I'm in the U.S., and I constantly scan most of the major news source and commentary headlines.
It's a cesspool out there.
For a bit of history as I remember it, for what it's worth: in the 80s and 90s, I think, right-wing think tanks started providing a lot of research and background material. Of course these were slanted to right-wing views, but for the most part, unless you were really digging for stuff, it was academic. So if you had an argument about Gulf War I? You could, with effort, find some right-wing slanted stuff. But it was all alongside other academic material. It all balanced out. It was possible to consume a bit of bias and still make analysis work.
Then suddenly when the net started taking off, all of that research and such became much more easily available. If you were some right-wing guy looking to bolster point X, Google was your friend! You could find some nice charts and data.
Of course this was intolerable for the left, as it should be, so they started funding their own foundations and truth-providers.
This quickly became an escalating war. The titles got more and more scandalous and no matter what side you were on no matter the topic, you could find some studies and PhDs somewhere to back you up. It became a post-truth era.
Now it's all grown into vertical silos. Left-wing news sources publish left-wing commentators who repeat left-wing studies. Same thing happens on the right.
It's reached the point now where not only are the headlines and articles slanted trash, but it's problematic to sort it all out. In many cases you need to track an issue over time in both left and right-wing silos to arrive at something that works. The cognitive load for the average reader is simply too great. So instead they just stick inside their bubble and go through their lives not worrying about it.
I think this election a large percentage of people are finally figuring out how hosed up and colluding the systems of news and politics are. I'm not sure there will be improvement, but it's good to see a little daylight shining on things.
I'm in the U.S., and I constantly scan most of the major news source and commentary headlines.
It's a cesspool out there.
For a bit of history as I remember it, for what it's worth: in the 80s and 90s, I think, right-wing think tanks started providing a lot of research and background material. Of course these were slanted to right-wing views, but for the most part, unless you were really digging for stuff, it was academic. So if you had an argument about Gulf War I? You could, with effort, find some right-wing slanted stuff. But it was all alongside other academic material. It all balanced out. It was possible to consume a bit of bias and still make analysis work.
Then suddenly when the net started taking off, all of that research and such became much more easily available. If you were some right-wing guy looking to bolster point X, Google was your friend! You could find some nice charts and data.
Of course this was intolerable for the left, as it should be, so they started funding their own foundations and truth-providers.
This quickly became an escalating war. The titles got more and more scandalous and no matter what side you were on no matter the topic, you could find some studies and PhDs somewhere to back you up. It became a post-truth era.
Now it's all grown into vertical silos. Left-wing news sources publish left-wing commentators who repeat left-wing studies. Same thing happens on the right.
It's reached the point now where not only are the headlines and articles slanted trash, but it's problematic to sort it all out. In many cases you need to track an issue over time in both left and right-wing silos to arrive at something that works. The cognitive load for the average reader is simply too great. So instead they just stick inside their bubble and go through their lives not worrying about it.
I think this election a large percentage of people are finally figuring out how hosed up and colluding the systems of news and politics are. I'm not sure there will be improvement, but it's good to see a little daylight shining on things.