This is what is wrong with our "news"

[giza]

Incidentally, it's also why I'm not a very big fan of print media. You pretty much have to listen to what they tell you. They decide what stories are important and worth writing about. Want to hear another viewpoint? Too bad, you'll have to spend some money on another newspaper, or might not even be able to hear the opposite side of the story.

That's why I'm such a big fan of information-based networks such as the Internet. Anyone can create a webpage or post their video on YouTube. And, if enough people think it is important enough to repeat, they will do so and the information will spread around on its own, independent of anyone else's control. Plus, it allows people to question what they see online. Don't care for a news story or video? Express your opinions in your blog.

Speaking of which... you have some explaining to do, Newsweek.

Comments

[acerover.livejournal.com]

I've seen worse...the media on the tv news.They allways talk about someone murdering another and nothing really good.So much about the War on Iraq,global warming,the President,ect....Do they ever know when to stop?Nope!

[giza.livejournal.com]

And that would be why I haven't watched much TV since moving out over 5 years ago.

Especially Network TV. More often than not, it's dumbed down to the lowest common denominator.

[cuprohastes.livejournal.com]

But then, how do you know when a news source goes bad on you?
You're happily reading your favourite news site, unaware of the fact it's now dropped into the pit of being a mouthpiece. Most people won't check multiple sources to compare stories.

[hetzakoatl.livejournal.com]

I do. I check Canadian sources (usually the CBC), British ones (usually the BBC), and then others. I used to enjoy the International Herald Tribune, but now it's run by the US paper, instead of the joint control it used to have under a US paper and a European one (forget the names at the mo).

[acerover.livejournal.com]

I don't even like to watch the news myself unless there is something that I want to see like news about Steve Irwin.
I don't know if you have noticed that people put up spoof vids of him being killed by a ray when that isn't what is really showing.You Tube and Google..that is basicaly where it has been seen.Click on one and you will get a ghostly like picture pop up in your face and and you can hear someone screaming behind the picture. Freaky!

[giza.livejournal.com]

Multiple news sources == web of trust

I look forward to the day when technology reaches the point where one can "analyze" a story to determine its degree of "bias", programatically compare it to other stories on the same subject, and extract an "average" story based on all the inputs, with the biases averaged out. That would rock.

[triggur.livejournal.com]

Horrible.

[cuprohastes.livejournal.com]

Yes and no - It depends on ho well thought out the system is: if you're checking e.g. 10 stories, and #1 - #8 match up, then that's the average story you'll get. Except those 8 stories are all re-writes of a single report from one source, and it turns out #9 is the most unbiased, and #10 is written by a sociopathic ex-Minister who's off his medications and is using it to demonstrate why it's the end times.
So how do you know? I mean you look around and discard #9 and #10 because they're not matching.

[triggur.livejournal.com]

See my LJ rant about the media. :-P

[gatcat.livejournal.com]

Few years ago I was in England, reading news on the BBC website about the developing situation in Iraq. It was deliciously, openly opinionated --the reporter (not a commentator) peppered the article with incendiary and unflattering terms for US political figures, international political figures who sided with the US, the US military, and the character of US citizens in general. Later that morning I followed a link from a US news portal site which took me to a BBC story--actually, same exact story about the same event, same number of paragraphs, same writer, same pictures--but it was written much more like news. Certainly not flattering to the US, but without the invective, without certain language which apparently had been purged from the version slated to run to US audiences.

Let the reader beware. With any story anywhere, a responsible reader should look for corroboration and alternate perspective elsewhere. Doesn't mean you have to agree with what's said, just that it should be considered.

Even as a member of the media, I don't like the way the media works.

[wildw0lf.livejournal.com]

I really can't believe they did that. Are you serious that's the same magazine cover/story in all other major countries, but the USA?

[boixboi.livejournal.com]

I have many, many problems with all forms of news media, although different folk tend to present different problems. One of the big issues with mass media outlets is that they know you cannot change people's opinions with "biased" reporting; people already have answers to the question the article presents. Therefore, the way to influence thinking is to change the question being asked. Consider the following two questions: "Who are Democrats going to pick for the 2004 campaign?" "Is there anybody in the Democratic party who can beat Bush in 2004?" To even begin to respond to that second question is to give in to the suggestion that Bush is nearly unbeatable. It makes it sound as if the election may as well already be over, and also implies that Democrats should only select from that very limited pool of "most likely to beat nearly unbeatable incumbent" rather than choosing a candidate on the merits of previous actions and known convictions. For some reason, I heard that second question a hell of a lot more than the first from the major network news media.

The problem with YouTube/Blogging/Etc as news is that these sources have no respectability. Sure, it's great, and I may agree with what some of them have to say, but the average individual is unfortunately going to say "Well that's not the -real- news, anybody can make stuff up and put it on a website!" And this is true. It is particularly unfortunate that in the W. era it seems that America's 'respectable' news outlets have taken to the same kind of dogged fact-checking that might be expected from a blogger, or maybe an illiterate 10-year-old writing a book report mostly on the basis of a book's cover art and a couple class discussion.

[giza.livejournal.com]

That's why I said "web of trust". :-) These are usually implemented to be multiple levels deep, and each user can set their preferences for things like how many trusted sources need to vouch for an untrusted source, and how much of that trust "filters" down to source that you don't know anything about, such as "friends of friends".

I really see the web, news, and search technology going this way someday. Social networking sites (like LJ) and folksonomies (like del.icio.us) are just the beginning.

[randomzen.livejournal.com]

I've been seeing this newsweek cover thing a lot on the net. It's ironic that subject of the covers themselves is apparently more interesting than the content that they published on the inside. It's rather like when you give a kid a toy and all he wants to play with is the box it came in.

[cheetor.livejournal.com]

If you're interested in such a idea, Earth & Fire Erowid have a exelent lecture on Psychadelic Salon, covering realistic trust-web based media

http://www.matrixmasters.com/podcasts/EarthFire/041-ErowidGrassrootsPeerReview.mp3

[azurelunatic]

I like to read headline feeds on the friends page, so it's a lot easier to have a variety of sources.