Well said! Breaks clear the mind and let you find patterns on your own.
It seems to me like what we want from the ‘news’ is help identifying interesting questions and help us tease out the patterns. I’m hopeful emerging technologies will help us do that more efficiently and in a way that doesn’t make us so depressed. 😔
I thought Tolstoy captured news saturation really well.
“Stepan Arkadyevitch took in and read a liberal paper, not an extreme one, but one advocating the views held by the majority. And in spite of the fact that science, art, and politics had no special interest for him, he firmly held those views on all these subjects which were held by the majority and by his paper, and he only changed them when the majority changed them—or, more strictly speaking, he did not change them, but they imperceptibly changed of themselves within him.”
For me radio has been a companion most of my adult life. CBC in particular. That's a lot of news. And today a ton of repetition. And terribly misguided. Take food banks for example. How many of the people flooding the food banks are carrying $1000 phones? Get real. People have figured out there's free food there. Duh.
I have trouble stopping listening though. I still want the comfort of intelligent voices chatting about current affairs. The nonsense is killing me.
Because each of we news junkies still only have the one vote each, and most people are not news junkies, I'm increasingly wondering what the "media narrative" even has to do with the next election outcome. I get the Vancouver Sun, on paper. I live in a condo with 18 units. I'm the only paper, though nearly all are over 40.
The various victories and defeats of "controlling the narrative" (say, is Canada still really loyal to Israeli policy, or could an Israel-criticizing pol get elected?) may only sway 10% of the population, and them not that much.
However, it is mightily important to develop the skill of rejecting (or skipping) news. When things get too far from "common sense" the skill to recognize such stuff is very valuable.
I stopped following the news cycle. In 2015 and 2016 - when Brexit happened and Trump got elected - media outlets felt like they were in a fever dream. In part, it still feels like that. I instead turned to data and original source material. There is a plethora of freely accessible research on virtually every topic one can think of. In depth research explains the Middle East conflict and why it's ok to eat cheese. But it requires a level of data literacy and context and this is where it becomes tricky - depth requires time, context and sometimes guidance.
Well said! Breaks clear the mind and let you find patterns on your own.
It seems to me like what we want from the ‘news’ is help identifying interesting questions and help us tease out the patterns. I’m hopeful emerging technologies will help us do that more efficiently and in a way that doesn’t make us so depressed. 😔
I thought Tolstoy captured news saturation really well.
“Stepan Arkadyevitch took in and read a liberal paper, not an extreme one, but one advocating the views held by the majority. And in spite of the fact that science, art, and politics had no special interest for him, he firmly held those views on all these subjects which were held by the majority and by his paper, and he only changed them when the majority changed them—or, more strictly speaking, he did not change them, but they imperceptibly changed of themselves within him.”
Thank you for delaying the "truth, which is different from fact" piece, you're 100% fight that's too much for November...
For me radio has been a companion most of my adult life. CBC in particular. That's a lot of news. And today a ton of repetition. And terribly misguided. Take food banks for example. How many of the people flooding the food banks are carrying $1000 phones? Get real. People have figured out there's free food there. Duh.
I have trouble stopping listening though. I still want the comfort of intelligent voices chatting about current affairs. The nonsense is killing me.
Because each of we news junkies still only have the one vote each, and most people are not news junkies, I'm increasingly wondering what the "media narrative" even has to do with the next election outcome. I get the Vancouver Sun, on paper. I live in a condo with 18 units. I'm the only paper, though nearly all are over 40.
The various victories and defeats of "controlling the narrative" (say, is Canada still really loyal to Israeli policy, or could an Israel-criticizing pol get elected?) may only sway 10% of the population, and them not that much.
However, it is mightily important to develop the skill of rejecting (or skipping) news. When things get too far from "common sense" the skill to recognize such stuff is very valuable.
I stopped following the news cycle. In 2015 and 2016 - when Brexit happened and Trump got elected - media outlets felt like they were in a fever dream. In part, it still feels like that. I instead turned to data and original source material. There is a plethora of freely accessible research on virtually every topic one can think of. In depth research explains the Middle East conflict and why it's ok to eat cheese. But it requires a level of data literacy and context and this is where it becomes tricky - depth requires time, context and sometimes guidance.
.. mebbe time to write about Canada’s Elected ‘Public Servant whores & pimps ..’
If you have a more ‘genteel take’ please feel free to hold forth .. eh !
Last I looked - this AM - no shortage of ‘Paid Prostitution’
“truth, which is different from fact” - when did truth become synonymous with belief rather than fact?
“objectivity - which doesn’t exist” - that’s your belief! ;)