the writing style very unclear, and I'm actually kind-of a fan of his). What I think Curtis wants us to take from the piece is the suggestion of an overarching connection (possibly even a human-designed one) between these seemingly unconnected, aforementioned aspects of our lives. The guiding theme for the article seems to be the effort to "... find an oblique angle that offers a bit more perspective" - the life of Tamara Mellon, her father, and great-uncle of her husband, affected by aspects of current finance practices, (the alleged precursor to) social media and/or surveillance, and corporations. If I may add my personal opinion on this interpretation of Curtis' views: Nothing new here. Orwell and Huxley already warned us from the dangers of rising mass-surveillance and huge power structures, while people are kept docile with "Light Entertainment". I don't think there's anything more described in the article, but what a fascinating description it is.