When the News Is Nonsense

[ysabetwordsmith]

Here is a brilliant, if ruthless, article about how the news has gone largely to nonsense.

Didn't the whole "balloon - spaceship --Wife Swap" faflooey set off any warning bells? As soon as you heard any of these concepts, didn't you think, "Hmm, this sounds screwy"?
Actually, no. It sounded like the rest of the inane gibberish on the news. I take

Comments

[stars_in_return]

I'm glad you posted this, I was starting to think I was alone in noticing the circus quality of this epic fail of the news (among many). Cause that is one of the best examples of it! And after the point of the story being driven so hard into the ground I realized that sadly enough, it didn't even matter if it was real or a hoax anymore, it still had the same effect. Well I hope the people who covered it realized how much time they wasted.

Well...

[ysabetwordsmith]

>>I'm glad you posted this, I was starting to think I was alone in noticing the circus quality of this epic fail of the news (among many).<<

These days, it's not a matter of "if" but "how long until" a news program causes me to grumble, "Bread and circuses!" Minutes or seconds, mostly.

>>Well I hope the people who covered it realized how much time they wasted.<<

The problem is, they are only counting two things: how much attention they get, and how much money they make. By those yardsticks, this nonsense was a raving success. That means they will probably do more such things in the future. I am appalled, but not really surprised. This is exactly the kind of thing that happens when corporations decide that their primary purpose is to make money and nothing else really matters: the product quality shifts to useless or worse than useless. And after a while, you've got a country full of bad service and shoddy goods, wherein important things don't get done effectively because the personnel and equipment just can't hack it.

[ladyqkat]

I have not watched the news with any sort of interest, except for a brief period during the election campaigning, for over three years now. I have also stopped reading newspapers because I find their 'reporting' trite and slanted, no matter what view they present.

If I am interested in a subject I find that scouring the web-based 'reporting' allows me to get a more balanced idea of what might be going on. Far too many 'journalists' are more interested in creating the news than presenting it and until the public (of any nation) demand integrity from those in public view, we will continue to see the decline of decency and honesty.

Yes...

[ysabetwordsmith]

>>I have not watched the news with any sort of interest, except for a brief period during the election campaigning, for over three years now. I have also stopped reading newspapers because I find their 'reporting' trite and slanted, no matter what view they present.<<

I quit watching the news even before we lost TV access, so it's probably been closer to 5 years for me. I am actively horrified now when I see snippets of the news (pretty much any channel) on TV in a restaurant or somewhere. It looks like a bad website, the kind you don't trust, like ... WikiNews. I still glance at newspapers if they're on a table for free; I rarely buy one unless I'm in it. Local news around here still contains some worthwhile material. (One advantage of living in a rural area is that farmers tend to be practical, which lowers the fluff percentage because they won't read that stuff.) National news, not so much

[veronica_milvus]

Even here in sensible Britain it is mostly lies and garbage. Eg a teenage girl collapsed and died a few weeks ago after receiving a vaccination against cervical cancer. Autopsy found she had a serious tumour in her heart and lungs which must have gone undetected for months. That didn't stop a newspaper screaming "JAB MORE DEADLY THAN THE CANCER". And when they are wrong nobody makes them apologise.

For good discussion see Ben Goldacres blog "bad science". For real news try BBC online or read The Economist: more interesting than it sounds.

[siege]

For whatever reason, I associate the name "The Economist" with radical conservatism. Maybe it's just moderate conservatism, but anything conservative these days makes me shy away as if it's going to ransack my bank account and judge me primarily on the contents therein and loudly and drunkenly insult my moderately liberal worldview.

I hate Fox News Entertainment.

[veronica_milvus]

The Economist is unashamedly Free Market, and if it were a preson it would vote Conservative - but that is still quite left wing for an American audience. It is interesting to see what it is saying about the banking crisis and the need for regulation. What it does give you is insight into politics, unparalleled coverage of Abroad, in depth articles on technology, and some wittier and lighter pieces than you might expect. If you really want to know what's going on in the world, it's the best. And its journalism does have the advantage of being accurate rather than made up to suit the opinions of the owners.