How to Fix the News | Hacker News Reader

How to Fix the News

aaronsw.com

16 pointslackbeard14 comments

"Together, these three points seem like the recipe for a genuine news show: intelligent, comprehensive, and entertaining. And yet, I can't think of a single thing that follows them."

Isn't this the concept behind 60 Minutes? Frontline, 20/20, John Stossel, etc. also follow a similar model. These shows are all both high quality and popular.

They definitely were, once upon a time. 60 Minutes has lost its edge over time; I'd say they never really recovered from the episode with Brown and Williamson (dramatized in the movie "The Insider"). I don't know when 20/20 disintegrated, but when I see it now, I can barely distinguish it from Dateline NBC, which is little more than a new cartoon for children.

Like any show, 60 minutes has its ups and downs, bad stories and good. But on the whole I still watch it and find it very high quality and well produced.

Other news(y) shows I like (some of the time): Q&A (on C-SPAN), Charlie Rose, Sunday Morning, and Meet the Press.

I second the Charlie Rose show. It's not outstanding, but I'd say it's the only TV show in America that attempts serious interviews.

This American Life, while excellent, has very little to do with news. Perhaps you could compare it to a typical human interest story. But its goal is clearly not to provide information on current events.

I clearly say I'm talking about their episode "The Giant Pool of Money" which was very clearly a news show, co-produced with NPR News.

Ah, missed that. Sorry.

Too bad that most people want dumb news. It is touching that some people make a valiant effort to create something intelligent, but the fact is, they will always be a struggling minority.

Even Hacker news is no exception: I constantly click on those "The most important thing you need to know" articles, against better knowledge. It is just the way the human brain is wired - therefore we will always read the sex gossip stuff and only occasionally force ourselves to read something more demanding.

i learned not to click them.

so either brains aren't wired that way, or we can rewire them.

Doesn't Jon Stewart already fit the bill? Intelligent, comprehensive, and entertaining. And, more news value (pound for pound) than just about any other news show.

It's really sad that a comedy show is the best news show. If I was a billionaire I would hire Jon Stewart to produce a cable news channel. I wonder if he would do it if funded sufficiently.

For some reason, I don't think basing selection of news stories on whatever is the funniest to crack jokes about is the "goal" we should aim for with reporting. Not trying to knock Jon Stewart, but just because sometimes he is more informative than some news shows doesn't mean we should be looking toward him to set the standard.

The writer makes the common mistake to equate circulation decline with decline of interest in the news. That clearly isn't the case which even a quick look at Pew Research stats would show. People are getting their news from the internet.

The news and music industries are very similar and despite what you read both are booming. It is the newspaper and recording industries that are buggered.

It's a bit more subtle than that. Consider Wall Street Journal. It does not fit the general "decline of the news" theme, and for a good reason -- it's a great product. It is getting harder and harder to sell bad products, convenient delivery is no longer sufficient for success.

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