I'll always upvote a recommendation for Amusing Ourselves to Death. I haven't yet gone back to Understanding Media directly yet.

I haven't watched the news in 5 years. I started watching it again since Bondi (I live nearby), and while I'm surprised at the variation in reporting styles (political bias?) between Australian channels, my overwhelming observation has been just how little key information is actually conveyed.

I've found it very helpful to watch the live briefings, Q&As, etc with politicians, but the news cycle here is so short (hourly) that a few minutes later you get to hear a "recap" by the news reporter that glosses over most of the important and interesting points (at best) or actively removes key nuance and outright changes the message delivered by the original person (at worst).

I feel there has to be something between "I heard about a thing 7th-hand" and "I actively watch political discourse / read scientific papers", but I'm no longer sure The News, as we currently know it, is it.

Presumably this was what "journalism" was originally supposed to be.

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everdrive 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

>my overwhelming observation has been just how little key information is actually conveye

Much of it is merely factual statements conveyed by over-the-top body language and vocal intonation which paint a clear "this is bad" or "this is good" language. Often the language is biased as well, but the modern newscasters are "telling you how to feel" via the tone of voice in the same way that a friend is "telling you how to feel" when he recounts his horrible day that the office. Via body language and tone of voice he prompts you to respond sympathetically to him, and the newscaster does much the same.

	▲	kryogen1c 17 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I think the greatest crime social media has committed is convincing everyone their opinion matters, the idea that research/journalism is hot-swappable with fact-checking. Sometimes in conversation Israel or tariffs or whatever comes and I'm always like... idk? What do I, have a PHD? I know enough to know they're complex issues and the worst thing i could do is have a strong opinion

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aragilar 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Part of the challenge is unless you know what the "news reporter's" role is (are they just reporting what they see/have heard vs. analysis/opinion and what their relevant expertise is; I'd suggest good news providers have clear divides and provide this information (though with biases), those that don't likely have some agenda), you get a mix of voices/views without a clear understanding of the facts. A different challenge is constraints of the various content formats/audiences (which are really only obvious when the same journalist does the same story in different formats).

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nosianu 4 hours ago | parent [-]

IMO "just reporting what they see" is a solution at all. I tried looking at messages through that angle, and too often there is very important context that you need, or the message's content does not make sense, or becomes something different.

For example, we have plenty of "journalism" that reports exactly what some entity says. That just makes them a PR channel. If they added context that politician's or company's message's content's meaning would turn on its head and would be exposed as a lie.

Similarly, a lot of news would greatly benefit from larger context that just is not there, and that the vast majority of "consumers" of the news are simply not aware of, through no fault of their own.

"Just report what you see" IMHO is part of the problem, not the solution. It's trying to "solve" the reporting problem by removing most of the role of journalists because they are seen as unreliable, for good reasons, but I don't think that works at all. It is similar to trying to solve all problems by adding ever more rules for everything, to remove the uncertainty and unreliability of individual decisions.

This is just like at work, where the capital owners and bosses would love to replace all those pesky annoying opinionated humans with something more controllable and predictable. If the intelligence can be moved from the people into the process, the latter become replaceable and much cheaper, and the company gets much more control. But it is not just the owner class that does not like having to rely on and to deal with other humans.

I think the direction of development of the role of journalists has actually gone way too far in exactly the direction of them using less and less of their own brains, and having less influence and ability, for most messages, the very few deeper pieces notwithstanding.

Although, none of that will do anything as long as the news source owner structure is the way it is, with a few billionaires controlling most of the big news sources.

	▲	aragilar 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Only doing "just reporting what they see" is a problem as well (and even AP (https://apnews.com/) does analysis, and their more on the "just reporting what they see" side than most news providers), but opinions being presented as facts is far more common (at least from the mainstream AU media, I don't know what the situation is elsewhere), hence trying to clearly demarcate the two is better than being unclear about what you are presenting. You need facts and analysis, and them labelled as such. Personally, I find a good example of this is the different election broadcasts: the commercial TV broadcasters tend to have their staff take both the role of election analyst (i.e. result prediction) and commentator, whereas the ABC (one of the public broadcasters) has tended to have clear separation of roles (enough such that the election analyst who just retired has a cult following), with an election analyst who is giving detailed predictions and calls the election, political journalists providing context/analysis, polling experts covering what the polls missed/got right, and politicians from the major parties giving their opinions as well.

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kevin_thibedeau 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I watch news (and everything else) on YouTube at 2x speed to keep the information density high enough to be worthwhile. Once you get used to it, regular media becomes less tolerable because everyone is talking too slow.

	▲	b00ty4breakfast an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		what the techno-industrial mindprison does to an mf
	▲	anal_reactor 7 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		I often watch YouTube at 1.5x speed and then during work meetings my brain starts looking for the speed button.
	▲	einpoklum 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		The 2x speed will only keep your brain preoccupied enough not to notice the relevant information is missing or made very shallow... getting the same slop in half the time won't solve the problem.

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Roark66 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

>my overwhelming observation has been just how little key information is actually conveyed.

This is the key. I think they (entertainers cosplaying as journalists) do it on purpose. For example, from time to time I do attempt to watch some "news" on TV with my partner.

A typical interaction may be: - TV - "..the president vetoed a bill to lower taxes...here is what this politician thinks: 'I think he only cares to gain support of the extremists he secretly supports', and here is what another politician thinks 'it was a bad bill'" - me to my partner - "did I miss it? have they said what the bill was about? What were the exact things that were questionable?" - her - "nope" - TV - "... The president says he will be submitting a similar bill minus the parts he disagreed with, and now a house burned down in..." - me - "WTF was that?"

I sometimes wonder if they are playing a sort of game, how many minutes of "content" can be made while conveying the least amount of information possible.

	▲	bsenftner an hour ago \| parent [-]
		> I sometimes wonder if they are playing a sort of game, how many minutes of "content" can be made while conveying the least amount of information possible. Exactly my impression. I tell people there is no real news in the United States, only gossip style reporting of information one can do nothing about and has nothing to do with them. If the reporting it political, it's in 4th grade language and a second grade mentality. News in the United States is talking to children.

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john01dav 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> I feel there has to be something between "I heard about a thing 7th-hand" and "I actively watch political discourse / read scientific papers", but I'm no longer sure The News, as we currently know it, is it.

I have found that some Youtube channels and videos (non-comprehensive examples below (I have hundreds of subscribed channels), mostly not politics, but these things inform politics since politics is making decisions about other things) can fill this gap nicely. This is not a perfect choice, since journalism integrity and standards do not apply, but I find that this can be mitigated by watching a wide variety (for example, in the field of economics, I regularly watch creators who espouse everything from very free-market capitalism all the way to full on communism). There are likely other forms of new media that operate at this level of depth, but I haven't found htem.

https://www.youtube.com/@TechnologyConnections

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWUaS5a50DI

https://www.youtube.com/@HowMoneyWorks

https://www.youtube.com/@DiamondNestEgg

https://www.youtube.com/@TLDRnews (and associated channels)

https://www.youtube.com/@BennJordan (recent good example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vU1-uiUlHTo)

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brabel 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I started watching the full press releases and politicians interviews which are normally available on YouTube. It just changed how I view geopolitics. The media is extremely biased and absolutely does not report what people are actually saying. You really should never accept at face value what the news are reporting.

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DavidPiper 4 hours ago | parent [-]

> I started watching the full press releases and politicians interviews which are normally available on YouTube.

Is this true for Australian politics? This is exactly what I'm looking for. Currently all my searching for recent events just results in summarised/paraphrased news reports with some footage, or shorts and clickbait.

	▲	ViscountPenguin 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Parliamentary question time is pretty good for that here in Australia, I'd recommend giving it a listen every now and again.

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DavidPiper 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Thank you for these sources! Happy to see Benn Jordan, How Money Works and Technology Connections as grey links :-)

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andrepd 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Honestly, it boils down to capitalism / market pressure. Quality journalism is expensive, compared to the return in the form of the price people are willing to pay for that quality journalism. Clickbait is so profitable, it's like a powerful magnet pulling all news institutions, be they TV channels, newspapers, or whatever, towards that model.

LLMs can produce a literal terabyte of slop for cheaper than a month's wage for a journalist. I'm not hopeful.