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News stopped being news long ago, when it stopped being an obligation put on TV channels in return for broadcast slots and started having to make its own money. At that point, it was all over but the lying. You can't make money taking a nuanced approach to every issue based on the specifics. You make money by polarizing people and keeping them on your side of the playing field by any means necessary.
Then of course enter the internet where every wingnut on the planet can hold forth with 'the truth'. Some of those may actually believe the non-sense they spew, and many are not different from the major 'news' outlets.
Not that there aren't people in the news business who I'm sure would love to do real news in the old fashioned way, and there are probably some who manage to. But that's an expensive proposition and no one wants to pay for it anymore. The internet has screwed them just like it's screwed so many people. They can work themselves to a heart attack to chase down some major story, and it'll just get stolen and re-posted all over the net and the person who did the work will get little in return for his or her efforts.
There are many days where I think that the internet's positives don't remotely outweigh its negatives. It's a major reason why so many things are negatively affecting us here as well. It's slowly but surely pushing us all back to the centralized scenario, where we can only rent software. It's funny (in a sad way) that the PC revolution was to get software out of the hands of 'evil corporations' and give it to the people. But, ultimately, the people are arguably even more morality-free because they are not under any regulatory scrutiny, allowing them to screw us all by making it harder and harder to make money actually creating something and selling it.
And another big irony is that the 'making money by spying on your customers' thing, and renting out software at scale, really only works for big businesses. So the end result of the PC revolution is basically moving inexorably towards reversing the PC revolution and taking us right back where we were, only far worse now because now software is core to our way of life.
Meet the new boss.
Explorans limites defectum
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See, I thought news has always been basically a form of entertainment, it's just become more partisan.
I do agree with your fundamental proposition. I pay for The Guardian because the content is always free, and they use the money to do in depth journalism. I support the ABC for the same reason, if my taxes don't pay for it, the free market sure won't, any more.
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Dean Roddey wrote: And another big irony is that the 'making money by spying on your customers' thing, and renting out software at scale, really only works for big businesses. So the end result of the PC revolution is basically moving inexorably towards reversing the PC revolution and taking us right back where we were, only far worse now because now software is core to our way of life.
yeah, but it's always been like that. ISP's died when Telco's destroyed them, small PC shops died when department stores and On-Line giants killed them.
But that's everything: Corner grocery/produce shops died when giant supermarkets killed them, ... how many actual car/motobike companies are there now (not brands, actual owners), how many fast food companies are there now, coffee shops, travel agencies, tailors, pharma, farming, groceries, manufacturing...
market competition is not about being the best, fairest or even cheapest; it's outright war.
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The internet has basically broken everything.
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This borders on soapbox material, but here we go...
Where you get your news depends pretty much entirely on your political bent.
Mainstream news wants to be the first to report, and is willing to make stuff up (or intentionally omit facts) to further their political handlers' agendas.
People (like you and me) only hear what they want to hear. Nothing will change that.
Civil discourse is dead because everything is an insult or somehow offensive now.
Political correctness has destroyed civilization.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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When I was in college I got my news and opinion from a number of sources. Shortwave - BBC world service, Radio Moscow, & Radio Havana Cuba. On my job as a delivery driver - Rush Limbaugh - a well known conservative talk radio host. At home on weekends our National Public Radio Weekend edition. On Sunday I bought the paper on my way home from church and would read it front to back all afternoon. That was in the early 90's.
Some years later I lived and worked in Ukraine. For the first time since I was a teenager I had a working television. The American NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw was broadcast in the morning in English without voice over. I only watched a few episodes because I was usually on the job when it was on. I found this news show to be very slick and somewhat entertaining but also lacking in news. They would wrap up the broadcast with a "look around the world segment" typically there would be a cool graphic globe spinning and the viewer would zoom in as the globe slowed and finally settled on some place in middle America. Cut to reporter in Centerville Nebraska who would do a piece on farmer Joe getting recognized by Guinness for growing the largest ever pumpkin squash.
As I became more proficient in Russian I would watch the nightly news on ORT (first channel). The news reader would talk extensively about Russian participation in this or that world economic forum. Or some trade or military deal with these African countries. I got the impression that the average Russian got a clearer view of world affairs than the average American, a decidedly Russian biased view of course.
Back in the states in the late 90's I learned that in order to better understand what was going on at home and abroad one had to bypass the regular news and go to the sources. Industry trade publications and financial publications. I could get an idea not only of what was going on in the world but often the why.
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Once you understand that newspapers are no longer in the business of telling the truth but of pushing the narrative of their billionaire owners, then you understand that objectivity is not their goal. Your best bet is to read from a selection of sources, and somewhere amongst the different versions of the events will be a few grains of truth.
"There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult." - C.A.R. Hoare
Home | LinkedIn | Google+ | Twitter
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I think it's a mistake to think that it's about the narrative of their owners. Their billionaire owners didn't get to be billionaires by putting their politics ahead of business. Of course if a billionaire has a particular view he's likely to buy a company that shares it. But, if it became financially untenable to hold that position, I sort of doubt that person would continue to eat a lot of losses to keep doing it.
I think it's really about money, not politics. Politics is how you keep your viewing audience, by polarizing them to a retarded degree. There are so many people out there on the internet who view every single thing via one big politically polarized lens. And then owning the mind-share of a large viewing audience on this or that side of the isle gives you power, and power is a very effective lever to generate a lot more money indirectly.
Obviously if you can make money and push your own point of view on the world, it's a double win for you. But the latter I think is more of a cherry on the pie, while the money and power is the pie itself.
Explorans limites defectum
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Christian Graus wrote: So, where do you get your news? Or are you just hiding under a rock waiting for the storm to pass?
I have the newspapers delivered to my rock. 
I read:
- "Left wing" - the International New York Times (comes bundled with Ha'aretz in Israel)
- "Right wing" - the Jerusalem Post
I watch:
- CNN
- Fox News
Averaging those (admittedly biased) sources, I hope I can get a reasonably balanced picture of the world.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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You don't have to stop watching/reading news. You just have to be able to compensate for the viewpoint of the source. Very few of them will actually lie or make stuff up from whole cloth, so it's just a matter of making an adjustment and maybe some semantic analysis.
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For the truth I always check the Soapbox 
"If we don't change direction, we'll end up where we're going"
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Looking at the UK newspaper scene, we have the following options from left to right:
Morning Star - Communist (readership circa 12 so barely relevant)
Guardian - Prosecco socialist
Daily Mirror - Traditional Labour
Independent/i - Centrist
Times and Sunday Times - Moderate Conservative
Mail on Sunday - Moderate Conservative
Daily Star - Largely apolitical due to space required for bingo and tits but right leaning.
Daily Express and Sunday Express - right wing Conservative.
The Sun - Finds plenty of space among the bingo and tits for anti-EU and anti-Labour ranting.
Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph - right wing Conservative/Kipper.
Daily Mail - still pining for Mr. Hitler (the only decent foreigner that ever lived, apparently).
That's a pretty heavy right-of-centre emphasis (especially when we bear in mind that The Sun has the highest circulation).
Personally, I only ever tend to buy The i (best crossword by a country mile) or the Times but do look at most of them from time to time.
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. - Mark Twain
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Local newspaper. This appears to be the only good reliable source of information in France.
National newspaper tend to be biased depending on who owns the newspaper, and we better not speak about tv or internet, the source of fake news.
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I'm using a couple of link aggregators for the fun/educative stuff.
But for news it's mostly google news.
Any source that gives me opinions instead of facts I block.
It's funny how peaceful the world has become lately.
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The only one I use that I haven't seen mentioned is News Sniffer[^].
Oh, and, since a certain person took residence in a certain-coloured house, I've found myself visiting FactCheck.org[^] more and more often.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Long time no see..... What's everyone been doing?
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I’ve been lurking, mostly. Most of my dev work now is for my Minecraft mods or the OpenComputers mod in-game computers.
What do you get when you cross a joke with a rhetorical question?
The metaphorical solid rear-end expulsions have impacted the metaphorical motorized bladed rotating air movement mechanism.
Do questions with multiple question marks annoy you???
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Brisingr Aerowing wrote: for my Minecraft mods
are these mods public? if so, which ones? very cool. 
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The public ones integrate other mods together.
Here’s those[^]
I also have ports of a few others on my Github[^]. I also contribute to some others.
What do you get when you cross a joke with a rhetorical question?
The metaphorical solid rear-end expulsions have impacted the metaphorical motorized bladed rotating air movement mechanism.
Do questions with multiple question marks annoy you???
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very nice.
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Interesting, I don't get an email notification?
There's money in Minecraft mods?
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Curse Points can be converted into Amazon gift cards, though I mostly mod for fun.
What do you get when you cross a joke with a rhetorical question?
The metaphorical solid rear-end expulsions have impacted the metaphorical motorized bladed rotating air movement mechanism.
Do questions with multiple question marks annoy you???
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Thanks. I've found the job market mostly wants people who have some sort of online presence and I thought, you know what, I could add to my articles on Code Project.
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