Should we avoid the news?

I avoid social media news as much as I can. I check in with a few local news sites and sometimes world and national news sites, but social media shouldn't be a news source in my opinion. It will always be skewed. It can sometimes provide access to local news stories from places that aren't local to you that never make national news, but those are rarely worth reading in my opinion.

It is important to stay knowledgeable about the world, but you must be careful of the source.

Goken wrote: I avoid social media news as much as I can. I check in with a few local news sites and sometimes world and national news sites, but social media shouldn't be a news source in my opinion. It will always be skewed. It can sometimes provide access to local news stories from places that aren't local to you that never make national news, but those are rarely worth reading in my opinion.

It is important to stay knowledgeable about the world, but you must be careful of the source.

Goken all news is skewed. In fact most news agencies are extremely biased for one side of the political spectrum or the other. The closest to neutral you will get is BBC and even they are caught spinning stories from time to time. I think you are not spotting the benefit of social media news sources in that A) they tend to report faster on events, You can get a varied set of views from the many sources, and finally C) Ive seen some things that were reported on social media that NEVER make the main stream news. My advice is dont toss the baby out with the bathwater just because the interwebs is a dark and vile place at times.

All of what you said can be true Hatter, I just still believe that the benefits of getting news from social media don't out weigh the negatives. I use my social media for mindless entertainment (yes I know, I know, but sometimes I need a little mindless entertainment) and keeping up with friends and family that I don't get to see. Then I have a varied set of news sources that I trust as much as I can and still do my best to fact check them. I like to keep them separate.

As for your three main benefits I totally agree with the last two, but A) they report faster, but frequently without thinking and usually get facts wrong because they didn't take the time to check it first. One of the biggest problem with the social media news is that only part of a story gets spread before the rest is known and then no one wants to change their opinions once the facts come out. I treat news like I treat new game system releases, I give them time to get the bugs worked out before I'll buy it. :lol:

Goken wrote: All of what you said can be true Hatter, I just still believe that the benefits of getting news from social media don't out weigh the negatives. I use my social media for mindless entertainment (yes I know, I know, but sometimes I need a little mindless entertainment) and keeping up with friends and family that I don't get to see. Then I have a varied set of news sources that I trust as much as I can and still do my best to fact check them. I like to keep them separate.

As for your three main benefits I totally agree with the last two, but A) they report faster, but frequently without thinking and usually get facts wrong because they didn't take the time to check it first. One of the biggest problem with the social media news is that only part of a story gets spread before the rest is known and then no one wants to change their opinions once the facts come out. I treat news like I treat new game system releases, I give them time to get the bugs worked out before I'll buy it. :lol:

We all need mindless entertainment from time to time. If we didnt veg out at least once in a while we would go mad. (Though I suppose we are all a little mad any how) I get your concerns and if you take the time to use a varied set of sources and fact check them well I guess you are not missing much. I mean most news wont impact our daily lives of communities any how if we really are honest about it.

I watch the news when I feel I need to, its not part of a daily routine for me. If something major happens, chances are I will hear about it through word of mouth first anyways.



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We all need mindless entertainment from time to time.

Well thah is certainly true but I don't how the news does this.

mindless=???

I personally feel an obligation to know what is going on in the world around me. So, despite the fact that most of it is depressing, sensationalized and some of it is either untrue or contains facts that are stretched to the limit, I still watch and read the news.
However, I read the same story from multiple sources in order to A) get different perspectives (especially when it comes to politics), try to discern the important bits from what is said in each source, and C ) try to piece together my own perspective from what I learned. Unfortunately, today's form of Neo-Yellow journalism makes it difficult to get a complete view of a given story even when I do this, but at least it is better than drawing conclusions from a four paragraph article or a 60 second story. As Jedi, I believe we have a duty to know what is going on in the world around us and act on any problems that we believe that we can help with, either as an individual or a group. Of course I'm just a guest as of right now, so my experience with the Jedi Way is very limited.

I think we are all in agreement that the media is biased. CNN, Fox, MSNBC, ECT all have political and social agendas.

The days of Ed Murrow journalism is over.

I don't even think it has to be corporate agenda driving bias, it might most often be just the influence of sensationalism distorting information to try and gain and maintain audience numbers. I find television media to show a lot of individual bias in presenters because non-verbal communication in the delivery of news can really change the message - the way something is said can turn a message 180 degree's... and they often do not seem to notice. The best way to observe this in action is to fairly compare the interview style of the same person to different guests on similar topics. Sometimes they simply coach a guest through their press release, and other times they will try to tear shreds off a guest about unrelated topics just to undermine the guest. There is a real overlap there and its getting really rare to find real 'news' and professional journalism, and more and more its about sensationalism and entertainment about news.

Hyorusenbi wrote: I personally feel an obligation to know what is going on in the world around me. So, despite the fact that most of it is depressing, sensationalized and some of it is either untrue or contains facts that are stretched to the limit, I still watch and read the news.
However, I read the same story from multiple sources in order to A) get different perspectives (especially when it comes to politics), try to discern the important bits from what is said in each source, and C ) try to piece together my own perspective from what I learned. Unfortunately, today's form of Neo-Yellow journalism makes it difficult to get a complete view of a given story even when I do this, but at least it is better than drawing conclusions from a four paragraph article or a 60 second story. As Jedi, I believe we have a duty to know what is going on in the world around us and act on any problems that we believe that we can help with, either as an individual or a group. Of course I'm just a guest as of right now, so my experience with the Jedi Way is very limited.

Yes, and while I cant speak for everyone, I believe most people simply don't have the luxury of time to fact check a news story against multiple sources.

It is the news stations job to broadcast with integrity. It is not our job to research a news story that has already been presented to the general public.

That time can and should be spent doing far more important things.

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