I Hate the News (2006)
aaronsw.com
aaronsw.com
The way I see it, politics back home doesn't effect me, and I can't do anything about local politics as I can't vote.
It really is liberating to not give a shit about politics, to put it bluntly. It's one less source of stress in my life.
I didn’t get round to renewing my postal vote as I thought it didn’t really effect me anymore anyway - my new life in the Netherlands was what mattered.
Then Leave won, and Brexit was going to happen. I remember waking up to the news and feeling horrified. Then in the coming days I felt a sense of shock: actually Brexit did effect me, of course. I would lose my right to work and stay freely here in the Netherlands, my home of 8 years. Where I had a family with 4 kids.
The point is I now believe every citizen should remain at least minimally informed and involved on politics “back home” and locally. I vote every chance I get now. And I still regret not voting in Brexit.
I also do keep minimally informed right now, I check the news maybe once a week to see if anything major has happened back home.
But also not having 24/7 reality TV disguised as "cable news" blaring all around me all the time helps a lot. US is anomalous in this regard.
On the other hand, I can vote in local elections here (Norway) since I've lived here 3 years. I just can't vote in national elections (the elections switch between the two, first a national election then 2 years later, a local election. 2 years later, back to national). It benefits me to pay some attention to local politics.
The answer is news sells an emotion. Mostly it sells outrage and worldview confirmation. Its basically the exact same thing as a social feed only you select it instead of it tailoring to you.
The notable exception are people who use the headlines to make investment decisions.
"The medium shapes the message" is was it all comes down to. Modern news is show business. It needs to be packaged as show business or nobody will watch/read/listen to it.
As long as the incentive is to generate ad clicks and ad views, news media will prioritize sensational topics and optimize the format for ad delivery instead of optimizing for knowledge retention.
I once read a book where a certain Japanese man could swallow his nose. A different page in the book refuted that it was the Japanese man and stated it was instead his brother who could actually do this nose swallowing. Yet another page retold the initial story again, refuting the story around it being his brother. This is just like reading the news or opening the bible on whatever page.
I'd argue that the problem isn't the news, per se, but the fact that news is a business, with a primary motive of maximizing profit and not necessarily 'informing' the public objectively. But on the other extreme, state run media that do not have the same objective of making profit are even worse.
We'll pretty much have to live with it :)
Did you read the article? It critiques the fast-paced nature of the news and the choice of topics, it doesn't call for abolishing the news.
> But on the other extreme, state run media that do not have the same objective of making profit are even worse.
Incorrect. For instance, here in Australia, we have a state run media channel, the ABC (abc.net.au), and the quality of the news and reporting is much better than the commercial news.
What is it about Americans that make them believe that things that work perfectly well in many other countries (publicly funded television, gun control, universal healthcare) are impossible?
What gave you the impression that I am an American? I, unfortunately, am one who had to endure the non stop propaganda perpetuated through state run media in my country.
> reporting is much better than the commercial news
How do you decide it is 'much better'? Could it be that you just happen to agree with it? (or not). Since you mentioned America, there are lots of people in America who take Fox News as sole source of truth. And perhaps equally large group who regard MSNBC as such.
And it's pretty interesting to observe that you pulled the conversation right into politically charged topics of healthcare and gun, when I was merely pointing out that news is indeed valuable, and there is always bound to be this friction between the profit oriented but free of government influence vs state run media.
I've found that an ok compromise is the Wikipedia current events section: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events
I don't read it daily and I don't follow to the sources typically, but they make a decent job of filtering out all the clickbait and categorizing ongoing events etc. That way I know what's going on rather than just reading about it on social media without context.
The only thing I'm missing is filters and the option to group and aggregate for weekly reading, maybe I'll just script that at some point, should be simple enough.
I would say that specifically for voting getting rid of all the crazy polarizing daily clickbait is the best solution. It will make you a better informed citizen if you don't follow that nonsense.
How often do you vote, donate, reinvest? Every day?
What are the things you're looking for when deciding on people or issues to vote on and does a catalog of events related to those people and issues really capture it?
How might we optimise a newspaper for the majority rather than the power-users?
- Reduce it to one page, printing only the most important stories. In today's hurried times, that's all many people have time for. Or keep it the same length as today's newspapers, but publish it only weekly. Or a mobile app where each story fits in one screen. Condense it down to the most important facts.
- Give users the context. If a minister was accused of taking money from companies X and Y and he says that he didn't take money from X, say, "The minister didn't respond to allegations that he took money from Y". The majority of readers wouldn't know that unless it's pointed out to them.
- Don't report news that's likely to be irrelevant a quarter from now, like the stock market going up 0.5%, or that Apple is going to launch cheaper iPads tomorrow.
- Report hyperlocal news, like your neighbor 50m away being burgled, not a politician two states away choosing to side with someone else. We all care more about our neighborhood. Tell me air pollution levels in my neighborhood, or a few km away, not 2000 km away in Delhi. We all care about our immediate environment more. In a way, this is the only kind of news people got before technology like the press, telephone or radio was invented. It's odd that in today's world, I'm more connected to what's happening far away than in my neighborhood.
- Quality over quantity: Don't print rumors, unconfirmed news, news without fact-checking it and waiting for the dust to settle. Write well so that readers feel that the writer cares, rather than filler to write 100 words by 11AM, and who gives a damn what those words are.
The Economist has a section at the beginning of each issue that gives you a one paragraph or less overview of important events that happened that week. Many people also only read the Sunday edition of the paper instead of the daily publications.
I don't know why the person you're replying to suggest that the news is usually contextless. Pretty much any article I read from WaPo or NYT has all of the context you need towards the end of the article after stating the most recent or relevant facts.
Reporting hyperlocal news is just not feasible in today's media climate. It's very hard to run a successful local news organization because you have to compete with all of the big players.
Most of the news I read does not report on rumors or unconfirmed news, either.
I somewhat agree that news that isn't relevant a quarter from now probably isn't important but it's important to someone. Sure, I don't care if the stock market went down .5% but many people do care about daily fluctuations of their investments or have jobs in the finance sector. Also, why choose a quarter as your time scale? Why not a week, a month, a year, a decade? Who is to say whether yearly stock market fluctuations are actually news worthy?
Maybe news articles in your country have context, but often not in mine. Here's one example: http://bangaloremirror.indiatimes.com/bangalore/civic/rejuve... This doesn't give Bangaloreans the wider context: amidst all the talk of lake restoration, have there been any results yet? Has the inflow of garbage stopped, or is there even a plan to? What's the scope of the efforts? To restore lakes to the state they were in 30 years ago, or only to stop further decline? Is there any plan to reclaim any of land that has already been encroached for years? And so on.
Hyperlocal news may not be feasible today, but since there's an umnet need, it's only a matter of time before someone figures out the right business model.
"It might be important to someone" is an excuse to publish any and all news, which is exactly how the media ended up in today's situation.
As for why choose a quarter as a timescale, you can choose some other timescale. Focus on essence of the argument rather than picking nits.
I'll be one of those people to agree "on a small scale", but I'll go one (smaller) step further. I don't think these few are aberrations, I think the vast majority of news is not worthwhile. News worth reading is the exception.
> Let us look at the front page of today’s New York Times, the gold standard in news.
Is it? Really?
I'm not sure if this is entirely true in general but good local news seems often well worth reading for me. If it's politics, reportage on short term decisions made by local councils will affect my daily life, and are somewhat "within reach". If it's entertainment or otherwise, it's likely about something I could realistically engage with in person, or become involved in, etc.
Quite a lot of local news has certain quality issues, but there are really great exceptions here in my experience.
Examples of such news: In-advance information about meetups, protests. Information about culture events that are to happen. Information about new laws coming into effect, or things mandated by government to a date.
Upcoming votes; "Contact your Representative;" "Commercials should not be louder than the main program as of April 8, 2018. Call this number if otherwise."
Don't we call this clickbait?
For example, I read about opinionated software years ago, and when I started my startup, I chose to take that approach. If I'd missed that, and my app turns out to not be great for any single use-case, and fails, how would I know that that happened because I didn't read enough to make a better decision?
These things seep into your way of thinking, and it's hard to know what thought or article had what result.
Having said that, I do think I overdose on news, but it's hard to know what's the right balance.
It gives me a sense of the meanderings and movements of large scale entities like corporations and governments and the side effects their decisions.
Wars in Syria tell me about the relations between countries. The Flint water crisis tells me about the failures of small government or even worse the economic state of Michigan.
Data breaches and environmental disaster tell me of the negligence and leadership decisions of large corporations.
The news is endlessly intriguing.
You really can't have a good sense of corporations and governments unless you work specifically for a particular company or government and know the inner workings and side effects of what's happening. And if that's the case, you don't need to read the news to learn about it.
You don't know much about the wars nor the relations between countries. You never get to sit in on leader meetings or see first hand what's happening and not happening.
You think you know something about Michigan because you learned about the Flint water crisis. But do you really know what failures took place or the economic state of all of Michigan? What about all of the other crises in America you didn't hear about, simply because the news chose to make you care about Flint and not another crisis?
Data breaches and environmental disasters are often reported in a way that makes corporations seem negligent when other information is left out. This is why there's so much "debate" and "different opinion" on such matters. There's no right answer, yet the news does a good job of presenting a singular narrative.
The news is definitely endlessly intriguing, just like a drug. The worst part about it is you only ever have a very small fraction of the totality of what's going on. Every time we hear about Trump, we're not hearing about local politicians who arguably have a greater impact on our lives.
You can't really be informed about most topics, and it's less likely to be informed the more we focus on matters outside of our local proximity, depending on journalists to translate events with inevitable inaccuracy.
I still feel that some millionaire should have had stepped forward & paid all his legal dues. He was doing good work.
I admire Aaron for his technical ability, his unique perspective, his writing, his courage and passion. I sympathize with persecution he dealt with towards the end of his life, and I think that the prosecution against him was unjust. I find myself agreeing with most of his writing that I've encountered.
On the topic of following the news, I am tempted to agree with him as well. However, I wonder if keeping up with the news reinforces the idea that the world can be a scary place, and that if we stray too far outside of the bounds of normal human behavior, we might face hardship. One could argue that that idea is detrimental to human society as a whole, but I think it is generally has a net positive effect on a particular person's mental wellbeing.
The societies we live in are doing insane things for profit and greed, and there is very little compassion for people who make mistakes or who is weak. The way we treat each other is quite bad on this planet.
We are quite insane in how we worship money, power and science.
First hand experience is valuable but the idea that it can't be translated effectively into second/third hand experience by trained professionals is misguided.
There's also the other side that most trained professionals are not equipped to handle serious cases. The lack of literature on quality-of-life increasing treatments for serious illnesses (major depressives, schizophrenics, etc.) is another factor. Most professionals get their information second-hand from textbooks and their education. Then secondly, from practice. Where as the first-hand experience of mental illness is the primary source of practical guidelines for those who suffer from them.
There's also the statistic that around 60% of people with mental illness don't get or stop getting treatment. With schizophrenics and more serious sufferers being on the tail end of that.
This sentence reads to me like "It's not that professionals can't effectively use other peoples first hand experience , it's that they can't effectively use other peoples first hand experience".
They don't need to know exactly what's going on. It's impossible for anyone to ever know exactly what is going on in another person's mind. Psychology as a profession is completely useless if that's the bar for it being useful.
I apologize if my response comes off as aggressive, but I strongly believe that propagating the idea that mental health professionals can't really help people is dangerous for those that would benefit from their help.
It was reinforcing the point you were disagreeing with. They can make use of it, but not efficient use of it.
>They don't need to know exactly what's going on. It's impossible for anyone to ever know exactly what is going on in another person's mind. Psychology as a profession is completely useless if that's the bar for it being useful.
To use anecdotes: I've seen assistance from friend's and loved ones, who've experienced first-hand the illness, to have a more profound effect on the quality-of-life and recovery of the person suffering, than the average medical professional (psychiatrists, psychologists, counselors, etc. ranked in their own groups). There are some astounding medical professionals out there that will definitely be very helpful in getting someone "back on track," but in my experience, they're never covered under your average joe's insurance. That leaves the bulk of available professionals' quality to be lack-luster, and arguably, a waste of time -- even detrimental in some specific cases.
The bar for doctor involvement and vested interest is nearing the ground, in the U.S.A. Unless surgery or extremely specialized treatment is needed (chemotherapy, gene therapy, etc.), you'll almost always get better care doing the research and treatment yourself.
>I apologize if my response comes off as aggressive, but I strongly believe that propagating the idea that mental health professionals can't really help people is dangerous for those that would benefit from their help.
And I believe if you don't first become aware of shortcomings, you'll never be able to fix problems. And mental health treatment, as an industry, has a lot of problems.
It was more that he complained about the "The news’s obsession with having a little bit of information on a wide variety of subjects" and then ends with "You should follow me on twitter here."
"Should", not "can"!
We tend to take author names out of titles because HN works better when the focus is on content rather than personalities. It stays on personalities anyhow when a famous person is in the mix, but this tactic compensates a bit.
Plus in Aaron's case the author name is already encoded in the domain name.