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This has been true for the last 4 decades. Most news is designed to make you angry, afraid or sometimes happy. Mostly manipulation and deception. Even the news cycle is nonsense. You probably won’t remember what happened 2 years ago on a random Wednesday.

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Most news is designed to sell you cars and laundry detergent.

More to the point, you're not the customer. You're the product. Advertisers are the customer. So the news isn't really meant to inform, but rather to encourage sticking around to see what happens next. Appeal to baser emotions works well for that.

Think of it that way, and people asking for cute kitten pics online because they're having a bad day is functionally the same thing as crazy talk radio.

I will say, that's one reason why I've been tending towards NPR/PBS for my news source. It seems more likely to me that I am the customer when there aren't any advertisers (besides the occasional "supported by" blurb that lasts a few seconds).

That’s pretty much every website that has ads on it. I’ve used internal timesheeting sites that had ads!

Yes, it's true of websites. But it's also true of tv/cable news, talk radio, and newspapers.

And soon enough, the cars we ride in.

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