News engagement plummets as Americans tune out
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That's a very weird, biased way of phrasing that. The two left leaning news organizations are down quite a bit, but the right leaning organization is actually up, but we're going to lump them all together and make it look like they're all down at first glance.
“Across the board” means something closer “true in every case”. Though as I type this, I realize some people my think of it as “in total.”
“across the three major cable news networks”
Which I paraphrased as
“Across all the channels”
Which the person replying to me changed to
“Across the board”.
It's specifically not "across the board."
Otherwise the intro is written with incredible bias.
wow how could you
Nothing mainstream. The right wing is fond of calling the other side communists, though in reality you could probably fit every actual communist American into a single stadium. America is a right-leaning country, there is no left to speak of.
Though I suppose it might be fair to say that such constructs only really matter within a single political system, so "left" and "right" don't automatically have to be a particular definition.
It’s not always as progressive as American progressives would like it to be, but not being progressive≠ not left leaning.
This is unfortunately a consequence of the two party system in the States. We equate Democrats with Left and Republicans with Right. Anything supportive of Democrats gets labeled "left" even if the policies are really centrist, pro capital ones. Because we don't really have the language here to differentiate the Left and Democrats in mainstream American parlance.
I think your perspective is more radical than you realize. You sound like a revolutionary to me, not a progressive.
You can like some aspect of capitalism and think some industry/market should be protected from it (like inherently monopolistic markets?)
Compare the difference between Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Joe Biden. Warren and Biden fundamentally believe that capitalism is good and the natural law of the land. Sanders does not. Warren believes that we need to do more to address inequality between the owners and the workers, Biden does not.
I would (personally) consider Bernie to be Leftist, Warren to be Left Leaning, and Biden to be Centrist.
None of them I would consider to be revolutionary left. I've met plenty of tankies who believe in an authoritarian left seized through violence. (I am not one.)
There are fundamentally, multiple axises upon which you can measure political policy, views, goals, parties, etc. A few examples of widely understood ones being “progressive/conservative”, “authoritarian/libertarian”, “collectivist/anarchist”, and some even cover similar things such as “socialist/capitalist” which has philosophical overlap “collectivist/individualist” but is not the same, being obviously more focused on the economic structures than basic political philosophies of collectivism vs individualism.
All of this is to say that boiling politics down to a simplistic “left/right” spectrum does nothing but confuse the issues.
That said, and I'm curious if you'd agree, I don't think that means that we cannot observe that MSNBC is left-biased. Both in a relative (definitely) and absolute sense. That said, if we are going to use such a reductive spectrum, we do lose a huge amount of important details that may keep individuals from agreeing with my perspective.
Effectively I could agree with a characterisation of MSNBC as “left” if you want to define “left” as just “progressive”. Which feels like an oversimplification that hides the fact that when you look critically at the situation that broadly speaking news in the USA is tailored to instil fear as a mechanism to keep people watching because seeking information (to ensure our safety) on things our brain finds threatening is a basic human instinct that happens at a subconscious level. Effectively the only difference between the 24/7 news channels is what they think you’re afraid of.
What is called "left" these days is more, "that which conforms to Democrat narratives" and lately quite illiberal, while pretty much anything else is called "right" or "far-right" even when it's attacking corporations or the military-industrial complex.
A Left leaning news source would be much more interested in discussing the demands of workers, pushing for strong labor, nationalization of corporations, etc. When Slavoj Žižek becomes a newscaster somewhere, and the news is talking about how important it is to eliminate landlords then we can talk about left leaning news media.
Obviously the Overton Window works in both directions. All I’m saying is that MSNBC seems to track generally the state of liberal-progressive political discourse, even if it isn’t the left-leaning progressive discourse you’d hope it would be.
Hopefully that makes sense. Appreciate your reply.
I think I probably care more about defining "left" vs "liberal" then most here in the States.
And I'd agree, as much as I want it to be the case that we see more worker solidarity, it's not the thing most Americans seem to think about. Even if they have concerns about current policies. For instance, Americans could call for a general strike as a response to the Roe v Wade decision. But the idea of using worker power in that way seems quite alien here.
I'm sorry, but the credibility of those networks has completely inverted.
That's not my opinion. The vast majority of media-fueled outrages that were blasted by MSNBC and CNN over the last 6-10 years have proven to be cynical distortions or extrapolation at best, and many times outright fabrication.
Meanwhile, "conspiracy theories" are consistently turning out to be relatively accurate, which is a double whammy as the MSM are the ones telling you they are conspiracy theories.
That is your opinion. There is no factual basis on which to claim that Fox (which is part of the MSM btw.) is somehow more factual or better news than the rest. This of course doesn't mean that the rest is good, just not as crazy bad.
> "conspiracy theories" are consistently turning out to be relatively accurate
Absolutely.. if you you are part of some right-wing-bubble.
Sincerely, your George Soros sponsored online shill.
When I'm at my parents' house and Fox News is on (as it always is) I can google a pretty high percentage of things they're "covering" and find they're bullshit. The most-used, but not only, tactic is to report something ordinary as if it's new and sinister, omitting all context. They do it constantly.
To be fair, maybe you're right and CNN and MSNBC are even worse. Dunno, I've mostly known people from center-left to far-left (plus a few that defy categorization) in my social circles for most of my life, and none of them have ever thought either network was worth a damn.
Democracy Now! (radio)
The Nation (print)
Dobelli sums it up best:
I am guessing you're just saying this so you don't get flamed by the concern trolls of the Internet who say you must be engaged, but in the case you actually feel this, it's not true at all. You don't owe your attention and reaction to the news to anyone.
Do any good in life for others less fortunate or in need and know that's more than thousands of hours of watching CNN coverage of Ukraine-Russia conflict or Roe v. Wade being rehashed the 76th time.
This doesn't require checking the news daily, but maybe at least once a month?
Books, develop a moral compass, talk with experts or even trusted friends, observe what is happening in your area and act in good faith to become involved.
IMO I'd trust the vote of someone who volunteers with the poor over someone who just watches $BIGNEWS each night
Making a good choice is more than having data, it's about having wisdom of what even matters in life and which data even matters for moving towards that good life. The news cannot tell you what is Good.
Millions of people are ignoring that advice currently, and unlike action - say, giving to those in need or volunteering your help - a single vote doesn't spur any change; lost to the margins of error.
I personally think many people hide behind voting as their civic duty as a way to get out of action and helping those in need, especially those who are local.
Sure, voting is fine. I do it. It doesn't much matter given the city, county, and state I live in (Seattle, King County, Washington State) since you can guess how issues are quite easily litigated and voted upon, but I'll learn a little bit about the stuff on the ballot and cast my vote. I also don't really think it does much; I mostly do it to silence those who think not voting is some cardinal sin.
Helping those in your neighborhood with food security, transportation, or access to information/services makes an impact that day for that person. They don't much care who you voted for. Little Free Pantries and Little Free Libraries are a great way to get started with hyperlocal giving, if anyone is looking for a way to help locally and disconnect nationally/globally from events that you have vanishingly little (I'm being generous) control over.
Even if you accept this is true, I have a hard time believing that 'following the news' actually achieves this in any substantial way. If anything, it may have the opposite effect, as ad-driven sensationalism selects for disjointed, short-term stories with large emotional impacts over those which enable readers to form far-seeing, rational, coherent world-views.
At some point watching the news is purely entertainment at best, and a way to feel better than others by being more informed at worst.
You wish.
People have always voted with their guts and feelings, much less with their brain.
I'm not saying that what currently passes for news is a good solution, but I feel like a lot of people sort of throw the baby with the bathwater and justify completely detaching themselves from what's happening because news are heavily flawed. They are, and I don't blame anyone person from taking a break, but it doesn't scale. If a large percentage of the population does it it causes problems.
When I was younger, two consecutive governors from opposite parties both ended up in prison for their activity as elected officials. The STOCK act was passed 10 years ago, but insider trading in congress remains rampant.
We have different expecations.
NPR or a good magazine, yes. The news described in this article? No.
I have voted every election that I can physically do so, but at some point you hit the margin described in the myth of the rational voter.
Locally -- most people live in solid red or blue states, so if they want to go the extra mile, they could check if there's anyone worth voting for in their local red/blue party primaries.
Last couple of years, I've seen talking heads projecting among other things:
* Covid has a 10% mortality rate
* Covid will blow over by march 2020
* Covid is just a flu
* Covid will blow over by summer 2020
* Covid will blow over by fall 2020
* Trump will join the QAnon protesters
* Trump won the election by a landslide
* Trump will refuse to step down and become a dictator
* Covid will blow over by 2021 when the vaccinations get started
* Covid will blow over by summer 2021
* Covid will blow over by fall 2021
* Covid will blow over by winter 2021
* Putin is just saber rattling, he will not invade Ukraine
* Ukraine will fold like a house of cards
* The Russian convoy will be stuck in the mud forever and it's all Putin's got
* Sanctions will defeat Putin any moment now
* The Russians will turn on Putin
* The Russian Oligarchs will turn on Putin
* Putin will be defeated by April 2022
* Putin will be defeated by Summer 2022
If this is where you get your understanding of the world, I'm not even sure it's a net positive. You might just walk away with a less accurate understanding of things than if you simply weren't told about these things.
The news usually only have one thing relevant to your life: the weather.
Then you might like Legible News (https://legiblenews.com/), which uses Wikipedia’s Current Events portal.
However, I do think it's important to build a larger mental model of the world than you get by just sitting in a room by yourself. But I'd argue that the news is a terrible (biased, emotional, and inefficient) way of building such a model. Far better, for example, to spend a bit of time each month looking into the large scale trends that are shaping your world, country, and town.
It's impressive that, as a society, we've conditioned people to this. I don't read the news, I don't participate in social media outside of forums and IRC, I don't donate, and I don't vote. All things are things I used to do with regular frequency. I was constantly stressed, tired, and depressed. It was difficult to relate to people who had experiences outside of what I was being fed on social media, it was hard to even say I was happy at times because someone wanted to remind me that world was going to end.
All along the way you get these happy coaches who will tell you, "It's a marathon not a race", "empathy exhaustion is a thing", etc while also feeding you a machine of reactions to make sure none of that was true. Even when you're disengaged on purpose, there's societal pressure to stay engaged, and the system knows how to wield that pressure with some level of plausible deniability. It's far easier to tell someone who is saying, "This is too much" that their choices put them at fault; after all, they didn't have to read that next reactionary opinion.
These are all experiences with my hypothetical in-group, not even the categorical "threat". Yet, I wasn't ignorant. In fact, I would read on events - just not as they're happening, and not at a news website. You'd be surprised at the number of people who focus on writing thoughtful post-hoc analysis on actual collected facts - Wikipedia is one such source, as you mentioned. As for irresponsible, your ultimate responsibility is to keep yourself healthy. If you are not here, you cannot affect the world in any positive way - regardless of your level of input or listening. Anyone that tells you to do something detrimental to yourself on purpose is not actually looking out for your best interest.
Voting says more about you than it ever has or will about the candidates.
Once that realization sinks in, everything changes.
> Once that realization sinks in, everything changes.
Maybe, but probably not.
For instance, I don't vote because the parties have failed to address things that I think are important, or have gone so grossly off the rails that they are no longer a useful investment of my time or energy. In this way, non-participation is valid feedback - so it says something about the party and the candidate. To me, not addressing things I need solved by the party is feedback to me - feedback that's as simple as "your issues are not a priority to me or my constituents".
People trying to moralize voting usually can't comprehend this because the party is doing something they want. The problem is that moralizing voting is never okay.
At the beginning of 2022 I decided to quit reading news, I realized that it took between 3 and 7% of non-sleeping time and added nothing to my life.
Spent two great months, then Russia invaded Ukraine and I went back to norm.
Tuning out and away from the news was the best thing I could have done for myself.
It's really not. If you're spending even a little time reading relevant books (poli sci, political philosophy, economics, history, et c.) instead of following the news daily then you're doing a better job of being a good citizen than people who don't do that, but do follow the news closely.
Exception: local news, though even that you probably don't need to follow daily. Maybe check in once a week. That also happens to be the only level at which your, personal vote has enough statistical likelihood of affecting anything to have any actual value.
Caring and being a good citizen is consistently participating in politics that are closer to home, and participating in party politics. Earlier in the process = larger effect (so, party politics). Smaller pool of voters = larger effect (so, local). Not watching the news every day. Not voting in major elections (if you skip 100% of those but attend a corresponding number of local elections, you're doing your part much better than someone who does the inverse).
Other so called news stories like that about inflation, isn't news at all, we all know already. The stuff that is really news, and really important, and really imminent, isn't covered because it embarrasses the establishment. Should you point that out, you are censored.
Funny how a business can survive without customers.
But that is just me.
Post-2016, the updated version is "If it bleeds and doesn't make Democrats look bad, it leads".
See for example, the near-absolute muteness about the recent Hunter Biden iCloud leak[1]. This is the son of a sitting POTUS - who was just last week at the White House - demonstrably putting himself in positions that are ripe for blackmailing and corruption.
The same son sitting on Boards of private companies with huge international exposure, and directly benefiting from the terrible decisions being made at the White House.
It would be scandalous even in the most Banana of Republics - but not in the US when its about the Democrats.
---
There were videos of Johny Carson pointing out Biden lying his ass off in the 1980s. Had I known that I would have a much better picture of the president we have now.
The media has failed us and they don't realize it. I am suspicious these big companies are not being funded through the ways people think, like advertising or subscription revenue. How does this trash stay in business? I say trash because Biden is a 29% approval rating disaster and he was elected 100% at the behest of the media. When the media loses objectivity to satisfy power behind the scenes, what can really be said about it? If anyone wants to call me dirty words because of this, go ahead. I won't reply.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/joe-biden/secret-service-sa...
It's just that a 4chan post isn't much to go on.
Kind of like when they all reported on his hacked laptop, but all they had was a hard drive Giuliani refused to share.
What is considered a scandal now has been forever skewed by the insanity that was the previous presidency. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Thinking about it, evolutionarily we probably dealt with bad news from within a 20 or 40 mile radius (two day's walk...). We are inherently disposed to pay attention to bad news (the creature that ate or mauled a guy in the next village may come this way). Put stronger, it's an evolutionary advantage to pay attention to bad news. But here in 2022, the bad news from thousands of miles away is 99% irrelevant to my life or survival, but my eyeballs get pulled in, and my nervous system gets overwhelmed unless I make a conscious choice to pull away, which I personally do.
Most of us, sure, but not all of us. Some people don’t care about bad news. You might argue that’s not who we want to select for, but in a noisy information environment, apathy is a fitness function.
You reminded me of something. Before the latest US elections me, an Italian, found myself in few discussions about Trump, Biden at dinners with friends and family.
I then realized I've never found myself in a discussion about elections of our city's mayor or province governor which were infinitely more relevant to my daily life. Some of my friends didn't even knew who the candidates were or the ideas they had.
Quite telling.
(Or "thinks they know", at least. The same average Canadian thinks, thanks to an avalanche of misleading "news", that "the Supreme Court[1] banned abortion throughout the US". Since the Supreme Court of Canada has never found a Charter right to abortion, the repeal of Roe v. Wade means that federally speaking abortion has the exact same standing in both countries: No law prohibits it.)
[1] No "US" qualifier needed, which is itself telling
A simple example is the number of new orgs still running daily live blogs of current events trying to generate hype.
I expect if we looked elsewhere, there would be an uptick in engagement in moderated, thoughtful sources such as podcasts, substacks, etc (and of course plain social).
Check out r/savedyouaclick to see the nonsense headlines that often have nothing to do with the story, which is then spread out over 50 pages to show more ads.
And by that I mean everyone is just done with it all.
No wonder Trump loved them so much:
> So funny to watch Fake News Networks, among the most dishonest groups of people I have ever dealt with, criticize Sinclair Broadcasting for being biased. Sinclair is far superior to CNN and even more Fake NBC, which is a total joke.
— Trump (Twitter) April 2, 2018
talking heads on daytime talk shows != the news
Most things are just part of the 24 hour news cycle and don't mean much of anything, certainly not worth sitting there with CNN or similar on to get fed to you at a very slow pace and full of ads.
I can't listen to this but will just leave it here:
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-it-could-happen-here-307...
What's your alternative?
I don't ask. You don't have to. If it's important you'll hear about it passively. You'll also hear about unimportant things, but far fewer unimportant things than if you actively looked for pertinent information.
> The news is hearsay with a veneer of officialness [sic]
(I'm guessing you meant officiality?) So "the news is hearsay," and you just get hearsay of that hearsay? Not seeing the benefit.
I choose what to care about. I hear about what's happening, same as you, except I don't sit anxiously in front of a box to do it, and I don't get told what to think and feel about it.
Does the news you're looking at reddit and Twitter for come with any commentary by chance? If so you're getting told what to think and feel about it.
Not sure who you're talking to here. I've never submitted any CNBC anything anywhere.
Alternatives are Hacker News, Reddit's /r/news & r/worldnews, and then my network of friends that includes working political/economics journalists, ACLU & NGO attorneys and friends that became congress people. Plus my wife has a stellar curated twitter feed.
I thought your alternative was "interacting with people around me," but now you're listing websites? Websites that link to NEWS articles?! That's just reading the news with extra steps.
Here's your original comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32076299
It says "let them all go bankrupt," but then you say you read news sites that you find on reddit and Twitter regularly. Wouldn't that be harder if they all went bankrupt?
So why do you visit aggregators to find links to and read these news articles, when their reporting practices are so poor? I asked you for an alternative to them.
You are a market force, your engagement with CNBC and other mainstream media via reddit and Twitter encourages whatever reporting practices they use.
I read the comments first, assess if the article is worth reading. And why read them at all? There is nothing else to learn what is happening outside my sphere without disrupting my life to find out.
The problem, as I see it: I pay for a news subscription. News Organization continues to produce low-quality content because they continue to rely on advertising. So, I am paying for the same quality of content as when I did not pay; I am wasting money.
Theoretically, if everyone paid for a news subscription, then News Organization could afford to produce content that relies less, or ideally not at all, on advertising. However, as it stands, I do not trust the quality of News Organization, because it currently relies on advertising, and consequently does not optimize for quality: accuracy, timeliness, transparency and newsworthiness.
If it's dangerous enough, it'll hit you.
I get what you're trying to say though - not paying attention to your surroundings and so not knowing what is happening is potentially dangerous. The problem, of course, is that no one was arguing that being uninformed was ideal.
They were implying that the news wasn't optimal and stating outright that even without it you will be informed of the important things.
I'm assuming you understood that - maybe we are talking past each other - but if you did and you still disagree with the thrust of their points I think we'll have to agree to disagree. I find that it is an incredibly bad conflation to think paying attention to what a monetization of attention corporation thinks you should pay attention to is necessarily going to translate into being aware of your surroundings; I'm quite certain that, very very often, it not only doesn't do that, but accomplishes the opposite. The reason why I'm so certain is because of how poor the information quality is. News has perverse incentives, like being fast, rather than right. Generally you would be better off having been informed through slower channels - for example, by taking a course or reading a book or getting first hand accounts - rather than having gotten a watered down, distorted, and in many ways wrong interpretation from a non-expert optimizing for engagement.
Gosh, if only the phone company had some way to contact you ...
In other words, in many cases it is back to normal levels.
Thank the gods is all I can say. You could replace that headline with "News Enragement crashing 50% on Social" and still be close to the truth.
Anything that shows that we might someday be able to communicate without toxicity is a positive sign.
Did anyone see those comedy sketches on Instagram/TikTok about the fake army draft guy standing around NYC recruiting people?
He got some pretty honest opinions from people about the idea of going to the Ukraine, that mostly matches all of our representatives actions.
Basically "fuck that"
My neighborhood experienced rioters. They burned cars near my house, broke windows, ransacked stores, vandalism, looting, attacked people, my neighbors were on the streets with drawn guns, the national guard was deployed, and on the same day our police chief was literally kneeling in solidarity with the rioters. Yet this incident, and countless like it across the country, receded into the far distance almost immediately as far as the media is concerned. An hours long protest turned riot at the Capitol, where the only people killed were protesters by the police? This dominates media coverage more than a year later?
What I'm really getting at is that media coverage seems politically and ideologically driven to me. They want to shape the opinion of their readers to match the political agenda. That seems like a turn off to me.
It's all over Fox News too (granted they're also covering 'The View' Hosts React to First Lady Jill Biden's Taco Comments which sounds very important).
Thanks for not even trying to challenge the point about Newsmax!
Maybe far-right news sources are covering it because...it's news? Instead of because conspiracy.
Fox News notably didn't air the Jan 6 hearings, they cater what they cover to what brings them most views. For Fox News viewers, that isn't the hearings. https://apnews.com/article/jan-6-hearings-fox-news-ratings-c...
That said, within an hour or two of the meeting with the police chief protesters did enter an intersection and block it. A squad of riot police tried to disburse them and failed. So, if you want to count blocking intersections and ignoring police commands as rioting, then yes.
Even if you don't, then it's not really meaningful to make this point. I mean, sure, maybe it was coincidence and maybe the protesters of the morning just teleported away as the rioting happened, but there's absolutely no reason to think that.
So you didn't see "our police chief literally kneeling in solidarity with the rioters" at all then.
Exactly why I was questioning the veracity of your accusation.
Story: CNN and MSNBC down 33%, Fox up 12%
Engagement is down across 1. Cable viewership, 2. News app sessions, 3. Website visits , and 4. Engagement on social media.
What you have after "Story:" only deals with cable viewership (1/4 of the metrics).
Cable viewership is, on average, down 19%, and the story makes explicitly clear: "Those losses skew heavily toward CNN and MSNBC"