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blu3ree
Veteran
with mainstream media (the news on cable) repeating stories for a week straight and showing stuff that seems like very poor journalism (reading the telepromptor) ive began to take whats on the news with a grain of salt.
so where does everyone get their current events and news?
so where does everyone get their current events and news?
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As the money has gotten tighter, the networks seem to have contracted a bad case of Botox and boom box... pretty and loud. I do like to listen to Marcia Coyle when she appears on NPR ... she is a person of substance, a person who both thinks and has done her homework.
It is very hard to find a presentation that is more devoted to the story than it is to the person or organization presenting it.
It has a condensed, 'easier-to-get-through' version, simply called 'i' which is also punchy and to-the-point.
Always seems the same old same-old . . .
Some of the sites I visit: http://www.huffingtonpost.com - http://www.drudgereport.com - http://www.infowars.com - http://www.nytimes.com - http://www.news.google.com - http://www.news.yahoo.com.
A few years ago I realised that most news is either crime reporting or advertising, due to the fact that lazy/underfunded journalists will be happy to regurgitate the easiest sources of information, which tends to be police reports (a nice grizzly murder always gets attention) or press releases from corporations seeking to promote themselves (and since those corporations often pay the media large sums to advertise their products, that media feels compelled to include these spin pieces as 'legitimate' news).
On the psychological side, news is also deeply unhelpful. Reading a major paper or watching commercial TV news, you will basically get a distillation of the absolute worse things happening around the world, all thrown at you at once. What's more, almost all of these things are absolutely outside your control, so all you are left with is an overwhelming sense of misery about the world. It's not good.
Please note, by news I mean short-form info-news. The headline-grabbing and space-filling stuff.
So what's the alternative? Seek out "long-form" journalism. These are the articles that people take weeks or even months to put together. They tend to be more like essays than "news", although they will often discuss important current events.
The Global Mail
Matter
The New Yorker
The Economist
Namaste
Overall I try to limit my exposure to it. I don't feel a huge need to know everything that is happening in the world, the country, my state, or even my town. 99.9% of it doesn't directly affect me so why stress and worry myself with it? Not to mention I found that for me, it's a huge time suck. Why bother following the news of the crash of the airplane in San Fran? Most of the initial reports are wrong, anyhow, and the final word doesn't come out until days/weeks/months/years later. I found it sad how long it took for the US to pick up the story on the Quebec train crash. I have a friend who lives there, and when she told me about it it took a full 24 hours to even be mentioned here, and it was only really picked up when the news found out how many people had probably been "vaporized."
Anyhow, I personally find I am actually far clearer in mind and less stressed when I avoid the news. In the morning I had a habit of turning on GMA and instead now I leave the tv off and meditate and/or read. It's a much better use of my limited time rather than listening about this murder trial, that celebrity headed to rehab, this boating disaster, that kid who can do something funny on youtube, and so on. When the Boston bombing happened, I sat glued to the tv for hours. And walked away with no more answers than I had when I started watching. All for what? So I stopped.
Still, the commentary on a news story is probably what is more important than the fact of reporting it except probably in the case of investigative journalism.
When i told my mom that i stopped watching the news and sports she asked in befuddled vexation, "Then what do you talk to people about?" lololololololol! hillarious. apparently things can only have signifigance if they.... ah... jeez... ya know what?...... nevermind. its not really news worthy.
SO. VERY. LOL.
I don't know if its available in the U.S. but for the real lowdown re Brit issues I recommend a fortnightly publication called ' Private Eye.'
" I am not suggesting for a moment that Miss Flanders deliberately targeted two rising Labour stars......or that they, looking for future favourable coverage, targeted Miss Flanders. All that I am saying is her choices were a good preparation for of a life of impartiality as the BBC understands it ".
If this is the case, no doubt the blogosphere and Facebook and Twitter and the derivative news services and a variety of religions will be dancing in the streets, but the rest of us are left significantly dumber and increasingly more irresponsible.
Gathering facts first-hand is news. Gathering opinions gussied up as facts is gossip ... albeit sometimes very handsome and much-praised gossip.
If this is the case, no doubt the blogosphere and Facebook and Twitter and the derivative news services and a variety of religions will be dancing in the streets, but the rest of us are left significantly dumber and increasingly more irresponsible.
Gathering facts first-hand is news. Gathering opinions gussied up as facts is gossip ... albeit sometimes very handsome and much-praised gossip.
I think maybe you're going a little too far. I don't have time to read everything about -- for example -- the Snowden case. So I want some commentary to tell me what's important about it. There are too many significant issues out there for us all to know all the facts...we need help sifting through everything. That's the purpose of commentary.
Color me grouchy.
If this is the case, no doubt the blogosphere and Facebook and Twitter and the derivative news services and a variety of religions will be dancing in the streets, but the rest of us are left significantly dumber and increasingly more irresponsible.
Gathering facts first-hand is news. Gathering opinions gussied up as facts is gossip ... albeit sometimes very handsome and much-praised gossip.
Well, the content of the commentary is pretty important. Interviewing a couple learned individuals is way different than scrolling a twitter feed.
Certainly getting the facts out is important but I do really feel that putting those facts into context and understanding what they mean is where its at.
But like I said, investigative journalism, that uncovers important facts that we didn't know about is important.
In the end though of course both are important. The most insightful commentary about wrong information is pretty useless and two high school stoners talking about Syria won't get you much either (or FOX news for that matter.)
An oxymoron