
I Hate the News (2006) - rndmind
http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews
======
toomanybeersies
I recently moved countries, and in the process, sort of stopped caring or
reading about politics.

The way I see it, politics back home doesn't effect me, and I can't do
anything about local politics as I can't vote.

It really is liberating to not give a shit about politics, to put it bluntly.
It's one less source of stress in my life.

~~~
davedx
I felt like that when I heard the UK was going to vote on leaving the EU. I’d
not followed UK news for a while and was so out of the loop that the vote was
even happening surprised me.

I didn’t get round to renewing my postal vote as I thought it didn’t really
effect me anymore anyway - my new life in the Netherlands was what mattered.

Then Leave won, and Brexit was going to happen. I remember waking up to the
news and feeling horrified. Then in the coming days I felt a sense of shock:
actually Brexit did effect me, of course. I would lose my right to work and
stay freely here in the Netherlands, my home of 8 years. Where I had a family
with 4 kids.

The point is I now believe every citizen should remain at least minimally
informed and involved on politics “back home” and locally. I vote every chance
I get now. And I still regret not voting in Brexit.

~~~
flounders
I think a voting guide would be more useful in a situation like this that
explains the issues at stake on the ballot. If more people used a voting guide
instead of the news, I doubt Brexit would have gone through.

~~~
davedx
Yes. In the Netherlands we have “stemwijzer” even for local elections, it
works fairly well.

------
IIAOPSW
Aaron got it all right he just missed one important thing. News is a product
and you buy it, so what is it selling you if the content itself is so
unimportant?

The answer is news sells an emotion. Mostly it sells outrage and worldview
confirmation. Its basically the exact same thing as a social feed only you
select it instead of it tailoring to you.

The notable exception are people who use the headlines to make investment
decisions.

~~~
hkmurakami
Does the economist do this? That paper has biases but certainly doesn't appeal
to emotion. It does provide worldview support which all other papers also do.

------
vbsteven
2 weeks ago I read "Amusing ourselves to death: Public discourse in the age of
show business" by Neil Postman. It's written in '85 and covers how the
emergence of print, telegraphy, television (and now the internet and social
media) has changed the way we experience and consume news.

"The medium shapes the message" is was it all comes down to. Modern news is
show business. It needs to be packaged as show business or nobody will
watch/read/listen to it.

As long as the incentive is to generate ad clicks and ad views, news media
will prioritize sensational topics and optimize the format for ad delivery
instead of optimizing for knowledge retention.

~~~
mar77i
Orgy porgy is the new Orange. It was just a question of time that the news'
focus on the most recent, the most dabbling and the most infuriating will have
it basically eradicate itself.

I once read a book where a certain Japanese man could swallow his nose. A
different page in the book refuted that it was the Japanese man and stated it
was instead his brother who could actually do this nose swallowing. Yet
another page retold the initial story again, refuting the story around it
being his brother. This is just like reading the news or opening the bible on
whatever page.

------
himalayan_yak
Lots of respect to the man Swartz. Not a big fan of news (mainly the cable)
myself but the absence of it is pretty terrifying as well. Whatever is left of
little accountability will pretty much vanish.

I'd argue that the problem isn't the news, per se, but the fact that news is a
business, with a primary motive of maximizing profit and not necessarily
'informing' the public objectively. But on the other extreme, state run media
that do not have the same objective of making profit are even worse.

We'll pretty much have to live with it :)

~~~
djrobstep
> but the absence of it is pretty terrifying as well. Whatever is left of
> little accountability will pretty much vanish.

Did you read the article? It critiques the fast-paced nature of the news and
the choice of topics, it doesn't call for abolishing the news.

> But on the other extreme, state run media that do not have the same
> objective of making profit are even worse.

Incorrect. For instance, here in Australia, we have a state run media channel,
the ABC (abc.net.au), and the quality of the news and reporting is much better
than the commercial news.

What is it about Americans that make them believe that things that work
perfectly well in many other countries (publicly funded television, gun
control, universal healthcare) are impossible?

~~~
himalayan_yak
> What is it about Americans that make them believe that things that work
> perfectly well in many other countries (publicly funded television, gun
> control, universal healthcare) are impossible?

What gave you the impression that I am an American? I, unfortunately, am one
who had to endure the non stop propaganda perpetuated through state run media
in my country.

> reporting is much better than the commercial news

How do you decide it is 'much better'? Could it be that you just happen to
agree with it? (or not). Since you mentioned America, there are lots of people
in America who take Fox News as sole source of truth. And perhaps equally
large group who regard MSNBC as such.

And it's pretty interesting to observe that you pulled the conversation right
into politically charged topics of healthcare and gun, when I was merely
pointing out that news is indeed valuable, and there is always bound to be
this friction between the profit oriented but free of government influence vs
state run media.

------
elcapitan
Getting off the daily news cycle is like getting rid of sugar, it reduces the
craving for more of it pretty quickly once your system has adjusted.

I've found that an ok compromise is the Wikipedia current events section:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events)

I don't read it daily and I don't follow to the sources typically, but they
make a decent job of filtering out all the clickbait and categorizing ongoing
events etc. That way I know what's going on rather than just reading about it
on social media without context.

The only thing I'm missing is filters and the option to group and aggregate
for weekly reading, maybe I'll just script that at some point, should be
simple enough.

~~~
lbenes
This is fine, but I want to be an informed voter. My vote, political and
environmental donations, and my investment all are related to news. Wouldn't I
be abdicating my duty to be an informed citizen by tuning out? How could a
democracy function if the majority of voters did this?

~~~
Spivak
Potentially but news, or more specifically 24h/daily news, isn't the only way
to be informed, and arguably isn't a very good way to do it.

What are the things you're looking for when deciding on people or issues to
vote on and does a catalog of events related to those people and issues really
capture it?

------
kartickv
Most news media seems optimised for power users, people who want to read 100
stories a day and have all the context to place them correctly. These are the
power users, but, by definition, there are a few. This is the equivalent of
everyone who wants to do photography being forced to use an SLR because phones
don't have cameras. Or sports cars being the only type of car that exists,
when most people just want to get to the office or the supermarket.

How might we optimise a newspaper for the majority rather than the power-
users?

\- Reduce it to one page, printing only the most important stories. In today's
hurried times, that's all many people have time for. Or keep it the same
length as today's newspapers, but publish it only weekly. Or a mobile app
where each story fits in one screen. Condense it down to the most important
facts.

\- Give users the context. If a minister was accused of taking money from
companies X and Y and he says that he didn't take money from X, say, "The
minister didn't respond to allegations that he took money from Y". The
majority of readers wouldn't know that unless it's pointed out to them.

\- Don't report news that's likely to be irrelevant a quarter from now, like
the stock market going up 0.5%, or that Apple is going to launch cheaper iPads
tomorrow.

\- Report hyperlocal news, like your neighbor 50m away being burgled, not a
politician two states away choosing to side with someone else. We all care
more about our neighborhood. Tell me air pollution levels in my neighborhood,
or a few km away, not 2000 km away in Delhi. We all care about our immediate
environment more. In a way, this is the only kind of news people got before
technology like the press, telephone or radio was invented. It's odd that in
today's world, I'm more connected to what's happening far away than in my
neighborhood.

\- Quality over quantity: Don't print rumors, unconfirmed news, news without
fact-checking it and waiting for the dust to settle. Write well so that
readers feel that the writer cares, rather than filler to write 100 words by
11AM, and who gives a damn what those words are.

~~~
aargh_aargh
This is gold. Are journalists typically aware of these improvement suggestions
or are they just on the hamster wheel?

~~~
wilsonnb
Neither. Most of these are baseless critiques, in my opinion.

The Economist has a section at the beginning of each issue that gives you a
one paragraph or less overview of important events that happened that week.
Many people also only read the Sunday edition of the paper instead of the
daily publications.

I don't know why the person you're replying to suggest that the news is
usually contextless. Pretty much any article I read from WaPo or NYT has all
of the context you need towards the end of the article after stating the most
recent or relevant facts.

Reporting hyperlocal news is just not feasible in today's media climate. It's
very hard to run a successful local news organization because you have to
compete with all of the big players.

Most of the news I read does not report on rumors or unconfirmed news, either.

I somewhat agree that news that isn't relevant a quarter from now probably
isn't important but it's important to someone. Sure, I don't care if the stock
market went down .5% but many people do care about daily fluctuations of their
investments or have jobs in the finance sector. Also, why choose a quarter as
your time scale? Why not a week, a month, a year, a decade? Who is to say
whether yearly stock market fluctuations are actually news worthy?

~~~
kartickv
A para a week is too little.

Maybe news articles in your country have context, but often not in mine.
Here's one example:
[http://bangaloremirror.indiatimes.com/bangalore/civic/rejuve...](http://bangaloremirror.indiatimes.com/bangalore/civic/rejuvenation-
work-starts-at-sompura-lake/articleshow/63086169.cms) This doesn't give
Bangaloreans the wider context: amidst all the talk of lake restoration, have
there been any results yet? Has the inflow of garbage stopped, or is there
even a plan to? What's the scope of the efforts? To restore lakes to the state
they were in 30 years ago, or only to stop further decline? Is there any plan
to reclaim any of land that has already been encroached for years? And so on.

Hyperlocal news may not be feasible today, but since there's an umnet need,
it's only a matter of time before someone figures out the right business
model.

"It might be important to someone" is an excuse to publish any and all news,
which is exactly how the media ended up in today's situation.

As for why choose a quarter as a timescale, you can choose some other
timescale. Focus on essence of the argument rather than picking nits.

------
lucideer
> _Some people agree with me on a small scale [...] because they think these
> are aberrations; that underneath all this, the news is worth saving. I
> simply go one step further: I think none of it is worthwhile._

I'll be one of those people to agree "on a small scale", but I'll go one
(smaller) step further. I don't think these few are aberrations, I think the
vast majority of news is not worthwhile. News worth reading is the exception.

> _Let us look at the front page of today’s New York Times, the gold standard
> in news._

Is it? Really?

I'm not sure if this is entirely true in general but good local news seems
often well worth reading for me. If it's politics, reportage on short term
decisions made by local councils will affect my daily life, and are somewhat
"within reach". If it's entertainment or otherwise, it's likely about
something I could realistically engage with in person, or become involved in,
etc.

Quite a lot of local news has certain quality issues, but there are really
great exceptions here in my experience.

------
grzm
Past discussions:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224858](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224858)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5051902](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5051902)

------
js8
I'll reiterate my idea here that perhaps somebody should try to build a news
site only with news that are "actionable", that is, there is something you can
do based on the information.

Examples of such news: In-advance information about meetups, protests.
Information about culture events that are to happen. Information about new
laws coming into effect, or things mandated by government to a date.

~~~
smcnally
This would be an interesting feature, at least.

Upcoming votes; "Contact your Representative;" "Commercials should not be
louder than the main program as of April 8, 2018. Call this number if
otherwise."

------
simonlebo
I am mostly disturbed by this essay and a lot of the comments. Reading the
news is a difficult act indeed. You need to read between the lines, understand
that a lot of things are opinion based and that there are a lot of opinions
depending on how you look at a problem. But just because it is difficult and
quite imperfect is it a reason why we should stop doing it? How else can we
fight inequality, injustice and problems of the world. I understand tat
Aaron's point is not to do ignore problems, and his history obviously bring
nothing but respect but in an era where "Fake News" is being shouted
everywhere, I fear that the message of this essay is a dangerous one. By
disregarding news because of it's limits/imperfections, we expose ourselves to
much bigger problems. I force myself to read the news everyday because I think
it is my civic duty.

~~~
hkmurakami
Books are at least a bit better, though still flawed, and aaronsw iirc regrets
to this in this essay. (It's been a few years since I last read it)

------
gisely
The author argue for something patently false (reading the news never did
anyone any good) instead of some likely true but more pedestrian claim (e.g.
most of us would be better off if we read news less frequently) with the goal
of drawing attention.

Don't we call this clickbait?

~~~
nitrogen
It probably helps to know who the author is/was (note that I have not read the
article yet):
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz)

~~~
plaguuuuuu
Seems more of a hindrance than a help.

------
MattyRad
While I tend to agree with the article, I would note that news media does not
scale well. Your local community news website will likely have more pertinent
information for you, personally, than the NYT, so it's a bit unfair to compare
their utility equally.

------
kartickv
I see Aaron's point, but I wonder that if I take his advice and stop keeping
myself informed, I will miss something, and not even know about it.

For example, I read about opinionated software years ago, and when I started
my startup, I chose to take that approach. If I'd missed that, and my app
turns out to not be great for any single use-case, and fails, how would I know
that that happened because I didn't read enough to make a better decision?

These things seep into your way of thinking, and it's hard to know what
thought or article had what result.

Having said that, I do think I overdose on news, but it's hard to know what's
the right balance.

~~~
PSeitz
Some article about development a approach is not news. Also, hackernews is
largely composed of non-news information, else I wouldn't be here ;)

~~~
kartickv
That was just an example. Instead of picking nits, focus on the real point
being made, namely that if you miss some insight or perspective that later
causes you to make bad decisions later on, you won't know that if you'd up
more, you wouldn't be in the situation you're in.

------
stretchwithme
If the events on the news are outside your sphere of influence, it seems like
you'd be better off getting the news once a month. Or a year after things
happen. At least the facts will be more sorted.

------
debt
I love knowing what’s going on.

It gives me a sense of the meanderings and movements of large scale entities
like corporations and governments and the side effects their decisions.

Wars in Syria tell me about the relations between countries. The Flint water
crisis tells me about the failures of small government or even worse the
economic state of Michigan.

Data breaches and environmental disaster tell me of the negligence and
leadership decisions of large corporations.

The news is endlessly intriguing.

~~~
AHMagic
You don't really know what's going on. You only know what you're told, and
there's many ways to interpret the source data.

You really can't have a good sense of corporations and governments unless you
work specifically for a particular company or government and know the inner
workings and side effects of what's happening. And if that's the case, you
don't need to read the news to learn about it.

You don't know much about the wars nor the relations between countries. You
never get to sit in on leader meetings or see first hand what's happening and
not happening.

You think you know something about Michigan because you learned about the
Flint water crisis. But do you really know what failures took place or the
economic state of all of Michigan? What about all of the other crises in
America you didn't hear about, simply because the news chose to make you care
about Flint and not another crisis?

Data breaches and environmental disasters are often reported in a way that
makes corporations seem negligent when other information is left out. This is
why there's so much "debate" and "different opinion" on such matters. There's
no right answer, yet the news does a good job of presenting a singular
narrative.

The news is definitely endlessly intriguing, just like a drug. The worst part
about it is you only ever have a very small fraction of the totality of what's
going on. Every time we hear about Trump, we're not hearing about local
politicians who arguably have a greater impact on our lives.

You can't really be informed about most topics, and it's less likely to be
informed the more we focus on matters outside of our local proximity,
depending on journalists to translate events with inevitable inaccuracy.

------
stevenwoo
David Mitchell (of Peep Show and various other UK shows) wrote something
similar but with a humorous bent, starting with a commentary on Erik Hagerman.
[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/25/good-r...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/25/good-
reasons-for-ignoring-the-news-david-mitchell-trump-erik-hagerman)

~~~
elcapitan
Was publishing it in the Guardian part of the humor?

------
godelmachine
I've deep respect for Aaron Shwartz. It was nice reading his essay first thing
in the morning.

I still feel that some millionaire should have had stepped forward & paid all
his legal dues. He was doing good work.

------
theyinwhy
The same is true for hacker news which imo produces lots of fmo leading to
stress without providing real insight most of the times.

------
lawrenci
At the risk of sounding callous and uncaring, I will be blunt - I am wary of
mental health advice that comes from a person who killed himself at age 26.

I admire Aaron for his technical ability, his unique perspective, his writing,
his courage and passion. I sympathize with persecution he dealt with towards
the end of his life, and I think that the prosecution against him was unjust.
I find myself agreeing with most of his writing that I've encountered.

On the topic of following the news, I am tempted to agree with him as well.
However, I wonder if keeping up with the news reinforces the idea that the
world can be a scary place, and that if we stray too far outside of the bounds
of normal human behavior, we might face hardship. One could argue that that
idea is detrimental to human society as a whole, but I think it is generally
has a net positive effect on a particular person's mental wellbeing.

~~~
stagbeetle
It could be argued that Aaron was in the prime position to dish out mental
health advice, being a sufferer of mental illness. Compare that to mental
health professionals who, while educated and more knowledgeable than your
average joe about mental health, might not have first-hand insight on
practical coping strategies that actually work (as opposed to some of the
"let's talk about it -- we're out of time, here's a script").

~~~
wilsonnb
I don't think that would be a very convincing argument. At best, he would know
strategies that helped him personally. A mental health professional would know
strategies that help many people cope and have some idea of how to match
different strategies to different people and situations.

First hand experience is valuable but the idea that it can't be translated
effectively into second/third hand experience by trained professionals is
misguided.

~~~
stagbeetle
It is not that it cannot be translated into knowledge by professionals, it's
that they'll never be able to comprehend what exactly is going on unless
they've also suffered from mental illness. I can tell you how to catch a fish,
because I've read all of the books on catching fish. I've watched fishing
tournaments, and I've even helped people get into fishing. But I've never
fished before. I won't be able to tell you how to really work the line. I can
fill in the gaps, but it's usually not as effective as first-hand account.

There's also the other side that most trained professionals are not equipped
to handle serious cases. The lack of literature on quality-of-life increasing
treatments for serious illnesses (major depressives, schizophrenics, etc.) is
another factor. Most professionals get their information second-hand from
textbooks and their education. Then secondly, from practice. Where as the
first-hand experience of mental illness is the primary source of practical
guidelines for those who suffer from them.

There's also the statistic that around 60% of people with mental illness don't
get or stop getting treatment. With schizophrenics and more serious sufferers
being on the tail end of that.

~~~
wilsonnb
>It is not that it cannot be translated into knowledge by professionals, it's
that they'll never be able to comprehend what exactly is going on unless
they've also suffered from mental illness.

This sentence reads to me like "It's not that professionals can't effectively
use other peoples first hand experience , it's that they can't effectively use
other peoples first hand experience".

They don't need to know exactly what's going on. It's impossible for anyone to
ever know exactly what is going on in another person's mind. Psychology as a
profession is completely useless if that's the bar for it being useful.

I apologize if my response comes off as aggressive, but I strongly believe
that propagating the idea that mental health professionals can't really help
people is dangerous for those that would benefit from their help.

~~~
stagbeetle
>This sentence reads to me like "It's not that professionals can't effectively
use other peoples first hand experience , it's that they can't effectively use
other peoples first hand experience".

It was reinforcing the point you were disagreeing with. They can make use of
it, but not efficient use of it.

>They don't need to know exactly what's going on. It's impossible for anyone
to ever know exactly what is going on in another person's mind. Psychology as
a profession is completely useless if that's the bar for it being useful.

To use anecdotes: I've seen assistance from friend's and loved ones, who've
experienced first-hand the illness, to have a more profound effect on the
quality-of-life and recovery of the person suffering, than the average medical
professional (psychiatrists, psychologists, counselors, etc. ranked in their
own groups). There are some astounding medical professionals out there that
will definitely be very helpful in getting someone "back on track," but in my
experience, they're never covered under your average joe's insurance. That
leaves the bulk of available professionals' quality to be lack-luster, and
arguably, a waste of time -- even detrimental in some specific cases.

The bar for doctor involvement and vested interest is nearing the ground, in
the U.S.A. Unless surgery or extremely specialized treatment is needed
(chemotherapy, gene therapy, etc.), you'll almost always get better care doing
the research and treatment yourself.

>I apologize if my response comes off as aggressive, but I strongly believe
that propagating the idea that mental health professionals can't really help
people is dangerous for those that would benefit from their help.

And I believe if you don't first become aware of shortcomings, you'll never be
able to fix problems. And mental health treatment, as an industry, has a lot
of problems.

------
DiabloD3
Typo: Swartz

------
txsh
The world would be a drastically better place to live if Aaron Swartz were
still in it.

~~~
txsh
I'm getting downvoted for this. That's how far HN has fallen, folks.

~~~
dang
Would you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to HN? We've already
asked you several times. And this one breaks the site guidelines outright.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
Spone
please edit, his last name is Swartz

~~~
grzm
Actually, the name should likely just be removed. The title is "I Hate the
News".

~~~
dang
Ok, we've done that. (Submitted title was "I Hate the News by Aaron Shwartz
(2006)".)

We tend to take author names out of titles because HN works better when the
emphasis is on content rather than personalities. It stays on personalities
anyhow when a famous person is in the mix, but this tactic compensates a bit.

Plus in Aaron's case the author name is already encoded in the domain name.

