Comment by robswc | Hacker News Reader

Comment by robswc | Hacker News Reader

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This is a genuine question and its going to sound silly and offensive but how much "news" do we actually need?

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/

- Help, The World Is On Fire And I Feel Like My Life Is Over At 24

- Multiple Women Are Reportedly Cooperating With The Criminal Investigation Into Jonathan Majors, And His Attorney Again Said He’s Innocent

- Two Former New Mexico State Basketball Players Accused Their Teammates Of Sexual Assault And Blamed The University For Doing Nothing To Stop It In A New Lawsuit

- A 34-Year-Old Man Who’d Recently Been Released From Prison Is Accused Of Killing His Parents, Two Of Their Friends, And Injuring Three Others In A Shooting Rampage

These are "featured" articles right now. I know interest is subjective but it just seems like none of that really matters for your day to day life. I stopped watching national news around 7 years ago and I have felt _immensely_ better since doing so and I don't at all feel like I've missed out on a thing. My life has seemed to slow down (in a good way).

The only news I pay any attention to is HN and my local news but even that is really only a few minutes a day.

Who is the target demographic for this news? All those stories could have been randomly generated and it wouldn't make a difference for the majority of visitors to that site.

I have a slight bias against journalism because I've personally been effected by a twisting of truth and being in finance (I run a trading firm) just the way investing/stocks are presented blows my mind (in a bad way)... that said, I'm never one to rejoice at people losing their jobs. I just really am curious as to why and what Buzzfeed news hoped to accomplish.

Humans already did a great job at turning almost all information online into pure noise and now we’re enlisting AIs to help cover the last stretch.

> I have a slight bias against journalism because I've personally been effected by a twisting of truth and being in finance (I run a trading firm) just the way investing/stocks are presented blows my mind (in a bad way)

This is kind of like saying "I have a slight bias against maps because one sent me in the wrong direction." People need a way to know what's going on in the world.

I stopped watching news for the most part as well. If anything is important enough for me to know, someone will tell me, guaranteed.

Most of it is not even news, it's fear peddling.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henny_Penny

If you must watch the news, limit yourself to the old fashioned 30 minute nightly news shows on the major channels. Everything else is bad for you.

>someone will tell me, guaranteed.

Exactly. I'm not suggesting everyone be uninformed... just that they don't need to be informed about the majority of what is considered "news" these days.

>Most of it is not even news, it's fear peddling.

Wow! Not even a joke. I just went to what CNN considers relevant "United States" news and this is the page:

https://web.archive.org/web/20230420200421/https://www.cnn.c...

Half of the articles are about random killings or violence. I don't see anything positive to come from visiting that page.

>This is kind of like saying "I have a slight bias against maps because one sent me in the wrong direction."

Maps giving the wrong directions is an accident. Journalists deliberately misleading for the benefit of their career/company is not an accident.

And continuing the maps analogy for the misinformation in finance, I would question the value of a map that often was entirely incorrect.

>People need a way to know what's going on in the world.

Why do people need to know what's going on?

I mean this genuinely because I have tuned out from national news, like buzzfeed, for a long time and it has only had positive effects on my life.

I'm in the same boat as I haven't read or watched the news deliberately for years. The important stuff is going to get through to me anyway.

But people need to have an option to know. You need access to information for healthy society, even if you mostly don't consume it. News is information, even the articles you posted.

>You need access to information for healthy society, even if you mostly don't consume it. News is information, even the articles you posted.

I don't disagree that people should be able to post news, 100% they should post whatever they want.

I just don't understand who the news is for. It seems to be news for the sake of news.

If almost everyone could live their lives without the news and remain largely unaffected, what is the point of it? Why not have niche sites handle the topics vs national outlets?

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