"... and I used to spend hours consuming the news and calling it 'work.'... It felt like my duty to be informed, as a citizen and as a journalist — and also, I kind of loved it!.. I was too permeable.... So, like a lot of people, I started to dose the news. I cut out TV news altogether, because that’s just common sense, and I waited until late afternoon to read other news.... I went to a therapist. She told me (ready?) to stop consuming the news. That felt wrong.... Then one day a journalist friend confided that she was avoiding the news, too. Then I heard it from another journalist. And another. (Most were women, I noticed, though not all.) This news about disliking news was always whispered, a dirty little secret. It reminded me of the scene in 'The Social Dilemma,' when all those tech executives admitted that they didn’t let their kids use the products they had created."
She decides that news needs to be rebuilt around human needs. It needs to give people: 1. hope, 2. a sense of agency, and 3. dignity.
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Or, what if the low esteem in which the mainstream media is held is, to put it bluntly, well deserved? What if the drivel put out by virtually all national media organizations is just agit-prop for the benefit of the Democrats? What if there is no climate crisis, and people like Bjorn Lomborg aren't cranks at all? What if the entire world view of our "betters" in the media is mostly just wrong, and most journalists are not particularly intelligent? You can't begin to fix the many problems with our national media until you admit what the problems actually are, and this is beyond the ability and willingness of almost all journalists.
I used to do news blackouts once or twice a year. Six weeks of no exposure to the news. It was difficult as a practical matter as there are TVs everywhere turned to the news—even on some elevators. But it was cathartic, and it taught me that staying informed is over-rated—I’m powerless to affect it and virtually none of it affects me. The stuff that matters and is in your power happens locally, and you don’t need the papers to tell you about it. I always felt better at the end of the six weeks than I did at the beginning.
The only reason I don’t do the blackouts anymore is the internet makes it easy to ignore most news (as George Will realizes to his chagrin in another post).
How about just the facts, Amanda?
Amanda Ripley asks...
Is the problem me — or our product?
This gives me an opportunity to say: Embrace the Power, of the Word AND
The news needs to provide reliable facts about important matters that could impact peoples lives personally and their citizens. That’s all it needs to do. Everything else is propaganda.
Agree with Danno. Just report the basics of the story and drop the sensationalism. That said, drama does sell it and hooks people. It eventually wears and when it does, people remain wary. Until then it is the business model. Still, her recommendations suck.
Many young people are negative and pessimistic about the world because they believe the news media.
What they fail to understand is that there's a big difference between narrative and truth.
The media loves narrative, and sometimes will twist (or hide) the truth to keep the narrative going.
So, for instance, the media loves the narrative that we are heading for a climate disaster.
The truth -- we are not heading for a climate disaster -- is far more boring.
Another media narrative is that abortion is right and fine and good and never kills a baby. To keep that narrative going, the media hides all the aborted babies from its coverage. That's why you never see a photograph of an abortion in any news story about abortion.
This is actually paradoxical, because the media loves bad news, disasters, and catastrophes (even imaginary ones). In fact the media has a term for its own bias: "if it bleeds, it leads."
The media was opposed to the war in Vietnam, so it would show our people atrocities from that war. (Every war has atrocities, but sometimes the media wants to hide that, if it's a media-approved war).
Most people in the media are not intentionally dishonest. They just don't believe in diversity of viewpoints, and often hide or dismiss facts that conflict with their own narratives (which are overwhelmingly left-of-center).
If you're "following the news," what you're actually doing is staring at a computer screen or your phone. The images and texts on the screen may tell you that there's dramatic stuff going on thousands of miles away, but if you turn and look out the window, there's no sign of it. Take a walk, read a book, play some music -- none of those activities are affected by anything your computer is telling you is going on miles away. To follow the news closely is to immerse yourself in a world that has extremely little to do with your actual physical reality.
The biggest way the media distorts reality is by the concept of "news" as being an exception from the norm.
Man and woman fall in love and have a baby. Boring! No news there!
Man chops his wife into tiny pieces and feeds them to his Golden Retriever. Headline news! Oh my God! More coverage please!
So children and other non-thinkers might be confused by a media that normalizes atrocities, and makes us think they are common.
No. Atrocities are super-rare. Happy people are everywhere. That's not "news," but it's true.
We are actually living in a golden age of humanity. You're far better off in the 21st century than the 19th century, or the 16th century, or the 9th century, or the BC era. The world is a happier place.
Homeless people are miserable, but they're miserable with cell phones, and maybe a car. It's an eye-opening thing to discover that in may ways you are richer than John D. Rockefeller.
Christians talk about the "good news" of Christ. Secular media is filled with bad news. It's their life blood.
You can also find good news in stock market reporting. While some media (like Barron's and the Wall Street Journal) focus overwhelmingly on bad news, you can find all sorts of uplifting and optimistic news in the stock market. Investors tend to be optimists and optimists do well in life, and are happier overall.
Pay attention to all the good news in your life. Be thankful for it. Listen to the birds and hear their song.
I haven't watched tv news at all since 2011. I do scan the headlines in the Financial Times (UK) and read a few facts only articles when something big happens like Russia invades Ukraine, but I quickly switch to secondary non-news sources once the traditional media starts to settle on a "this is what you need to believe" party line. It's not just the media's fault. A lot of news consumers are too lazy or uninformed to come to their own conclusions and demand to be told what to think. I don't think it was always like this, but maybe I am looking at the past with rose colored glasses.
First thing anybody who gets a smartphone should do is turn off all notifications from new apps. It's just propaganda, and more often than not, the pro-Democrat talking point in the headline won't be supported by the text of the story, which they know no-one reads.
I don't study the news. It's unhealthy. If anything truly important happens, someone or the ether will tell you about it. I get my political news/comedy here and I aggregate my sports news from a sports blog. Skim the highlights go with your gut.
This is the shit I spend time studying and practicing:
https://www.youtube.com/c/Foundationtraining/videos
in between hilly trail hikes and pond swimming. Sitting is the worse. The Foundation guy will show you how to uncollapse your sitting ribcage and spine.
We were told in the 70's: Go Climb a Rock. Off to the pond for a 2-miler. Enjoy torturing yourselves in the sick misery underbelly dreamscape. Althouse was nice this morning, she fed you some juicy groomer porn.
"She decides that news needs to be rebuilt around human needs. It needs to give people: 1. hope, 2. a sense of agency, and 3. dignity."
How about "4. facts, presented objectively without bias; 5. nothing, if there happens to be nothing important that day; and 6. simple sentences, proper grammar.
The news needs to stop being biased.
She decides that news needs to be rebuilt around human needs. It needs to give people: 1. hope, 2. a sense of agency, and 3. dignity.
Um ... the news isn't your significant other. They are the people to give you those things.
The news needs to give people:
1. Who
2. What
3. When
4. Where, and
5. How
Occasionally, but very sparingly: 6. Why
The problem with the "news" is that it thinks it matters. It doesn't matter. Frequently, it's only purpose is to manipulate you, either for political gain or monetary gain but always for others, and never for you. It is using you. It is not your friend. And the quicker people are made to understand this the better.
I saw it from the inside. The media is a horrid, evil profession, peopled by the sort of unscrupulous manipulators you'd never let get near your children - some truly just awful people (imagine a concert hall filled with Taylor Lorenz's and Michelle Goldberg's in every seat).
It cannot be "saved."
I don't need a former WaPo journalist to be my mommy.
Start there, asshat.
I stopped watching all TV news except Fox during the 2012 election. When Fox called the Arizona election early, I stopped watching their content. I joined Twitter to follow people I trust. I've found it to be informative given you are smart enough to ignore the trolls & bots. Alos found it to be perfect for a smartass like me.
It needs to give people the truth. Then the people can figure out how THEY feel about it instead of some Journolist telling us how we SHOULD feel. (and if we don't...we are bigots.)
The human need the news is built on is soap opera. There's no market for hard news so there's no hard news.
At some point- maybe in the 2000s, our media environment switched from "news" to "politics as news". It must be easier to cover. I guess it would be. Easier for CNN and Fox and MSNBC and CBS to hire people who live in the DC and NYC areas to sit around and talk about politics than it is to have reporters on the ground giving out the facts.
There are still really good reporters out there. The guy who dug into Theranos for example. But most of news is politics, and most of politics is self-serving. I tune out a lot.
"She decides that news needs to be rebuilt around human needs. It needs to give people: 1. hope, 2. a sense of agency, and 3. dignity."
I think the first step for journalists is to regain their own dignity before worrying about giving others a sense of dignity. We're fine. It's the journalists who have been groveling in the mud for years.
Let's see... dislikes news... seems to fear exposure to the world...writes like a teenaged girl "(ready?)"...
Seems just right to be a WaPo "journalist."
"She decides that news needs to be rebuilt around human needs. It needs to give people: 1. hope, 2. a sense of agency, and 3. dignity."
What bollocks! The news needs to give people facts.
How surprising that many of her consorts in this kaka are women. /s
"I’m a journalist who stopped reading the news. Is the problem me — or our product?"
Yes
Announcing that you avoid "the news" in a newspaper. I have a new definition of irony.
"She decides that news needs to be rebuilt around human needs. It needs to give people: 1. hope, 2. a sense of agency, and 3. dignity."
And this is why, while I haven't stopped consuming news, I've erected a giant shit-detecting shield and therefore believe only kernels of what I see and hear on the news.
News needs to rebuilt around the facts: who, what, when, where, how. It's the "why" that's sent the news train off the rails. "News" people for a few decades now have been cheating the first five to conform to their preferred why.
I see truth and justice are not on her list.
“Is the problem me or our product?”
Let’s get one thing straight: your problem is that you don’t appear to know what is your product and what is not. Your product isn’t the information you write and publish (or broadcast.) Your product is the reader (or viewer), You deliver your product to the advertiser.
What you give to the reader or viewer is bait - in other word: worms and salmon eggs and velveeta cheese and chopped up pieces of fish and fake flys and rubber products. Your supposed reporting output was, to quote Michael Keaton’s character in the movie “Mr. Mom”: whatever it takes. When the CFO ordered revenue up you lowered your so-called journalistic standards to catch more readers to keep product deliveries going.
Blogger Howard said...
I don't study the news. It's unhealthy.
We can tell. Of course the legacy media, like the WaPoo, is not news.
Howard: "Althouse was nice this morning, she fed you some juicy groomer porn."
Howard really hates it when his groomer allies are called out.
Howard just wants everyone to leave his beloved groomers alone....with your young children...and teach them things that will completely sexualize them...and do it without your knowledge...and not have you discuss it because reasons.
Thats all.
Is it that people hold the news in low esteem, or do the news outlets hold the people in low esteem? Probably both.
"She decides that news needs to be rebuilt around human needs. It needs to give people: 1. hope, 2. a sense of agency, and 3. dignity."
Um...I'd say the news simply needs to tell the truth, insofar as "the truth" can be determined by the available verified facts, and to update prior reporting as necessary by additional verified facts as they become available.
"The truth -- we are not heading for a climate disaster -- is far more boring."
How do you know this is the truth?
Does the word "facts" appear anywhere in that essay?
Howard seems to believe his ignorance of the world will come as a surprise to the rest of us.
So that's a thumb's down for the Washington Post's narrative/agenda publishing.
Why does she think Trump called it “Fake News”? No curiosity as to the why of him saying that back then? Sheesh.
You mean a dozen "Trump is evil" stories in the Post EVERY DAY do not convey hope, agency, or dignity?
"We are actually living in a golden age of humanity. You're far better off in the 21st century than the 19th century, or the 16th century, or the 9th century, or the BC era. The world is a happier place."
And Slaves in the american south were living in a "Golden age" compared to Africa. So, what's your point? That we're somehow better than we were 500 years ago, is irrevlant. Are we better off then we were 20 years ago? A lot of people would say no. And is life good for lots of people right now? No. And is a lot this unhappiness caused by our political and business elites? Yes.
As for the topic at hand. If women don't like politics, dont vote. Or just vote the way your husband or father is voting. The only solution to problems in universal suffrage is to give extra votes to fathers with kids under 18. And raise the voting age to 21. That might mitigate some of the problems.
"She decides that news needs to be rebuilt around human needs. It needs to give people: 1. hope, 2. a sense of agency, and 3. dignity."
Wow. She still doesn't understand. It needs to give people the facts. That is a human need; to know what is happening. All that stuff she lists impedes that when it's placed above, and therefore hinders, just providing people information about what's going on in their world.
Why is this so hard?
This is a common adjustment to the world. I'm not surprised to hear it anymore - for about the past decade.
I'm not sure if this rolls on to journalist too, but when I can bring myself into prayer, and really listen for what happens next, I hear my God say back to me pretty clearly, "I love you man, but could you just shut the f**k up". Weirdly, it's done in in very loving way. I wonder if journalist hear that too.
I read a newspaper (paper version) maybe twice a week (probably as I'm having coffee somewhere). One of the following: WSJ - "B" section, NYT - arts and science or the Idaho Statesman - local and sports. It offends my wife to hear this, but to me they all seem like they are written by teenage girls. Maybe that's for the better, but it's not for me.
. . . . at least it's not as bad as if teenage boys had written it!
No, the news business needs to be rebuilt around news. I’m think who, what, where and when.
I sound like an old man yelling at clouds, but back in the day newspapers had an opinion page.
That's where they could persuade, shill, etc. about a cause or person that they believed in.
Everyone knew it wasn't 'news.'
Now there is no border for most papers. The news stories don't even cover the basics (who, what, etc.) while at the same time relating everything to some other cause.
That cause is usually climate change or women/minority rights.
Those things have nothing to do with Mr. Smith having his liquor store burned to the ground, but it advances a political world-view.
Just give us the fucking news, we'll do the rest ourselves...
No, a news site can't just be about solid journalism and facts. Look at the NY Post. I love the Post. Half their front page, though, is pain and trash: who was abused, who was damaged, who chose violence. It's basically a fact-based National Enquirer with articles chosen for clicks.
Hope and dignity are meaningless buzzwords. She's right, though, that a Jerry Maguire mission statement is a good idea.
"The truth -- we are not heading for a climate disaster -- is far more boring."
Well, actually ... we probably are headed for a climate disaster. If you look at the history of climate for the last million years or so, as revealed by cores from glaciers and sea bottom sediments, it is apparent that the Earth has two basic regimes, one warm, and one cold. They alternate, but cold is more common. That's when the glaciers come down from the pole and cover Canada and Northern Europe and Asia. We're in a warm period now, and have been for about twelve thousand years. As it happens, the average length of a warm period is twelve thousand years. It seems highly unlikely that the Earth will support seven billion humans during a cold spell, even with modern tech. I'm guessing more like half a billion. So we're going to need some volunteers.
"How surprising that many of her consorts in this kaka are women."
It does seem, that the decline into disgusting shittiness of everything on Earth did coincide temporally with the womanization of everything. Huh.
Hard to accept the notion that what ails the news business is an insufficient focus on improving the feelings of its customers. Many upthread complain that the real problem is that the purveyors of the new today don't focus on reporting 'just the facts, m'am'. There is much to be said for that view. And it's certainly true that there's a lot of spin being passed off as news-reporting. But the non-pejorative way of saying the same thing is that the reporter is providing perspective, and 'truth' and 'facts' get more fuzzy when the game becomes which level of generality should govern the story. Everyone (not just the lefties) has a narrative into which all the complexity of life will be forced to fit. So it becomes an exercise in finding the few who are less committed to a set narrative and more willing just to tell you what they see and how they've processed it. At bottom, it's a commitment to honesty.
Judging by what passes for new-reporting, it's harder than it sounds.
"Why does she think Trump called it 'Fake News'?"
So he can have a ready excuse to deny any reporting on his behavior if it is unflattering to him, (as truthful reporting of his behavior will be). Trump is more than happy with fake news that is flattering to him.
"And Slaves in the american south were living in a 'Golden age' compared to Africa."
What a stupid statement.
Smith @11:11
Exactly. It's not just the way stories are ideologically spun, it's the choice of which stories land above the fold to gain political traction.
As usual, George Will gets it right:
Today, the Internet and social media enable instantaneous dissemination of stupidity, thereby creating the sense that there is an increasing quantity of stupidity relative to the population’s size. This might be true, but blame it on animate, hence blameworthy, things — blowhards with big megaphones, incompetent educators, etc. — not technologies. Technologies are giving velocity to stupidity, but are not making people stupid. On Jan. 6, the Capitol was stormed by primitives wielding smartphones that, with social media, facilitated the assembling and exciting of the mob. But mobs predate mankind’s mastery of electricity.
Just gimme some truth. All I want is the truth.
Three cheers for hope, agency, and dignity, but in journalism they're likely to produce propaganda. I think of all the little Greta Thunbergs that kind of journalism would force on us.
90% of what gets presented as news is just trivia...someone you never heard of died today.
The problem with the news industry employees is they're trying to stretch 10 minutes of useful content into 24 hours, 7 days a week.
Most of those folks just need to be fired.
How do you know this is the truth?
The earth has had five ice ages, when the planet was covered in ice.
Is that normal?
Is that the "normal" climate that you're striving to obtain?
None of those ice ages were caused by humanity.
We didn't exist then.
So before you get me to panic about "climate change," first explain to me why the planet's had five ice ages.
That's my main reason for calling horseshit on this: historically the world's climate has undergone massive changes. Our planet covered in ice is just as "normal" as our climate today.
(I much prefer our climate today. Thus, not a crisis).
That's my main reason for being skeptical. But consider too that our climate data is insufficient for any hypothesis about a crisis.
We've been tracking temperatures for about a century. The last ice age was a billion years ago. A careful scientist would be worried about this discrepancy. (A careful scientist would first come up with a hypothesis to explain the ice age, before he started talking about the "crisis" that we are supposed to be facing now).
Not only is our climate data too small a sample, it's not trustworthy.
Urbanization makes a spot hotter. So if you've been tracking temperatures in a spot for a 100 years, and it was farmland a century ago, and now it's a metropolis, your data is going to be hotter. That's a local phenomenon that says nothing about the world's climate.
I agree that human beings are changing the climate. Of course we are. But there's no crisis, no doomsday, no missing icecaps in the North Pole.
Michael Crichton got it right. ManBearPig did not get it right.
need fact check on :
Amanda Ripley, in "I’m a journalist who stopped reading the news. Is the problem me — or our product?" (WaPo).
so does she know about "Trump cockholster" for Putin?
Saint Croix:
The last ice age was about 10,000 years ago and we had what is called a 'Little Ice Age' in the 15-16th Century.
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