Oh Skoster…it changes at 50 to videos of Humans falling down and Q and A surveys 
I think it took me til last year to finally understand that news just report stuff which the people expect. Because news is a product, and it is easier to sell a product people expect compared to selling an unusual one. Like selling a pink DSLR camera with blue buttons is usually much more difficult than selling a black one.
So there recently was this “expert” on German TV stating people should not drink the Taiwan bubble tea at McDonalds in Germany because Taiwan would not have an FDA (when clearly it has!). And the journalist nodded. They did not know anything about Taiwan and had nothing to report! No news at all. But they sold a good product! People expected to hear Taiwan is a dangerous 3rd world shithole because they mistake it with Thailand and that is exactly what the news delivered.
Ever since I understood that I tried to pick those small news bits embedded in all the media BS but basically stopped enjoying news.
Chavez is a commie bastard the news always reported. A little note about him caring for the poor and decreasing poverty by 30%. But he is a dangerous commie bastard the news reports repeated. Now he is dead and suddenly he gets reported about in a slightly better way. Again because people expect that.
So… yeah… I am getting less interested as well. I think is called developing some sort of common sense when getting older… 
Perhaps the reason you guys are uninterested now is that you have perhaps failed to divine the causes of said news events. Perhaps it is the think layers of propaganda that pass for news in which you are no longer interested. Perhaps you have also failed to divine any sources of rational hope beyond the day-to-day matters that immediately concern you. This is a shame because we are political animals.
Nope, pretty sure it’s because what’s available is primarily puerile twaddle and most people who pass themselves off as journalists these days wouldn’t know how to research a story even if there were some magical box with millions of facts sitting right on their desks…
When my ex called me an animal I always assumed she meant sexual… While I can imagine several other animalistic qualities she might have been alluding to, I hardly think political would have crossed her mind.
Yes the standard of journalism is terrible. That’s why I don’t have a TV. I suppose not having a TV makes me more curious as to what the news is rather than repulsed as to what I’m told it is. ‘The news’ is then more of me deciding there is a topic I want to learn more about and hitting the news tab on a famous search engine to see what it turns up.
I do wish I could feel more connected, however. I have the time, the connection and yet I’m kinda hunting around finding stuff to read. I like reddit and YouTube and news searches, various news papers and agencies, RSS feeds, etc; but I still do not feel I have my finger on the pulse. It doesn’t feel ‘live’.
That said, most of my reading is of old books. Classics, especially in Philosophy and Economics. I’m lucky however, as I have a good idea of what to read. And as I read I get to understand much more about nature, reality and people and politics. These are the timeless truths that manifest in the news today and make the news tolerable as one is able to see through it.
This brings me to my main gripe with the news: the perspective is useless - it’s bias or, more often the time scale is too narrow, and the causes and patterns do not get shown. The journalists are lost.
With my reading however, I feel as though I am able to join the dots, plot the direction, because I understand the causes.
I agree on several of those points. For example, instead of endlessly telling us that Israelis and Palestinians are bombing each other, how about some of the underlying historical causes of the conflict? But I guess that’s something we can’t expect handed to us, right? If we want to learn the truth of things we have to make the effort to do some study on our own, perhaps?
[quote]as I read I get to understand much more about nature, reality and people and politics[/quote] …the worthwhile things to be learning about, rather than what the media is concerned with…
You need to watch The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. If it is not on Jon Stewart, it is not news worthy.
Yeah, I used to watch that a little back in college. Jon Stewart is witty, humorous, biased, one-sided…and isn’t pretending to be anything more than that. The irony is when a show that claims to be just comedy teaches you more than one that purports to be news.
That’s an excellent assessment.
The only problem I have with the Daily Show is that they forego accuracy for funny; they use a lot of sophemoric humor and to anyone who understands the issue under review they often come off sounding stupid instead of funny since they miss the point. Then again, Comedy Central is the McDonalds of comedy, so I guess they’re playing well to their audience. Treated purely as comedy and ignoring any accuracy (though this tends to describe Fox News too), it’s alright entertainment.
Oh yeah, and the simpering ass-kissing that passes itself as an interview style. That annoys me as well.
EDIT: As to whether it’s newsworthy, it’s basically a gossip column for politics with a little fluff thrown in here and there.
oh yeah who even watches the interviews ?
I’m with the whole ethos of the thread here. Older, wiser, more common sense, cutting through the rubbish that we’re fed on mainstream. Perhaps it’s because we realise that we’ve only got such little time left, and most of what is reported is (as said) just what we expect to / want to watch or hear. I’d far rather now focus on what I’m interested in. The so-called top stories have limited appeal.
There is one Taiwanese TV news show that does deep background sometimes (on Channel 55?) that my wife watches.
I remember during the fall of Gaddafi, their intro started with the neolithic rock paintings and the drying of the Sahara, then went through Egyptian, Carthaginian, Roman and Islamic times, followed by the Italian conquest, Rommel, the discovery of oil and ending up with the Green revolution.
They usually have panels of experts, rather than politicians, but a lot of their stuff tends to be about ET or Bigfoot.
I’m surprised to hear it.
That’ll be the one I watch on channel 51, or the one in channel 54. Ther is also one called Apocalypse now that does cover a lot of ground on diverse topics… as diverse as Mike previously stated.
I watch some of those shows sometimes, some of them have useful statistics to look at especially regarding salaries, health system etc. But often they fail to get to the point of an issue.
For instance they will talk about pollution in China for an hour without any kind of real discussion of pollution in Taiwan by just saying ‘it is improving’. Or they will talk about unemployment levels in Taiwan without checking why they are unemployed. I’m convinced many unemployed people don’t want to work because they have money and the pay scale in Taiwan is too low. Simple point but they never mention it.
These shows are still useful to get an idea of what is going on in Taiwan anyway.
As if to illustrate what we have been saying about terrible TV journalism, watch this journalist/anchor woman try to deal with actual research on business cycles:
Sometimes the News tickles me.
I had only a passing interest in news until I started working in a related industry and had to comb through a lot of it. Seeing the inter-connectedness of seemingly disparate stories and how they can indicate (some) future trends turned me into a news junkie. I like Google News a lot because it offers up a lot of different papers with different perspectives (although there are many still very conspicuously missing), and I am a faithful reader of the Economist which offers smart, if entirely opinionated, analysis.
The thing that has really sustained my interest in the news, though, is that I have taken to reading a book or two for any topic that interests me (as well as the relevant wikipedia article, of course). It’s amazing how much more clarity and insight some background can give. Instead of asking “What did North Korea do today?” you find yourself thinking aloud about the possible implications and occasionally saying “I totally called that one.” This is also a great way to alienate your friends who are nowhere near as enthusiastic about politics and news.
Of course I still have a lot of years ahead of me, so maybe I’ll go to rehab for my news addiction some time in the future.
I guess I’m interested in the news too…which is why I’m uninterested in the news media.