11-21-2017, 12:06 AM
Atlantean1 wrote:
I don't understand what the alternative is supposed to be.
When I do indulge in news watching/ listening I go with BBC. The way you talk it sounds like you read the newspaper first thing in the morning, then peek out your kitchen window and slam the shudders closed as soon as you see someone walking by...you then call in sick for work because you heard the flu was going around and also hackers are stealing people's credit card numbers from the cafe across the street from there. After that you hunker down in front of ur TV all day with popcorn watching in suspense and horror either Fox or CNN (whichever one floats ur boat and helps you with your "fix").
Immediately after the US presidential elections I got pretty close to that. But no, not really.
For a while I was reading the online English language versions of Indian, Russian, Arabic, and Chinese newspapers, and for a while I had a special project where I was reading the English language Nepali newspapers. That was back when India was blocking trade to Nepal and India wasn't admitting it but "everyone in Nepal knew it was true". The Indian newspapers were pretty good, you can trust the English more. They're really not just writing it for propaganda, they actually do speak English over there. The Russian papers, not so much. Their English versions are clearly suspect.
But no one has time for that. Maybe some day I'll be a pro journalist and I can get more into this. But it was NOT wasted time.
These days I listen to NPR while I'm driving and that's about it. I'll hit up nytimes.com or reuters.com if something important is going on. I used to read huffpost, but it got annoying. If there's a Trump scandal going on I'll check it out over there, because they do the best Trump scandal pieces. Sometimes I even force myself to read breitbart.com, ESPECIALLY THE COMMENTS, just to see how their reality bubble is holding up.
I think you have a misunderstanding about journalism, it is absolutely not only useful for getting the facts, it is useful for discerning how people THINK and FEEL about the facts -- where they are willing to just ignore them, and where they simply CAN'T be ignored.
In fact it might not be a bad idea to spin up a for-profit sorcery newspaper here, it might really start killing it in "new media". I don't know if I can take on anymore side projects right now but WHO VOLUNTEERS TO RUN THE TWITTER??? Anyone?
Pro tip:
So the Emperor of China, way, way, way back in the day did not have a twitter. I don't even think they had the printing press, because that would have been ridiculous, Chinese characters are super hard and most people were illiterate anyway. So the Emperor sent agents out to find out what kind of music people were playing.
If the music was harmonious, that meant the people were doing well, and the Empire was doing well. If the music was distorted, or weak, or off balance, or maybe even angry and militant, or in any other way disharmonious, that meant the people were NOT doing well, and the Empire was NOT doing well, and it told them that maybe something needed to be done to fix it.
I don't understand what the alternative is supposed to be.
When I do indulge in news watching/ listening I go with BBC. The way you talk it sounds like you read the newspaper first thing in the morning, then peek out your kitchen window and slam the shudders closed as soon as you see someone walking by...you then call in sick for work because you heard the flu was going around and also hackers are stealing people's credit card numbers from the cafe across the street from there. After that you hunker down in front of ur TV all day with popcorn watching in suspense and horror either Fox or CNN (whichever one floats ur boat and helps you with your "fix").
Immediately after the US presidential elections I got pretty close to that. But no, not really.
For a while I was reading the online English language versions of Indian, Russian, Arabic, and Chinese newspapers, and for a while I had a special project where I was reading the English language Nepali newspapers. That was back when India was blocking trade to Nepal and India wasn't admitting it but "everyone in Nepal knew it was true". The Indian newspapers were pretty good, you can trust the English more. They're really not just writing it for propaganda, they actually do speak English over there. The Russian papers, not so much. Their English versions are clearly suspect.
But no one has time for that. Maybe some day I'll be a pro journalist and I can get more into this. But it was NOT wasted time.
These days I listen to NPR while I'm driving and that's about it. I'll hit up nytimes.com or reuters.com if something important is going on. I used to read huffpost, but it got annoying. If there's a Trump scandal going on I'll check it out over there, because they do the best Trump scandal pieces. Sometimes I even force myself to read breitbart.com, ESPECIALLY THE COMMENTS, just to see how their reality bubble is holding up.
I think you have a misunderstanding about journalism, it is absolutely not only useful for getting the facts, it is useful for discerning how people THINK and FEEL about the facts -- where they are willing to just ignore them, and where they simply CAN'T be ignored.
In fact it might not be a bad idea to spin up a for-profit sorcery newspaper here, it might really start killing it in "new media". I don't know if I can take on anymore side projects right now but WHO VOLUNTEERS TO RUN THE TWITTER??? Anyone?
Pro tip:
So the Emperor of China, way, way, way back in the day did not have a twitter. I don't even think they had the printing press, because that would have been ridiculous, Chinese characters are super hard and most people were illiterate anyway. So the Emperor sent agents out to find out what kind of music people were playing.
If the music was harmonious, that meant the people were doing well, and the Empire was doing well. If the music was distorted, or weak, or off balance, or maybe even angry and militant, or in any other way disharmonious, that meant the people were NOT doing well, and the Empire was NOT doing well, and it told them that maybe something needed to be done to fix it.