Comment by abrahamepton | Hacker News Reader

Comment by abrahamepton | Hacker News Reader

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Hey, Chris! I largely agree with you, and think reading things like the Economist on a weekly basis is salutary - it's weekly, so building a reading habit around it doesn't lead to constant panic. It's broad, covers a lot of what's going on around the world and isn't as obsessed with the trivialities American media focuses on. As a guy who used to work on Google News with you, I always appreciated the effort to get more global news and more global sources integrated into peoples' reading experiences.

Where I disagree is that I think being citizens of a democracy obligates us to pay attention so we can vote as informed participants, and I don't know how to do that without reading the news.

And it's important to be clear that there's a lot still wrong with the world. The climate is in crisis; more humans are in slavery today than at any time in human history; we're in the midst of one of the great migrant/refugee crises of the modern world. Importantly, many media outlets largely ignore those things, but not all media does.

I'm pretty sure you can remain informed while reading the news once a week. In fact, I would argue you are likely to be _better_ informed as you will be reading about the most important information, viewing the long term stories that have staying power. By only reading once a week you avoid the hot, attention-grabbing-but-ultimately-inconsequential story of the day.

As for voting, you generally receive a "voter information" packet before hand. If you aren't reading the news then a "good citizen" ought to do their own research rather than rely on a news source to provide you with information.

Yes, I quite agree - reading the news once a week can lead you to be incredibly well-informed. But since the OP was asserting that one oughtn't read the news at all, I find "once/week" to be a rather different proposition.

Valid point, you are correct. The part of your comment that caught my eye was

> being citizens of a democracy obligates us to pay attention

I agree with the statement itself, absolutely. I just don't think reading the news is necessarily the correct way to pay attention. If you read most news, hardly any of it encourages better citizenship. Much like Facebook, the news requires eyeballs to survive, it has an inherent agenda. To collect eyeballs it needs to have enticing headlines. I hardly think "look at me" is the same thing as "education for a good democracy".

Do you feel it's effective to assess candidates with focused research a week or so before voting? Or do you think it's necessary to always stay up to date on the news to be a good participant in democracy?

Depends on the person, I suppose. Most people go into voting booths fairly poorly-informed, so really any research you do is great.

I don't think normal humans will do homework before voting, since normal American humans vote pretty infrequently to begin with. But I think doing such homework can be a great alternative to staying engaged with the news consistently - I do it (sometimes/reasonably often but certainly not always) when voting for judges, or offices that never come up in the news I read.

The problem with that approach, beyond remembering to do your homework, is that it can be kinda hard to catch up on everything. Like, let's say there's something your mayor does that you hate, or would hate if you knew about it - are you sure that's gonna come up during your research? If it's a big deal it might.

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