How to manage the mental somersaults, avoiding brain damage and brain rewiring from reading news?

[amper42]

Equal time was thrown out. I believe it was held to violate the freedom of speech of the news organizations. I hate to tell you, but people differ as to what is a fact.

Truth is objective and absolute, not relative or subjective. Truth corresponds to the facts of reality, regardless of what people believe or feel. We wouldn't put up with a Spinorama that changes depending on who is looking at it. Why would we do so with things even more important? It boggles the mind.

 

[Ron Texas]

Not the most that come ASR. Few alternate facts here. Just measurable ones.

If you are talking about audio that's true of ASR. If you are talking about any of the most contentious issues facing our lives today the only way to reconcile the opposing sides is that they disagree as to what the facts are.

 

[Timcognito]

Equal time was thrown out. I believe it was held to violate the freedom of speech of the news organizations.

You are correct and I should have said the Fairness Doctrine which also was removed. Equal time was politic only.

 

[Ron Texas]

Truth is objective and absolute, not relative or subjective. Truth corresponds to the facts of reality, regardless of what people believe or feel. We wouldn't put up with a Spinorama that changes depending on who is looking at it. Why would we do so with things even more important? It boggles the mind.

Of course truth is absolute. That doesn't prevent disagreement over what the truth is. One side is right and the other is wrong, but the only way to sort it out depends on who is in power. I guess it's like quantum physics.

 

[Timcognito]

If you are talking about audio that's true of ASR. If you are talking about any of the most contentious issues facing our lives today the only way to reconcile the opposing sides is that they disagree as to what the facts are.

Or report what is on the ground and not in the mind. Organizations need reporters and in dept review of both sides.

 

[Ron Texas]

Or report what is on the ground and not in the mind. Organizations need reporters and in dept review of both sides.

Most of what I see today is colored by opinion. There are many issues regarding the credibility of a source which appears to be supplying a fact. Things which are capable of a factual determination get massaged into propaganda to fill an agenda.

 

[Timcognito]

Things which are capable of a factual determination get massaged into propaganda to fill an agenda.

Agreed, people want quickly digestible snippets of information and they trust the presenting source more than actual source, being too lazy to get varying views.

 

[Salt]

One of the the most respactable discussions on ASR I've followed so far, as that is the way to go in science.
Respectful.
Continue ....

 

[Martin]

I find the "news" as "reported" on all the American networks to be so obviously biased and full of propaganda as to be completely untrustworthy. All of them: ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, Fox and CNN. All utter garbage. I have found several sources on YouTube to be better as well as the BBC, Al Jazeera, Reuters and to a lesser extent the AP. I try to avoid social media but find occasional forays into X (formerly Twitter) to be especially enlightening to keep track of the conspiracy theory du jour whether it be from the left or right. As others have said you need to really invest time into investigating all news claims and making up your own mind; never trust anything at face value.

Martin

 

[Ron Texas]

@Martin nothing like a good conspiracy theory to get your heart pumping. You left out WSJ, Breitbart and Newsmax to name a few. If Fox is garbage it's a fundamentally different flavor of garbage than the others mentioned in that sentence. Likewise, I don't think Al Jazeera belongs in the same list as the others in that sentence. I don't trust any of them. Now and then I run across a titbit that gives me a tool to filter the news. So I view all of the nonsense through a series of filters to establish what I hope is the truth.

 

[kemmler3D]

I rate the quality of a news service by how much opinion that gets mixed into the news feed. "Just the facts, m'am, just the facts, thank you. Save the opinions for the editorial section.

I find that all cable news is opinionated both overtly and tacitly, and it makes the entire experience of watching it something other than "being informed about current events".

 

[Mikig]

news has always been disclosed with a certain color.
The so-called "conspiracy" and the use of artfully constructed news to drive common sentiment is a practice as old as humanity.

Nowadays there is something new: everyone can speak and write; the world is as if it had 8 billion unqualified journalists who write every day. Furthermore, the public is no longer able to recognise, due to a lack of cultural and educational bases, who is reliable as a source, and which source is reliable.
therefore any guy has the same echo as the president of the republic. ordinary news has the same weight as important news.
I fear that this game is convenient for publishing and the media in general which feed on content, to be thrown out in exponential numbers every day. It makes money, regardless of the truthfulness, plus if we add biased click catchers, that's it.

 

[antcollinet]

news has always been disclosed with a certain color.
The so-called "conspiracy" and the use of artfully constructed news to drive common sentiment is a practice as old as humanity.

While true - we should be careful not to interpret that as meaning all sources are equally "fake"

All news sources have a degree of bias. However some exhibit journalistic integrity and publish actual facts, and when they publish opinion are carful to make it clear it is opinion. Some others openly and unapologetically publish and amplify deliberate lies. And many others are somewhere between.

What is important is to have sufficient skills in critical thinking to work out which is which, and then to understand the bias in those you choose to trust.

 

[Doodski]

Good point, except, how can anyone have the time to fairly research all these actual Political sources?

For sure. We have the TV channel of all the talking on the fed gov and it goes on alllll day long. One would need be a reallly dedicated person to tolerate that stuff.

 

[anotherhobby]

Here we sit in a paradox, were it's nearly impossible to find an information balance in our lives. We should not consume too much "news," as it's clearly not good for mental health and robs us of valuable time we could be doing something positive in our lives. Yet, there is a certain amount of civic duty to be an informed member of our society, where full head-in-sand mode is generally not good for the individual or society.

However, to be accurately informed seems to be somewhat related to Brandolini's law, where we must spend an outsized amount of time and effort in the meta operation of information verification in order to filter out all the bullshit. Meanwhile, media consolidation organizations like Sinclair Broadcast Group deliberately shape the news to drive up fear and thus consumption, so even if local news outlets seem less agenda driven than national news, they are still choosing to spend a disproportionate amount of time on crime and other negative topics to send our way. It seems futile, and that's long before you even get to social media, or the comments sections of the news, or any of the other places that the worst of society comes out (I've opted out of all these, but it's a massive challenge for most people).

It just seems like an impossible task to be somewhat successful at the simple goal of being both well informed, while not being negatively impacted by the requirements of what being well informed means. Constantly juggling between knowing what's going on and being happy is an exhausting grind.

 

[Mikig]

While true - we should be careful not to interpret that as meaning all sources are equally "fake"

All news sources have a degree of bias. However some exhibit journalistic integrity and publish actual facts, and when they publish opinion are carful to make it clear it is opinion. Some others openly and unapologetically publish and amplify deliberate lies. And many others are somewhere between.

What is important is to have sufficient skills in critical thinking to work out which is which, and then to understand the bias in those you choose to trust.

an old adage goes: news is sacred, comment is free.
The problem is precisely when the news becomes free and the comment has the presumption of being considered sacred.

 

[AdamG]

No Political content permitted here. You guys know this. Multiple posts removed and please don’t continue to talk about politics here.

Closing the thread. It was good while it lasted.