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Comment by ytNumbers | Hacker News Reader

Some might ask why this matters. The problem with these six mega-corporations is that they are controlled by a handful of billionaires and a few distasteful foreign governments that do not have the best interests of Americans in mind. These corporations own the US legacy media outlets (e.g., CNN, MSNBC, FOX, etc) and most of the larger online US news sites. They have, in my opinion, been quite effective at brainwashing a huge segment of society with regard to the important political issues of our day. I've long ago moved on to better news sources, but I don't personally know anyone else over the age of 30 who has also done that. It looks like it's going to be many decades before these giant media outlets finally lose their relevance. And that's a crying shame.

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I think, after the election and the billions spent on advertising and air time supporting one candidate and either ignoring or negatively covering others, and then all that ended up being for naught, there was a realisation that that somehow the traditional manufacturing consent machine has broken down.

And almost immediately Google and Facebook issued a press release about how they will be filtering Fake News. While there might be some genuine altruism and desire to make the world a better place, it was also a brilliant business move. They effectively jumped in and filled the void left in manufacturing consent market. They are signaling they instead of companies and political candidates investing their billions in CNN and NBC they should come to them now.

Well, no they certainly don't have the best interests of America at heart but mostly they're driven by greed. The owners of US newspapers are generally happy to give their news in liberal cities a liberal slant and their news in conservative cities a conservative slant. The problem used to be a lot more intense than it is now with competing newspapers being mouthpieces for competing political parties. But the rise of national broadcasting and the resultant economies of scale meant that the networks had to move to compromise coverage.

There's certainly something to be said for giving people the sort of news coverage that's good for them instead of the sort they want. Not reporting on disasters until all the facts are in. Never mentioning the names of mass murderers who are after fame. More statistics and less anecdote. But if given a choice the bad media will drive out the good (mostly).

You could solve the problem if you had a reliable source of philosopher kings we could set to rule over us. Until we find one I think we'll have to do with giving the people what they want. It's far from optimal but at least it corrects quickly when things go badly which is a lot more than you can say for most other things people have attempted.

What do you mean regarding "philosopher kings"?

It's a term from the Socratic canon: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosopher_king

What other sources do you use, I ask as an over 30 something who wants to see how the other half lives?

Eh. Tough question. You don't want to make the mistake of using sources with an opposite mindset to the prevailing media.

Prevailing media has a strong democratic bias. Opposing media has a strong republican bias (breitbart, oann, etc).

Better media doesn't give a shit. I suggest sott.net, global research, strategic culture, mises.org, the intercept, reason, opslens, the unz review, counterpunch, zerohedge.

KEEP IN MIND: all of these sources require a STRONG BS filter. It's like startups v established companies: lots of bullshit with diamonds in the rough thrown in. It's your job to find the diamonds. When you find them, they're totally worth it.

Those should get you started. In general, I tend to also follow a host of individuals on twitter of varying backgrounds to get a greater variety.

Brietbart and oann have strong republican bias but mises and reason don't? /:

From what I've read on Mises they are big on numbers, data, citing sources and logic. They don't deserve to be grouped with the others.

Mises are shills for failed economic theories and peddle dumb conspiracy theories.

Which failed economic theories and failed how exactly?

'Austrian' economics.

Failed how?

Austrian economics is just an outdated theory. Principles of Economics and Das Kapital were written within about four years of each other and while time was poking holes in Communism it was doing the same to Austrian economics. Here's a good argument against the Austrian school if you're really interested.

http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/bcaplan/whyaust.htm

So Newton's Laws of Motion are just "an outdated theory" because they were published in 1686?

And, I am sorry, but the paper you quote is just pseudo-intellectual drivel. If I could decipher anything from it, it boiled down to "because there is no such thing as perfect free market, therefore Austrian School is flawed".

Or something like that.

>So Newton's Laws of Motion are just "an outdated theory" because they were published in 1686?

No, the point is that science has advanced. The laws of motion are true because they've survived scientific critique over a long period of time. Aether isn't true because over time the scientific critiques built up and science moved on with new theories. Austrian economics is aether not the laws of motion.

>If I could decipher anything from it...

If you had trouble deciphering it I would suggest that you not subscribe to any economic school because you just don't know enough to pick.

"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough".

-- Albert Einstein

You're free to criticize their economics, but their bias for everyday news tends to be more objective than that most others.

Correct. Mises and Reason are libertarian, not republican.

I've been enjoying The Economist and Aljazeera lately. Intelligent news that covers important things happening all over the world, not just the USA.

I'm also interested in the same question. It's hard to find news that is both covering important long-term issues and trying to seek the truth of the matter. Plus I get frustrated at how insular news in the USA is, many of the USAs problems have already been somewhat solved in other countries but the media rarely mentions them. So citizens and politicians waste time spinning their wheels and arguing about theoreticals instead of learning from experiments that have already been done.

NoAgendaShow.com; a podcast that covers a wide variety of topics. They are listener funded, so they arent subject to pleasing advertiser (as these 6 big corporation and most news outlets).

One of the hosts is also the 'co-founder of podcasting', took a company public and registered mtv.com, back in the day. They have a very interesting news media deconstruction process; Highly recommended.

Steve Jobs himself gave him the title "The Podfather"

Curious what are your sources. I have a few friends who are also anti-big news outlets and they link me to their alternative sources, which some of them are VERY ultra-right-wing outlets.

Bloomberg is okay for financial news.

Why let your self get wrapped up in global or national issues (real or fake). Instead, focus your efforts locally on things that make a difference to you every day.

Local things make no difference to people who end up moving every few years.

What I usually do is keep in touch with mainstream news and then go to opposing news and a variety of blogs/social media commentators trying to cover all sides. MSM is garbage. Interesting journalism happens at ProPublica, The Intercept, Monocle, heck I even read Breitbart.

Do you need sources for this? It was always self evident to me that people setup media companies in an attempt to own the narrative and somehow gain an advantage. What other reason could there be?

> I've long ago moved on to better news sources

Any recommendations?

Here's a long list of YouTubers who cover the news. Some of these people I've never heard of, and some of them I'd stay far away from [e.g., Alex Jones]:

http://www.usmessageboard.com/threads/which-youtuber-channel...

For online news aggregators... He's overly right-wing for my tastes, but the best truly independent aggregator I've been able to find is Drudge. I'm frankly stunned that after 20 years, the powers that be have not yet found a way to shut him down.

NYTimes

Heavily influenced by Carlos Slim, a Mexican arguably playing a bigger role in influencing our election than Russia.

Nakedcapitalism.com

I have a hard time finding news sources I can stand; basically all the major outlets just turn me off with their bias and verbose irrelevant analysis. Over the part year I've collected a few lesser known options you may find valuable too:

https://theintercept.com - mostly anti-propaganda efforts

https://phys.org - an aggregator often linking to primary sources

https://www.currentaffairs.org - political opinions that generally seem thought out

http://www.realclear(politics|world|*).com - a network of aggregators with a good balance

http://evonomics.com - economic perspectives I also don't mind reading.

I would really love to find more options - especially something in a debate format so I can judge arguments from multiple sides on an issue.

Current Affairs is insanely high quality. I endorse it fully.

> These corporations own the US legacy media outlets (e.g., CNN, MSNBC, FOX, etc) and most of the larger online US news sites.

Even worse. They also own most of the local papers too.

What's even more troubling is that there will be more consolidation of the news industry in the future...

> It looks like it's going to be many decades before these giant media outlets finally lose their relevance.

Except that traditional media is moving into social media. Not only that, they have the ears of the social media magnates.

Google/facebook/reddit/etc have all had talks with traditional media companies and have started "favoring" traditional media in their algorithms/search results/etc. There are far more "nytimes/WaPo/etc" on social media today than a year ago or 5 years ago. Even on HN, look how much traditional media links we have here.

I don't think traditional media will go anywhere. As you said, they serve a valuable purpose - brainwashing large segments of the population.

> The problem with these six mega-corporations is that they are controlled by a handful of billionaires and a few distasteful foreign governments that do not have the best interests of Americans in mind.

I'm curious about why you've got the US government out of the equation. Do you really think that those "few distasteful foreign goverments" play a bigger role or collude more than the US government with those media corporations?

When I ditched cable TV about 7 years ago I lost track of these outlets. I can't say I've missed them. I occasionally open cnn.com if I'm bored, mostly because it's quick to type.

I have a (physical) subscription to the Economist, which is where I get all my serious news. I can't tell you how great it is to read the news without the page content shifting all around because of ads loading.

Given the 90% number cited in the headline, you are living a world few of us inhabit.

I ditched both TV and The Economist 20 years ago.

The latter was difficult. I was emotionally attached; it felt good to put that issue on the counter ("I'm smart, informed, discerning!"); and there was nothing else. But alas, as soon as The Economist started with their tech and software focus spreads it quickly dawned on me that these guys just know how to sound authoritative. That was a bad move on their part.

The Economist is largely owned by the Rothschild and Agnelli families.

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