

The Newswipe Manifesto - philf
http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/newswipe

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mixmax
I've sometimes stumbled across newscasts from the 70's that are available on
the publicly run Danish broadcast station (it's like the BBC) and really
noticed the difference. The news would contain maybe 4 or 5 stories spread
across an hour. The anchor would spend 10 minutes explaining the current
political situation in Russia, and have a 10 minute interview with the foreign
minister about how this would impact the country. The people interviewed
actually got to tell us their opinion instead of speaking in soundbites. Very
different to todays news.

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jimbokun
"NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" is the only current U.S. news show I can think of
that is something like that. Charlie Rose goes even more in depth, spending a
half hour or more with a single guest, with the guest doing the lion's share
of the talking.

Tellingly, both of these shows are on PBS (the public TV network).

~~~
biohacker42
Jim Lehrer scares me. He takes that bizarre US cultural tradition of
neutrality at all costs to an extreme. It doesn't matter how much one side
spins and how true the other is. Lehrer must be found in the exact middle
betwen the sides, and there he has those cold eyes.

I am not kidding, it's scary watching someone be that devoted to this inane
idea of journalistic neutrality. The objective truth is absolutely
disregarded. Middle of of the road, no matter where the middle happens to
fall. I prefer the daily show.

~~~
jimbokun
I am trying to read this in a way that does not suggest you just want someone
to regurgitate back to you the views you already hold in an entertaining way.

Yes, I realize that John Stewart was the only voice of sanity in the media
over much of the last several years. But as he often tries to remind people,
he is, in fact, a comedian. Brilliant, cutting, insightful, with an
unparalleled nose for sniffing out bullshit, yes, but still a comedian.

You may find this hard to believe, but Bill O'Reilly's original schtick was
dispensing with the "inane idea of journalistic neutrality", too. When people
would say things he found outrageous, he would call them on it. Of course that
rapidly devolved to him shouting over people and cutting their mike.

I am in no way criticizing John Stewart and the Daily Show. But I find the
idea that so many people are un-ironically claiming the Daily Show as their
prime news source a little bit troubling. For example, one thing that has
bothered me is the obsession with continuing to talk about stupid Republicans.
Yes, there are many stupid Republicans, saying enough stupid things to fill a
24 hour news cycle. But in the meantime, we have a Democratic President and
Congress trying to put together some of the most sweeping legislative changes
in my political memory. It is easy to put together an hour of making fun of
Republicans. But couldn't that hour be better spent analyzing the complex
health care bills now being debated? Can't we ignore the un-serious,
obstructionist Republicans for a little bit to have a good idea of what we
might be getting ourselves into?

If John Stewart is actually doing that kind of analysis, more power to him. If
not, I would say we still need a news source in addition to the Daily Show.
Maybe Leher's show does not fit the bill, but I'm opening to hearing about a
U.S. news source that's better.

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biohacker42
I am not sure there is a US TV news source that's better. And it's true the
Daily Show is in fact not my primary news source. But the uniquely American
obsession with neutrality is at best inane, and at worst an active aid to spin
and lies. That's perfectly encapsulated by what I quoted here:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=784936>

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biohacker42
I think that's more of a US news thing. I still remember getting my first
broken tiny TV in the US, which only got one channel. I had been out of the
news loop for a few weeks at the time, literally just a few weeks of the
plane. So I park myself in front of the TV to get some news.

First the local news, OK they do call it local so I'm not too surprised
there's no world news, they do keep adverting this "nightly news" that's
coming up. OK the nightly news... hmmm... doesn't seem like news more like
infotainment, aaand it' over. I still have no idea what happened in the world
today. But hey adds for another news block at 10pm, I guess I'll stay up for
that. Oh but it's local again and I get a "world news minute".

Bizarrely not only do I have no idea what happened in the world today, but I
didn't even hear much about US issues, certainly almost nothing about US
foreign policy. Shockingly I got A LOT more information on the news behind the
iron curtain when it was still up!

So yeah, there's no such thing as TV news in the US. But other places in the
world have news. The Irish Times is a good paper for people who can only read
English.

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halo
The quote comes from Charlie Brooker's Newswipe, which is a British TV show
made by the BBC for BBC4.

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jacoblyles
News as a concept doesn't make a lot of sense for educational purposes. It
represents only a thin time slice of the most recent events - dust on the
microfilm of history. It is far more informative to study the past, all the
events that brought the world (or some part of it) to its current state. This
will provide a more complete understanding, even if you are ignorant of the
events of the last few months.

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andyking
The programme as shown is here (with this speech in its original context about
1'30'' in): <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dm4GiyyVKQQ>

~~~
danw
With the BBC metadata here: <http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00jhp50>

