"Citizen" journalism

[Hank Kingsley 20678]

Probably time for us to have a thread/discussion on this topic as things get worse and worse. 

I'm late 40s, would be described as very liberal by others. I haven't consumed any news from TV in 4-5 years. No CNN, No Fox, no local news, none of it. For the last 10-15 years I've used Twitter as a news feed and followed verified journalists to consume info (as well as general entertainment/sports/comedic accounts) That includes people like Glenn Greenwald, who I don't like and generally don't agree with, but I want to be challenged with viewpoints and don't want to get stuck in an echo chamber. 

Since Elon purchased Twitter and boosted the idea of "citizen" journalism, the app has become almost unusable. It's also where the vast majority of this bullshit "journalism" is being published. Trying to get genuine info on the protests going on right now around the country is practically impossible. Here are the biggest issues IMO. 

1. Elon Musk - This guy is simply a dumbass regarding anything outside of technology. Allowing anyone to be verified on Twitter was a massive error. 

2. Monetization on Twitter - Fatal mistake and the complete downfall of the app. People will do and say anything to make money. Bot impressions also boost these disingenuous posts. 

3. Engagement farming - Someone posts a video, then 100s of other accounts take the video and post it themselves to make money and grab more engagement. They flood the zone. 

4. The algorithm - Holy shit, it's dangerous.

Are real journalists perfect? Of course not. Lots of issues with classic media. But putting reporting it into the hands of "the people", who mostly have no ethical/moral standards and see a massive opportunity to gain popularity and money, is an absolute disaster.

[Frank Drebin 5616]

"Real" journalists suck as much or more.  They are nothing more than propagandists.

[Pam Cummings 9568]

We are oversaturated with bullshit. That's all it is. Too many voices from too many places and we have too much access to it all. A "healthy" society doesn't need this much news. All it is is "here's another hour of outrage and shit that will be used to divide lower classes". 

 

All we need is like an hour of evening news every day. That's it. We don't need all this bullshit telling us about things in areas where we will never live that we will never deal with with updates every 5 seconds.

[Captainant 27442]

9 minutes ago, Frank Drebin said:

"Real" journalists suck as much or more.  They are nothing more than propagandists.

My man youre literally citing people with "propagandist" in their Twitter profile lol

[Willfully Horn 7913]

10 minutes ago, Frank Drebin said:

"Real" journalists suck as much or more.  They are nothing more than propagandists.

Is this true? Because it sounds like rhetoric. No doubt, there are propagandists masquerading as journalists, but, absent proof, I would think there are upstanding souls fighting the good fight. Any reason I should believe you?

[Pam Cummings 9568]

Another aspect of all these "news sources" is that no matter how outrageous or dumb your opinion is, someone agrees with it. Someone out there will give you the warm and fuzzies you so desperately seek.

 

"See, Jimmy Lipper on Twitter agrees with me! It's not so outrageous after all! Look, he even has a check mark!"

Edited May 1 by Pam Cummings

[aggie08 21424]

18 minutes ago, Frank Drebin said:

"Real" journalists suck as much or more.  They are nothing more than propagandists.

This is absolute bullshit, of course. Say what you will about their biases and agendas--and there's much to be said--but they are at least liable for what they report. They have source-vetting and legal teams behind them, telling them what are and are not allowed to imply. Their companies can be sued for three-quarters of a billion dollars if they flat out knowingly lie. 

Twitter journalists aren't bound by any such burden of proof. Which, not surprisingly, is largely why Sack is a frequent purveyor of said "news".

[Mole 4320]

11 minutes ago, Pam Cummings said:

All we need is like an hour of evening news every day. That's it.

Too much news and it’s too exciting. Most news should be pretty boring. If it’s constantly making you angry, you’re consuming propaganda, not news. Certainly some news should make you angry, but the constant stream of rage isn’t healthy and doesn’t give you an honest view of the world.

The nearly live clips (with no context) are exciting. They make you feel something. They show a very narrow, less-than-honest view of what’s happening but make you feel like you know what’s going on, all while feeding your need for anger and rage.

It isn’t news; it’s propaganda.

[Pam Cummings 9568]

1 minute ago, Mole said:

Too much news and it’s too exciting. Most news should be pretty boring. If it’s constantly making you angry, you’re consuming propaganda, not news. Certainly some news should make you angry, but the constant stream of rage isn’t healthy and doesn’t give you an honest view of the world.

The nearly live clips (with no context) are exciting. They make you feel something. They show a very narrow, less-than-honest view of what’s happening but make you feel like you know what’s going on, all while feeding your need for anger and rage.

It isn’t news; it’s propaganda.

And it usually has nothing to do with you or the community you live in. And then we wonder why there is no sense of community. The average person could probably tell me everything going on on Twitter in places around the country but has no idea what the people in their local government are up to. 

[Pam Cummings 9568]

10 minutes ago, Blotto said:

Sack has sucked so much Trump cock, he actually believes him. 

Sack knows that we will react negatively to his shitposts, that's why he does it. It isn't about being informational. He just wants to rile people up. The problem with a person like him is that all that shit he posts belongs on a site like Texags. That is where people will agree with him. However, those people on that site are so unbelievably stupid about every aspect of life that even he can't handle it. He has to come here to find people who are actually rational and to have decent discussions about sports topics.

Edited May 1 by Pam Cummings

[atomheartbevo 89409]

27 minutes ago, Pam Cummings said:

All we need is like an hour of evening news every day. That's it. We don't need all this bullshit telling us about things in areas where we will never live that we will never deal with with updates every 5 seconds.

 

Those of us who were 80s kids, a lot of our parents flipped out over the Adam Walsh murder, the Tylenol poisonings, and the rumored needles in Halloween candy.  That shit happened a long ways away from a lot of us and should not have affected our parents.  Plenty of parents all of the sudden got nervous about dumping their kids at the mall, or worse, they turned their Gen X kids into helicopter parents.

[TwiceHorn 31265]

I think a couple of other things are at work here, as well, also stemming from the internet.

The news cycle is lightning fast now, which encourages ethical journalists perhaps to cut corners.  In this case, I mean lack of editing, revision, and consideration of a story or article.  And that is a recipe for letting personal bias through.

Second, the short, "sound bite" format of Twatter/X and other platforms virtually eliminates nuance from the news; there's just not room for it and I think this again encourages personal bias.

And these are the factors weighing on journalists, real ones who strive to be ethical and have editors and staffs as noted above.  Let alone the "citizen journalists" who have no conception of journalistic ethics.

Those two factors also weigh on the news consumer, who doesn't seem to want or have the capability to absorb nuance anymore.  So many have damaged attention spans anymore.  Maybe that ability was always limited by stupidity and lack of education, but I think the nature of things contributes as well.

[wildcat09 29226]

The problems with traditional journalism are mostly structural and largely result from basic capitalist incentives applicable to any private business. Johnny thinks they're all just paid propagandists because the non-traditional ones he likes actually are. 

[aggie08 21424]

12 minutes ago, Mole said:

Too much news and it’s too exciting. Most news should be pretty boring. If it’s constantly making you angry, you’re consuming propaganda, not news. Certainly some news should make you angry, but the constant stream of rage isn’t healthy and doesn’t give you an honest view of the world.

The nearly live clips (with no context) are exciting. They make you feel something. They show a very narrow, less-than-honest view of what’s happening but make you feel like you know what’s going on, all while feeding your need for anger and rage.

It isn’t news; it’s propaganda.

This is the crux of it. Making people angry drives eyeballs and clicks. The garbage opinion shows on news channels--which viewers have a difficult time separating from actual news--are certainly guilty. But the online community--whose livelihoods depends on followers and page hits--have taken it to 11.

[Helobious 9480]

Tommy G & Andrew Callahan are the only 2 worth a shit.
 

[Willfully Horn 7913]

Reuters and Science.org.

Then: AP, BBC, NPR, and the Texas Tribune, which differ from Reuters not on accuracy, but on story selection, and the perspective from which they tell it.

There’re other outlets that belong in the discussion, 

Mediabiasfactcheck is on the level.

Edited May 1 by Willfully Horn
Plural

[BehoId, The Underminer! 11668]

Every headline should start with “This Is Just An Anecdote In A Country of 333,000,000, But…”

[Captain Ron 12793]

24 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

Those of us who were 80s kids, a lot of our parents flipped out over the Adam Walsh murder, the Tylenol poisonings, and the rumored needles in Halloween candy.  That shit happened a long ways away from a lot of us and should not have affected our parents.  Plenty of parents all of the sudden got nervous about dumping their kids at the mall, or worse, they turned their Gen X kids into helicopter parents.

And some of these were nothing more than pure. rumor that never happened - throw the drugged candies in with that too.

I think this comment really nails it.

23 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

I think a couple of other things are at work here, as well, also stemming from the internet.

The news cycle is lightning fast now, which encourages ethical journalists perhaps to cut corners.  In this case, I mean lack of editing, revision, and consideration of a story or article.  And that is a recipe for letting personal bias through.

Second, the short, "sound bite" format of Twatter/X and other platforms virtually eliminates nuance from the news; there's just not room for it and I think this again encourages personal bias.

And these are the factors weighing on journalists, real ones who strive to be ethical and have editors and staffs as noted above.  Let alone the "citizen journalists" who have no conception of journalistic ethics.

Those two factors also weigh on the news consumer, who doesn't seem to want or have the capability to absorb nuance anymore.  So many have damaged attention spans anymore.  Maybe that ability was always limited by stupidity and lack of education, but I think the nature of things contributes as well.

The two big takeaways here is the need to be the organization to break some angle of news and how much we have just devolved into a sound bite era when it comes to quotes/comments.

You look at this, of course people think "Oh hey! I can do that!!" <Narrator's voice> No, in fact they really can't</Narrator's voice>. They think they can curate their own sound bite and videos - but they don't get all of the need for ethics or even how to be fair/balanced on these things. Heck, they don't even understand that news is really supposed to be providing facts.

We've been living in an era for a few decades now where everything has to be attention getting or emotional swaying etc because of how the news cycle has changed. Tack on top of that how much engagement is the key word at places like Facebook and Twitter and what people "think" is news is really nothing of the sort.

 

The result of all this? People are just putting up so much Bullshit for people to lap up. And they do.

[F250 28680]

Here is an article on Musk's "citizen journalists" regarding the Israeli/Hamas conflict. Most of the accounts mentioned in the article are frequently posted in the DT.

 

Quote

Since the first news of the attack on Israel by Hamas, we have seen anecdotal reports from users of X (formerly Twitter) that the platform has become less useful for surfacing verified news and more generally disorienting. Through a novel data collection process we identify highly influential accounts in the Hamas/Israel discourse on X that comprise the most dominant English-language news sources on Twitter for the event. In this Center for an Informed Public rapid research report, we compare these accounts to traditional news sources and find on average they have far fewer subscribers while achieving far greater views, are of more recent popularity, and show a greater posting frequency. Most of the accounts also use video and images frequently, framed in emotional ways. Strikingly, many of these accounts have received prior promotion from X owner Elon Musk, either through direct recommendation or through Musk’s account replying to their content, which may explain some of their dominance of “news twitter.”

https://www.cip.uw.edu/2023/10/20/new-elites-twitter-x-most-influential-accounts-hamas-israel/

 

[Paper_jam 828]

Everything was better when the vast majority of people only had access to a daily local or regional newspaper, and a half-hour of broadcast network news from NBC, CBS, ABC, or PBS. Cable news, and especially click-driven internet news, has poisoned people's brains.

 

[Captainant 27442]

58 minutes ago, F250 said:

Here is an article on Musk's "citizen journalists" regarding the Israeli/Hamas conflict. Most of the accounts mentioned in the article are frequently posted in the DT.

 

https://www.cip.uw.edu/2023/10/20/new-elites-twitter-x-most-influential-accounts-hamas-israel/

 

@immamac this is the essence of my posting in the national thread. There is an active promotion of fringe content that is getting spammed across everyone's feed, and the folks respamming it elsewhere genuinely believe they're using good sources. 

They fuckin ain't. Make a rule about it if you want me to stop pointing out that people are using literal propagandists to inform the thread and conversation on YOUR message board. 

[956 Worldwide 34422]

If you get a subscription to the NYT or Washington Post and The Economist you will likely have a good understanding of almost everything you need to know and will also get all the responsible context and responsible differing opinions. Add WSJ/FT for the business stuff.

 

Only if you REALLY care about something, it might be worth it to follow a journalist from one of those outlets on a specific beat like defense or Congress and then watch who they interact with to build out your own feed. 
 

The vast majority of people only need NYT/WaPo and The Economist. 

Edited May 1 by 956 Worldwide

[Hate 20103]

Many years ago when Kinky was running for governor, he held a campaign rally. One news station reported that Kinky was surrounded by hundreds of enthusiastic supporters while yet another news station reported the evening as disappointing because they were expected thousands of people but only hundreds showed up. 
 

So what was the actual news? Unless you personally witness an event, expect some spin on whatever you see on TV or read on the web.

Edited May 1 by Hate

[BurntEyes 5826]

1 hour ago, Willfully Horn said:

Reuters and Science.org.

Then: AP, BBC, NPR, and the Texas Tribune, which differ from Reuters not on accuracy, but on story selection, and the perspective from which they tell it.

There’s other outlets that belong in the discussion, 

Mediabiasfactcheck is on the level.

I strongly agree with Reuters and science.org 

Not familiar enough with mediabiasfactcheck but will check it out 

I do not agree with your accuracy aspect regarding the Tribune, BBC, AP or NPR. It's not that I think they frequently report inaccurate information, rather they certainly have a bias regarding WHAT information they choose to report. They are also all much more op-ed rather than fact based reporting. I personally don't need someone telling me how to view what occurred. Rather, just the facts (ALL of them as they are available over time) and allow me to parse them and come to my own conclusion.

I'm don't have an X account (never had a Twitter) and delete anyone on other social media that get into politics. I've no need for their extremely biased and largely poorly informed opinions.

I also don't watch much mainstream media.

I'm a weirdo. 

[BurntEyes 5826]

8 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

If you get a subscription to the NYT or Washington Post and The Economist you will likely have a good understanding of almost everything you need to know and will also get all the responsible context and responsible differing opinions. Add WSJ/FT for the business stuff.

 

Only if you REALLY care about something, it might be worth it to follow a journalist from one of those outlets on a specific beat like defense or Congress and then watch who they interact with to build out your own feed. 
 

The vast majority of people only need NYT/WaPo and The Economist. 

I would add I find a lot of value in Reuters but those are all valuable information spots and I would largely agree with your assessment. I would personally include wall street journal in with your final list.

[HendersonHorns 85]

2 hours ago, Pam Cummings said:

Another aspect of all these "news sources" is that no matter how outrageous or dumb your opinion is, someone agrees with it. Someone out there will give you the warm and fuzzies you so desperately seek.

 

"See, Jimmy Lipper on Twitter agrees with me! It's not so outrageous after all! Look, he even has a check mark!"

I love this first paragraph so much.  
 

I’ve said for a long time, the village idiots use to be confined to the village and everyone knew they were idiots (Alex Jones for a prime example).  Now, this same village idiots have millions of followers and people who agree with them and can come together in huge numbers. 
 

how do you defeat that shit?

[Samson's Wig 3179]

Twitter was always an echo chamber. It's just a much less civilized echo chamber now.    It was never more than a small percentage of the population circle jerking each other in whatever echo chamber they created by curating their feed.  Now it's one big echo chamber, solely curated by Robotron Pastebody, instead of the fragmented echo chambers it was before.   Let's not pretend like it was ever a genuine source for measured information.  It's much worse now, but it was always shit.

[Dahobbs 17437]

5 minutes ago, Hate said:

Many years ago when Kinky was running for governor, he held a campaign rally. One news station reported that Kinky was surrounded by hundreds of enthusiastic supporters while yet another news station reported the evening as disappointing because they were expected thousands of people but only hundreds showed up. 
 

So what was the actual news?

From what you stated, it sounds like both of them. And those statements aren't inconsistent. 

• 100s of people could have shown up. 
• The campaign may have been disappointed because it expected thousands. 

The question I would have is whether the latter statement was attributed to a campaign source and thus was reporting on the feelings of the campaign or whether the disappointment was an editorialization opinion by the news outlet.   

Edited May 1 by Dahobbs

[BurntEyes 5826]

3 minutes ago, Hate said:

Many years ago when Kinky was running for governor, he held a campaign rally. One news station reported that Kinky was surrounded by hundreds of enthusiastic supporters while yet another news station reported the evening as disappointing because they were expected thousands of people but only hundreds showed up. 
 

So what was the actual news?

Based on just YOUR relay of the facts without any additional research or knowledge...

Kinky was running for Governor. He had a rally. People showed up. The amount of people is subject to interpretation, one being a lot, one being not as many as the Kinky campaign would have liked.

Is there any word from Kinky on his thoughts regarding the turn out, is there any video or any sort of census that was taken? What is the typical/median turnout for such a rally? Do we have data to measure against that? Where does this data come from?

Mostly, it doesn't provide much in the way of news without answers to my questions.

[956 Worldwide 34422]

Citizen journalism via Twitter was a thing that largely got promoted during the Arab Spring and Iran protests and then spread to include citizens reporting on events from nations with only state-controlled media to report and organize on state actions.  Elron’s citizen journalists focus on reporting from open societies and claim that their reporting is needed because a shadowy cabal of elites control media. They frequently promote malign state-sponsored narratives and news and cooperate with state-controlled foreign media. 
 

The one small carve-out is that the biggest information threat is the ongoing death of good local and regional reporting. Most people need to know more about their county officials than they do about college protests.  But there are very few of these “citizen journalists” on the local government procurement beat. 

[bolverk 29397]

5 minutes ago, BurntEyes said:

I would add I find a lot of value in Reuters but those are all valuable information spots and I would largely agree with your assessment. I would personally include wall street journal in with your final list.

The problem with Reuters is the layout of the webpage and all the ads and stuff. I understand they need to pay the bills, but it's just not a pleasant experience to be on their site, even if I like their reporting.

[royiv 9150]

4 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

From what you stated, it sounds like both of them. And those statements aren't inconsistent. 

• 100s of people could have shown up. 
• The campaign may have been disappointed because it expected thousands. 

The question I would have is whether the latter statement was attributed to a campaign source and thus was reporting on the feelings of the campaign or whether the "disappointment" was an editorialization opinion by the news outlet.   

Exactly what I was thinking. To say it’s a disappointment with no attribution is opinion. If the reporter asks the candidate or a campaign official how many they were expecting and whether they were happy with the turnout and the reports the answer with attribution, that’s fact based journalism.

[BurntEyes 5826]

5 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

From what you stated, it sounds like both of them. And those statements aren't inconsistent. 

• 100s of people could have shown up. 
• The campaign may have been disappointed because it expected thousands. 

The question I would have is whether the latter statement was attributed to a campaign source and thus was reporting on the feelings of the campaign or whether the disappointment was an editorialization opinion by the news outlet.   

Did they expect thousands?

Maybe they hoped for thousands, but expected?

Perhaps we should ask Kinky's campaign manager.

[BurntEyes 5826]

Three different media sources have determined there wasn't enough data on the Kinky Rally to determine if it was a success or not.

Now CTJ with sports.

[wildcat09 29226]

28 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

Citizen journalism via Twitter was a thing that largely got promoted during the Arab Spring and Iran protests and then spread to include citizens reporting on events from nations with only state-controlled media to report and organize on state actions.  Elron’s citizen journalists focus on reporting from open societies and claim that their reporting is needed because a shadowy cabal of elites control media. They frequently promote malign state-sponsored narratives and news and cooperate with state-controlled foreign media. 
 

The one small carve-out is that the biggest information threat is the ongoing death of good local and regional reporting. Most people need to know more about their county officials than they do about college protests.  But there are very few of these “citizen journalists” on the local government procurement beat. 

Yeah, but local council meetings are so fucking boring. 

[Mikey4 2476]

38 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

Yeah, but local council meetings are so fucking boring. 

You're just watching the wrong meetings.

https://youtu.be/mUfOFnIndwY?si=bv0VoqIfojDOV5nN

[Nice Guy Eddie 13410]

4 hours ago, Frank Drebin said:

"Real" journalists suck as much or more.  They are nothing more than propagandists.

That's a real deep take. I'm sure your 10 second clips from an unknown social media user have educated you on the media.

[956 Worldwide 34422]

5 hours ago, Hank Kingsley said:

Probably time for us to have a thread/discussion on this topic as things get worse and worse. 

I'm late 40s, would be described as very liberal by others. I haven't consumed any news from TV in 4-5 years. No CNN, No Fox, no local news, none of it. For the last 10-15 years I've used Twitter as a news feed and followed verified journalists to consume info (as well as general entertainment/sports/comedic accounts) That includes people like Glenn Greenwald, who I don't like and generally don't agree with, but I want to be challenged with viewpoints and don't want to get stuck in an echo chamber. 

Since Elon purchased Twitter and boosted the idea of "citizen" journalism, the app has become almost unusable. It's also where the vast majority of this bullshit "journalism" is being published. Trying to get genuine info on the protests going on right now around the country is practically impossible. Here are the biggest issues IMO. 

1. Elon Musk - This guy is simply a dumbass regarding anything outside of technology. Allowing anyone to be verified on Twitter was a massive error. 

2. Monetization on Twitter - Fatal mistake and the complete downfall of the app. People will do and say anything to make money. Bot impressions also boost these disingenuous posts. 

3. Engagement farming - Someone posts a video, then 100s of other accounts take the video and post it themselves to make money and grab more engagement. They flood the zone. 

4. The algorithm - Holy shit, it's dangerous.

Are real journalists perfect? Of course not. Lots of issues with classic media. But putting reporting it into the hands of "the people", who mostly have no ethical/moral standards and see a massive opportunity to gain popularity and money, is an absolute disaster.

The risk here of challenging yourself is that the space is full of people and actors with concealed intent, affiliation, and agenda.  It is very difficult for even literate consumers to discriminate and pick apart people who disagree, people who legitimately hold awful viewpoints because they are dumb, people who hold awful viewpoints because they are awful, and people with awful viewpoints who are simply weapons. 
 

As an analogy, imagine you’re trying to decide what to do with a big windfall.  You decide to talk to a financial advisor at a traditional firm, a more aggressive boutique guy, your idiot brother in law pumping crypto, and a criminal who wants to scam you and steal your money. 

There’s an argument to listen to the first three and challenge yourself but no one in their right mind thinks that you just hear out the criminal because you want to keep an open mind. The problem is that it’s hard to pick out the criminal and they are good at telling you what you want to hear. 
 

 

[High Plains Drifter 10971]

 

Getting your news from a citizen journalist is like getting your appendix removed from a citizen surgeon.

 

(Except the citizen journalist is killing democracy, while the citizen surgeon is only killing you) 

 

 

The internet is killing democracy. But hey, it makes it easy to get the lulz on surlyhorns or to pay your bills or look at pics of your grandkids who live a thousand miles away!

Some may say that social media is killing democracy. If you can separate social media from the internet, then I guess that is more accurate. But as long as we are going to have the internet, we are going to have social media. 

How long after you got your first email account did you get one of those fwd: fwd: fwd: fwd: emails from your uncle? The same uncle who has now probably gone full maga?

[Shaggy3.0 1695]

are you saying i shouldn't trust a dude wearing a goonies shirt for local housing market info?

 

 

[Wally Fairway 5521]

7 hours ago, Hank Kingsley said:

Probably time for us to have a thread/discussion on this topic as things get worse and worse. 

I'm late 40s, would be described as very liberal by others. I haven't consumed any news from TV in 4-5 years. No CNN, No Fox, no local news, none of it. For the last 10-15 years I've used Twitter as a news feed and followed verified journalists to consume info (as well as general entertainment/sports/comedic accounts) That includes people like Glenn Greenwald, who I don't like and generally don't agree with, but I want to be challenged with viewpoints and don't want to get stuck in an echo chamber. 

Since Elon purchased Twitter and boosted the idea of "citizen" journalism, the app has become almost unusable. It's also where the vast majority of this bullshit "journalism" is being published. Trying to get genuine info on the protests going on right now around the country is practically impossible. Here are the biggest issues IMO. 

1. Elon Musk - This guy is simply a dumbass regarding anything outside of technology. Allowing anyone to be verified on Twitter was a massive error. 

2. Monetization on Twitter - Fatal mistake and the complete downfall of the app. People will do and say anything to make money. Bot impressions also boost these disingenuous posts. 

3. Engagement farming - Someone posts a video, then 100s of other accounts take the video and post it themselves to make money and grab more engagement. They flood the zone. 

4. The algorithm - Holy shit, it's dangerous.

Are real journalists perfect? Of course not. Lots of issues with classic media. But putting reporting it into the hands of "the people", who mostly have no ethical/moral standards and see a massive opportunity to gain popularity and money, is an absolute disaster.

After Xwitter was Elon'd, I stopped following Elon but that didn't work since half of the people on there retweet his crap; so the second step was to get off Xwitter myself.
Best thing I ever did, about once a month I'll get on and look at what a few accounts have posted - but I think whatever I am missing out on is much less than dealing with all the crap that is on it. 
Anyway, I use Surly Daily New & 6th Street as a news aggregator  - if it is important it will be here

[Hank Kingsley 20678]

2 minutes ago, Wally Fairway said:

After Xwitter was Elon'd, I stopped following Elon but that didn't work since half of the people on there retweet his crap; so the second step was to get off Xwitter myself.
Best thing I ever did, about once a month I'll get on and look at what a few accounts have posted - but I think whatever I am missing out on is much less than dealing with all the crap that is on it. 
Anyway, I use Surly Daily New & 6th Street as a news aggregator  - if it is important it will be here

Good for you, seriously. 

I don't follow Elon either. The "smart" thing for me to do on Twitter would be to block accounts or mute words to clean up my timeline, but I just can't bring myself to purposely censor shit. It feels wrong. 

Something in me that needs  to see the ugliness/shitshow that is upon us. I don't want to be oblivious to it. 

[Willfully Horn 7913]

6 hours ago, BurntEyes said:

I do not agree with your accuracy aspect regarding the Tribune, BBC, AP or NPR. It's not that I think they frequently report inaccurate information, rather they certainly have a bias regarding WHAT information they choose to report.

Didn’t I already say the same thing in my post you quote?

6 hours ago, BurntEyes said:

They are also all much more op-ed rather than fact based reporting. I personally don't need someone telling me how to view what occurred. 

 

Each of the second tier outlets has a left-center bias, so I see from where you are coming. News, however, doesn’t happen in a vacuum, and explaining  the context of news is, to me, an important part of journalism.  Knowing their bias is on me. Which led me to mbfc, which, you will find, says what you say about op-ed.

[Foosters 17727]

9 hours ago, Frank Drebin said:

"Real" journalists suck as much or more.  They are nothing more than propagandists.

This is exactly why many Americans are supporting Russia in their invasion of Ukraine.

[BurntEyes 5826]

38 minutes ago, Willfully Horn said:

Didn’t I already say the same thing in my post you quote?

Hmmmm... sort of but we differed slightly in our views and I'm of the position and opinion that the nuance of variation in our views was worth noting. Hence my post. 

[BurntEyes 5826]

47 minutes ago, Willfully Horn said:

Each of the second tier outlets has a left-center bias, so I see from where you are coming. News, however, doesn’t happen in a vacuum, and explaining  the context of news is, to me, an important part of journalism.  Knowing their bias is on me. Which led me to mbfc, which, you will find, says what you say about op-ed.

Fair points and I think we are pretty close in position overall. 

I do appreciate the reference to mbfc and still plan to check it out, despite not having so to this point. So, thanks again.

Edit - I want to point out one thing I think/hope we both agree with based on our dialog. That is, I truly wish more people looked at, read, listened to more of these outlets, particularly to read informed and verified information from sources not always in line with their own position on policy/politics. The world would be a better place, imo. At the end of the day, I really don't think there is as much divide as the group think and propaganda machines produce. But, that's just like my opinion, man.

Edited May 1 by BurntEyes

[F250 28680]

4 hours ago, High Plains Drifter said:

 

Getting your news from a citizen journalist is like getting your appendix removed from a citizen surgeon.

 

(Except the citizen journalist is killing democracy, while the citizen surgeon is only killing you) 

 

 

The internet is killing democracy. But hey, it makes it easy to get the lulz on surlyhorns or to pay your bills or look at pics of your grandkids who live a thousand miles away!

Some may say that social media is killing democracy. If you can separate social media from the internet, then I guess that is more accurate. But as long as we are going to have the internet, we are going to have social media. 

How long after you got your first email account did you get one of those fwd: fwd: fwd: fwd: emails from your uncle? The same uncle who has now probably gone full maga?

I had an email account years before the fwd:fwd shit started up. The internet was around for years before what we recognize as social media popped up. In fact, the internet was a really chill place when it was just IRC and BBS's populated with users that understood how to access it.

I remember noticing the decline of the internet shortly after the advent of the WWW. Then AOL started mailing out free trials to everyone. Suddenly there were fuckos popping up all over the place that were previously too dumb to access it.

It wasn't the internet that ruined everything, shit went down hill once the fwd:fwd uncles got their first AOL subscription. It was the people that fucked everything up because that's what people do.

Edited May 1 by F250

[Frank Drebin 5616]

3 hours ago, Foosters said:

This is exactly why many Americans are supporting Russia in their invasion of Ukraine.

And “real” journalists are why a significant percentage of Americans believe cops kill 10,000 unarmed black people a year.  

[aggie08 21424]

5 minutes ago, Frank Drebin said:

And “real” journalists are why a significant percentage of Americans believe cops kill 10,000 unarmed black people a year.  

Holy false equivalency, Batman.

[F250 28680]

"Real" journalists are why a significant percentage of Americans believe ketchup goes on hotdogs and this consumes me so much that I hate ketchup people, ketchup people shouldn't be allowed in non-ketchup people restaurants.