‹ Time and Again … I Shake My Head •
Just thinking out loud, so to type (speak).
After posting the item below I got to thinking … I wonder if there’s more “news” today, as greater populations, more complex social and economic systems and the greater rapidity of flows of information (thanks to the Web) interact ?
And does more “news” mean less critical analysis and establishment of facts, with more opinion … and thus less real “news” ?
I wonder if pre-Web there was more time to dig around and get to the bottom of things, or whether there was just less information-based activity upon which to opine ? And did the “news” media see its role differently, or has it failed to adapt to the new conditions offered by software and the Web, preferring to see them merely as tools with which to make posting of the “news” more efficient ?
Just wondering. If anyone understands and knows, please share.
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March 30, 2005 at 11:03 am
Anonymous
There seems to be a need to separate the headline or “the news” from its analysis. The headline is the teaser and is cheap to produce. The analysis is not.
March 30, 2005 at 11:11 am
Anonymous
I agree .. and your comment made me wonder .. is the need on the part of mainstream media only, or is there a “need” on the part of much of the audience, too ?
The analysis may also “need” to be inexpensive on the part of the reader, if she or he doesn’t have to think too hard about the underlying issues and can just categorize the “news” into one or other of their already-existing categories of “oh, that fits with what I believe or don’t believe”.
What do you think ?
March 31, 2005 at 1:14 pm
Anonymous
I always have a difficult to repress desire to believe that the public wants more than cheap headlines and simple (and possibly skewed) facts that plug into their exisiting beliefs; but the truth seems to be that a large segment of at least the US population, isn’t concerned with receiving full facts at all and seems to prefer the quick and easy to categorize and/or even gossip, over the actual facts… especially if they have to dig more than superficially to get them.
I wonder if it is a chicken and egg sort of thing? If mainstream media weren’t as concerned with the bottom line (bang for buck), and were more concerned with presenting as unbiased a set of facts for any item as possible- would the public pay more attention or even less? Is it all driven by what the public wants (which is perhaps the lie we are told by the media)?
… Which leads me to thinking about the lack of critical thinking skills of the US public….. and wondering if the English speaking world at large isn’t also in the same camp…
But then I realize that I don’t have the time to track down all the facts of everything thrown at me, and rely on a few ‘well chosen for any given topic’ places to sort things out- to decide if I want to dig deeper or go for the quick opinion that fits into my pre-existing belief categories… and how many others like me, do the same?..
wandering away now.. muttering to myself.. this could be an interesting, far ranging conversation if only there were time… questions.. always questions… Thirty years ago, I thought that by this time of life, I would have a lot more answers…
March 31, 2005 at 9:00 pm
Anonymous
There are more people on the planet therefore there is more news. The world is not only getting smaller, it is becoming more populated, we are all more aware - and unaware - of others - depending on your inclination. So, there is a sort of exponential news explosion. Expertise increases. And increasingly the news we see or get is more and more a diversion from the real news. In twenty years or so, I think we will get all our news in some form of novel/novella.
Personally I have turned away from the news not from any cynicism ‘theirs’ or mine but from the tremendous lack of story in the news. I am quite happy to read a news story where ‘all the facts’ are not included if there is some element of narrrative. It needn’t be complete.
Cheap headlines? I’d venture to say that the headline writers are more valuable to a newspaper, editors to TV news, than columnists and news anchors or reporters. Headline/photograph. That’s the power of a newspaper, the rest is filler. The real stories are there, buried. Often offhand.
April 1, 2005 at 9:07 am
Anonymous
And you once called me Nostradamus ?! he …
And then there’s what the mainstream news have done with the Terri Schiavo case … used it as a front for the right-to-life movement, whereby an interest group and a relatively small group of people hijacked the mainstream news headlines and the process whereby they “do” the analyses.
We have seen the future and the future is us … a novella, indeed.
April 1, 2005 at 9:37 am
Anonymous
And you once called me Nostradamus ?! he …
And then there’s what the mainstream news have done with the Terri Schiavo case … used it as a front for the right-to-life movement, whereby an interest group and a relatively small group of people hijacked the mainstream news headlines and the process whereby they “do” the analyses.
We have seen the future and the future is us … a novella, indeed.
April 1, 2005 at 6:19 pm
Anonymous
I called you Nostradamus?
April 12, 2005 at 10:44 am
Anonymous
Sorry Jonh, I was suffering from too much information (or analysis!). Yep it would be good if someone’s individual profile could be checked before news reaches its personal media. We probably meanwhile have to deal with the compromise of a community of interest media and the news aggregator to tediously do the aggregation of news like a monk. Just thinking of this, I get a splitting headache.