Does Personalized News Lead To Ignorance? 396
blackbearnh writes "As newspapers struggle to survive and local broadcasts try to find a way to compete with cable news, more and more news outlets are banking on what people want to hear about, rather than what they need to hear. Thoughtful analysis of problems is being pushed out of the way to make room for more celebrity gossip. Electronic news guru Chris Lee thinks that as people get news increasingly tailored to their tastes, the overall knowledge of important issues is plummeting. 'I think one of the observations about how consumers are behaving in the past five years that has surprised me the most is, again, this lack of feeling responsible for knowing the news of their country and their local government of that day. I don't think it's just a technology question. I think if you asked people now versus the same age group 20 years ago, I think they'd be stunningly less informed now about boring news, and tremendously more knowledgeable about bits of news that really interest them.'"
New should not be tailored to consumers (Score:5, Interesting)
As odd as it sounds, I think that news should not ever be tailored to the "consumer". Telling the people only what they want to hear is just as bad (if not worse) than only telling them the news YOU want them to hear... If I was planning on becoming a repressive regime leader, ruling my country with an iron fist... I would start by telling all of the people all the "news" they wanted to hear.... In-Depth reviews of the latest "Mycountryian Idol", all the sports news they wanted, how wonderful the newest movie blockbuster is (and who the stars are sleeping with!)
Then the populace would be too busy thinking about those silly topics to even notice or care that I had just imposed mandatory impalement sentences for jaywalkers.
Two Fine Examples (Score:5, Interesting)
I Particularly Enjoyed (Score:5, Interesting)
Until then, I guarantee you that people will prefer to seek specialized news sources because the editors and writers for that source are often experts and their biases are often exactly what we want. Just look at the blogs of Michael Geist and Bruce Schneier, way more preferable than any big name news site's 'computer security' division.
Other Consequences (Score:3, Interesting)
It will affect social interaction in some way or the other, since you cannot be sure people heard something just in was in your news. This will lead to coordination problems due to the lack of common [wikipedia.org] knowledge [wikipedia.org]. (There is a nice book about culture, coordination, and common knowledge Michael Suk-Young Chwe.)
More pervasive than just news (Score:4, Interesting)
In the US at least, knowing a lot about ANYTHING makes you a nerd, a social outcast, the non-cool guy. Ask a coworker how their boiler works, or how to change their oil. Ask them how to chainsaw a tree. Ask them how to wire a switch, or pull a shot of espresso. Most will look at you like you showed them dirty pictures - "What? Me? Do actual labor?" Combine this with the steady erosion of the effects of causality (helicopter parents, welfare system), combined with the death of Civics as a school subject, and you have population of effete, spoiled sheep, ready to accept whatever shackles are imposed, in order that they be safe and comfortable.
Another explanation (Score:1, Interesting)
More and more people are starting to view news as little more than propaganda. They dont use that word of course, but people are sick of being constantly manipulated by subtly twisted information and they are starting to react to that by tuning out.
I'm guilty... (Score:3, Interesting)
Checking out my Google Reader account leaves me a bit shocked.
~300-400 articles per day, and only about 30 of those (from Reuters and BBC) are actual news. The rest is gadgets, software and other tech stuff.
Oh well, other people waste their time with Twitter, Facebook and the like.
Re:Two Fine Examples (Score:5, Interesting)
Yet the daily show on comedy central has higher ratings and is where MORE people turn to for unbiased news.....
Frightening, that Jon Stewart is america's most honest newscaster in a lot of people's eyes. This says volumes about how worthless all the news outlets are.
Basic definition of "news" or current affairs (Score:3, Interesting)
So if there's a car crash near where I live, that (could) affect me and is therefore newsworthy. If a car crashed in a town 50 miles away, that's no longer news and I don't want to hear about it. (Presuming I'm not one of the sick puppies who gets off on gory pictures and other people's suffering). Likewise if the government is going to increase my tax burden: that's news, but on a bigger and more abstract scale.
If there's a natural disaster in a faraway place, is that news? Well, it almost certainly doesn't affect me so no. However, it is worthy of reporting (but not reveling in) as part of a duty to inform about events that shape or change the world we live in.
However, there's also current affairs: providing background information about WHY things happen, WHY decisions (that will affect me) are made, or what risks I could be exposed to in the future - including information about options or duties I may have as a result. Climate change (or the debate about it) comes into this category. It's not news per. se. but it is something worthy of informing "the public" about.
The problem is (as the OP says) we're barraged by "news" from all over the place - most of which is distributed because the source is cheap / easy or spectacular, rather than because of it's importance. Almost all of this is inconsequential and is a very good reason for filtering it out. If we don't than the stuff that matters to each one of us, individually gets lost and we become desensitised by all the bad things that are being reported, so when something significant happens that does or should affect us, we fail to appreciate what it means. That's why news should be tailored for the individual
All the News You Want to See (Score:5, Interesting)
That doesn't necessarily mean that there should be less. However, the pervasiveness of "news sites" and aggregators means that people can make sure that the news they are exposed to is stuff they know they will likely agree with, and furthermore, omits any details that might make that news less positive or shed any negative light at all on the causes and groups they favor. People can ensure, today, that they are only going to receive the kinds of news they want to hear and that reinforces their already-held beliefs.
My mother would keep Fox News on every television in the house so when walking from one room to another, she wouldn't miss a thing. She'd turn it off only to listen to Rush or the like on the radio, and she got her online news and opinions from Fox, Townhall, etc. This meant that everything she was exposed to not only was something she was likely to agree with, but it reinforced her beliefs, leading to her implicitly trusting everything they said - even if it was demonstrably untrue.
My aunt is the opposite, reading DailyKos daily and Rachel Maddow. It doesn't matter whether it's the left or the right - what matters is that with so many news sources today, you can make sure that the news you see, read, and hear, is news that the source knows you'll agree with, and they can take advantage of that.
A great example is getting on the Metro to go to work this morning, I was handed both the Express (slanted left) and the Examiner (slanted right). The Express cover story was on the State of the Union address. The Examiner cover headline was "GOP Governor Challenges Obama on National TV", with a big picture of said governor, and you'd never even know that the reason was the State of the Union address and they were highlighting primarily the Republican response.
The problem with this is that it leads to severe polarization - my mother trusted Fox News and Rush Limbaugh to the point that even when it could be proved beyond all doubt that something they said was 100% false (or even contradictory), it instead led to her shouting at the person because she agrees with so much of what they said on other topics that they can't possibly be wrong. The fact that almost anything positive done by the "other side" would be ignored, never reported on, twisted into having "her side" take credit for it, or the like.
If someone dislikes gay people, they can be sure to find a news organization that will only post negative stories, ignoring all else, even if a gay person cured cancer or saved a thousand children from a fire. And they go on happy that their opinion is being reinforced because hey, look at all these nasty people, and don't have to feel uncomfortable by being exposed to stories that potentially might challenge that worldview. If they dislike organized religion, there's sites out that that will make sure to only point out the negatives thereof.
The polarization this leads to is tearing not just this, but many countries apart, with sides that, day after day, are hearing nothing but awful things being said about the "other side", and nothing but good things said to them about "their own side", daily reinforcement of something they're already predisposed to believe. This ends any possibility of compromise, of discussion, of reasonable governance, because the other side is not just wrong, but evil, and compromise with evil is abhorrent. The left can't just be to the left, they must be Communist and Socialist, and the right can't just be to the right, they are Fascist and Authoritarian. No wonder we can't get anything done.
A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer (Score:4, Interesting)
Then again, the Vickies are also depicted as un-curious and possessing of a stagnant society, so take from that what you will.
Re:What they NEED to hear!? Goebbels quotation?? (Score:5, Interesting)
I like Slashdot as a geek news source because of the unfiltered comments (I run at -1 and I like it). The summaries (of dubious accuracy) and the comments give you an unbiased feel for public sentiment on a subject. Sometimes I read TFA, sometimes not. Either way, I'm more informed about a topic even if I just read the comments and the slant comes from both sides. Were there a similar site for "real" news, I'd probably use it as my main source; unfortunately, the Internet has bred so many Trolls and Spammers that any general news site with a similar comment system would attract way more of those types than Slashdot ever will. So, for now, I'll just scan headlines and summaries at various "real" news sites and read the few articles of relevance to me.
Re:Well duh! (Score:5, Interesting)
Clearly it's true that if you're interested in sport you're going to watch that part of the news more than if you aren't. That's not the problem.
The problem is that if you believe that socialized medicine == death panels, you're going to exclusively read news sources that tell you that[1]. Likewise the moon hoax brigade and the ones who see the illuminati everywhere. No matter how much of a nutter you are, there's other nutters out there you can link up with. Mutual bias confirmation. There's no balance. Nobody uis ever exposed to a different viewpoint.
[1] I believe the name is "Fox News".
Re:What they NEED to hear!? Goebbels quotation?? (Score:3, Interesting)
I see this trend also, it is almost like as a society we have turned on the herd mentality full blast. Either you are with us or you are against us. It is a sad day when I find myself listening to NPR of all places to get semi-balanced reports on stuff (even they tend to be slanted on certain issues). At least I know there I will hear stories on large variety of topics and usually with a representative of each side presenting their view of it.
It saddened me a little today when they were doing their report on the response to the State of the Union the positive thing they suggested everyone remembers is that no one booed the president.
Re:new should not be tailored to consumers (Score:2, Interesting)
"Objective reporting" never really was. The idea of the media being an objective reviewer is a relatively recent invention, and even then the "objectivity" angle was really an attempt to present what used to be blatant editorializing as news in hopes of gaining trust (and, thusly, eyeballs and revenue dollars).
The problem pseudo-objectivity has is that it's impossible to be objective on something that someone disagrees with you about, and thusly they won't listen to you. So someone else will pop up who's also claiming objectivity in order to cater to those people, but it's somehow different from your objective take. And then there's swaths of people who are, commercially speaking, worthless but who would view anything coming out of the various "objective" media outlets as biased.
I think we'd be better off if media agencies dropped any pretense of objectivity, and thusly the according "trust" that objectivity infers.
Re:Two Fine Examples (Score:3, Interesting)
Although many Europeans consider them right wing reactionaries they are non the less taken very seriously for content and presence.
For the European palate Fox News is an failed and annoying attempt at satire that only the dangerous among Americans take for informative.
The subject of this /. article suggests people might get more dangerous by being able to avoid (the rest of) the news.
By the way, I see similar problems in Europe, it's just we have less taste for military solutions to the world's problems :)
News they want, not opinions... (Score:3, Interesting)
Funny, this very discussion was on NPR this morning. The guests were a journalist and a producer and they were talking about the current state of popular "news" networks. The specifically harped on NBC and FOX. These networks are getting great viewership not because they are presenting the news, but because that have celebrities presenting opinions. What you wind up with is the greatest success for capitalism (the networks produce a program that viewers want to watch) but the worst failure for information distribution (as all that is getting repeated is opinion, not fact).
So I'm all for the "get the news you want" angle, so long as it is news we are talking about. News that is factually based and composed by journalist. Not opinion pieces and partisan blowhards repeating the talking points that will help their preferred candidate/downer.
-Rick
Considering "duh!" as a state of mind (Score:5, Interesting)
Mostly, the folk expressing this sentiment don't know each other, and only a couple know me (e.g. friends, friends of friends, strangers to each other).
This isn't merely based on blatant falsehood, it's a very peculiar notion, one that stands out from the daily din. I've seen it raised, independently, three or four times this week. Where did this notion come from? Why do they uniformly cite both of those examples, 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina? Coincidence, or did they get this from the same source? Perhaps it's merely because these are the two largest disasters to strike the U.S. in the past ten years, but why cite both, and not merely one, or the other, particularly when one is a man-made "disaster", not really parallel to the hurricane and the earthquake. I wonder if maybe they are parroting the same original source. Did someone like Sarah Palin tweet or MyBookFaceSpace it, as with the "death panels" thing?
Uniformly, these folk have chosen to ignore simple evidence that the claims, that other countries didn't offer assistance to the U.S. after 9/11 nor after Katrina, are false. (In fact, many nations assisted the U.S. following both incidents, offering even the lives of their sons and daughters in the case of those allies fighting in Afghanistan, and serious assistance of various kinds during the International Response to Hurricane Katrina [wikipedia.org]).
This is just one example, but it's a curious one, based not only on ignorance of a few specific facts, which ought to be common knowledge, but apparently on a militant desire to remain ignorant. (Offering the link above leads them to resort immediately to changing the subject, occasionally to what they consider to be my own personal failings, particularly in people I've never met. The sudden and fairly extreme hostility offered up by both acquaintances and strangers when simple evidence is presented reminded me of the term "splitting [wikipedia.org].)
I wonder if the insulating bubble effect of modern segmented news and opinion delivery is building a society which is incapable of or at least resistant to the synthesis of new ideas, which itself is a rational response to the cognitive dissonance [wikipedia.org] which results from inconvenient facts.
I still think facts matter, but if they only matter to a handful of people, can democracy survive?
Re:What they NEED to hear!? Goebbels quotation?? (Score:4, Interesting)
It's called a confirmation bias [wikipedia.org]. People tend to pursue information that agrees with their opinions.
Now, in the past, news sources were forced to be balanced, to reach the largest possible audience. Only one newspaper in town, so it can't be too far to one side or the other unless the whole coverage area also leans that way.
Now, the market is so diverse that there is plenty of room for specialized news sources, and people can tune in to whichever one makes them feel best about their own opinions, and when all the information they receive conforms to their bias, they become more biased, and you end up with the sort of crap polarized political situation we're in right now.
a few valid objections off the top of my head. (Score:3, Interesting)
I have several solid reasons for objecting to government run healthcare in general and the instant legislation in particular. The problem is that true believers in government run healthcare are deaf to them, succumbing to the same malady as you and others here lament regarding opponents who may or may not be opposed on solid merits, namely only subscribing to media outlets that tell you what you want to hear.
1. I'm a fan of civil liberties, so any system that gives the people with the guns and cages (government) more information to use against me (or you). Or Eliot Spitzer who in fact was hoisted by legislation he championed as being necessary to combat terror. Problem is... scope creep. It was such a "useful tool" that its use was expanded to fraud investigations when it was previously promised to us civil liberties "nuts" that such would "nevar happen". So, yes you could still make universal government-funded healthcare that collects no information about the consumers, but no one would ever do it on grounds of thwarting fraud and hypochondriacs. And in order to make the calls about whether a given citizen is worthy of continued medical care. Oh, and because our new J. Edgars want more complete dossiers on everyone so they can use the fact that you (potentially a legislator) have AIDS and your family doesn't know it to keep you from voting against certain expenditures, or to ensure you confirm certain nominees. Not that any of this could evar happen here in the land of the free. Oh, wait. Hoover would drool over the current "toolbox" much less what he'd have with the current and politically possible plans for government funded healthcare.
2. efficiency and % of GDP. proponents direct us to look at other socialized systems that consume less % of GDP, and this is good, but do you really think congress are going to pass anything that increases efficiency in the "booming healthcare industry"? That would necessarily mean decreasing the number of jobs in that industry, and healthcare is the only industry that has consistently grown through the current depression. Thus, anything that congress is politically able to do will impoverish us with people doing make work, like medical data entry and such, one of the chief drivers of unnecessary expense in the current system which makes it unaffordable for average people now.
3. all that really needs to be done is to remove industry protectionist measures like state restrictions on competition from out of state insurers and barriers to market entry for new insurance companies. shortly, as mentioned above, too many people are eating off the healthcare industry in a parasitic manner. Maybe trying something like this guy has for non-emergency care should be on the table...
http://jayparkinsonmd.com/ [jayparkinsonmd.com]
Nes hasn't changed. (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem doesn't seem to be that people are getting biased inaccurate news. The 'problem' seems to be that people are now becoming aware that the news they get is biased, and are struggling with the idea of choosing the bias themselves instead of having it chosen for them.
Re:Well duh! (Score:3, Interesting)
People who get all their news from The New York Times and NPR as every bit as ignorant as those who get all their news from Fox and The Wall Street Journal.
And vice versa.
There's an important point about journalism that you're getting exactly wrong.
I've been reading the New York Times and Wall Street Journal daily for 35 years. Both newspapers are supposed to be writing their news stories (as distinct from the editorial pages) in a way that gets all sides of the story, preferably in the same story, or at least over a series of stories. That's what journalists mean by objectivity or balance.
They've done a fair job. I think the WSJ used to do a better job of giving all sides, which is why I bought it, but in recent times they've become more alike and Murdoch has been doing unprecedented interference in the news reporting.
Even a Wikipedia story has a section called "Controversy." A news story that gives both sides, or different sides, is going to inform you better than a story that only gives one side.
I also think it's good to read the left and right extremes. My best source on the left is http://www.democracynow.org./ [www.democracynow.org] For the right, I read the WSJ editorial page, but they're not the principled conservatives they used to be.
Re:a few valid objections off the top of my head. (Score:4, Interesting)
(1):'more information to use against me (or you).' ...
That information is now with your insurance company, how is that ANY better ? in fact, that is WORSE, because there are NO restrictions and checks on validity, sale of data,
(2): that has nothing to do with private public health care, but with your broken 'democracy'
(3) i don't think that's enough. the private firms need to be regulated. a few examples of regulations could be : a flat rate for everybody + everybody can go and come when he pleases, and no company should be able to kick you out.
the following 2 statistics provide the results of private health care:
1/ http://www.jhsph.edu/publichealthnews/press_releases/2005/anderson_healthspending.html [jhsph.edu]
'U.S. Still Spends More on Health Care than Any Other Country'
2/ http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html [photius.com]
Usa ranks 37th.
Re:Well duh! (Score:2, Interesting)
Oh, yes. And with good reason. Profit motive is fairly predictable, and contract law is well settled. Politics are volatile, and while insurance companies are slimeballs, they come out like roses against most everything the government does. This is pretty much beyond debate, as far as I know.
What?! The economy is volatile, and contracts are only as good as your understanding of them, and insurance companies are notorious for dropping people or denying coverage on any of a hundred technicalities when they actually need the care they've been paying for. They never notice these issues when the customer applies or while they're healthy and paying of course. What is the government doing with Medicare or Medicaid that is so much worse than that?
Plus it is relatively trivial to change insurance, compared to changing one's nationality.
That's not true in my experience. I don't know of anyone that has insurance other than what's offered by their employer, aside from some supplemental plans, whose terms can't even be deciphered by most lawyers, let alone their customers (you should see some of the analyses of these contracts).
Only where 'nuts' includes a complete distrust of government. Particularly the blue pill. That can be hard to swallow when you don't trust the dispensary.
I don't trust the government either, regardless of pill color. They're all corrupt, but then so are the insurance companies. Nobody who signs up with an insurance company has any idea what kind of coverage they'll really get or whether they'll get dropped on some technicality if they suddenly need some expensive care. Not you, not me, nobody. But we've got an endless parade of examples of people who've been screwed by that industry because of the twisted incentives involved. The problems I've read about with the care given by the Medicare system (aside from financial mismanagement issues) have been pretty tame in comparison to those by the insurance companies, which are just infuriatingly evil.
If we were limiting ourselves to expanding Medicare/Medicaid. That would be one thing. But we're not. We're going for the whole shooting match with one shot.
Personally I think the single-payer system would have been a better bet. It's much simpler and has comparatively straightforward incentives for everyone. I guess they decided against trying it the insurance industry would've gone apeshit and we'd have been bombarded with and endless stream of disinformation and FUD by the industry.
Here's a humble suggestion - what if we make the government pay all claims over $100,000, and leave the rest to the current system?
Only if everyone is paying into the government system to cover this.
I just really think limited, common sense ideas could work here, and am unsurprised that we have yet to see any from Washington.
There's almost nothing about health care that is common sense. Especially when trying to figure out the current system which has some of the most screwed up incentives imaginable which inflate the costs of health care all around and are a big part of our deficit problem.