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Thread: The Social Dilemma

  1. #21
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    Remember when we watched the evening news at 6 or 11? Any other time, you couldn’t see it. Sept. 11, 2001 happened and now we have news 24/7.

    I now like the old way better - all the bad news of 2020 has changed my mind.

  2. #22
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tammy View Post
    Remember when we watched the evening news at 6 or 11? Any other time, you couldn’t see it. Sept. 11, 2001 happened and now we have news 24/7.

    I now like the old way better - all the bad news of 2020 has changed my mind.
    I think you're right, but I'd put the effective date much earlier. I think it was the advent of CNN and the Baby Jessica in the well drama which started it all in the 80's.
    "Things should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler." ~ Albert Einstein

  3. #23
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    CNN first went on the air 24/7 in 1980, which seems incredible now. I was pretty young at the time, but I remember how bizarre 24 hour news seemed to the adults I knew then. Continuous news seemed pointless - how could anyone fill all 24 hours of the day with news? Some accused the channel early on of stretching stories out to fill space, but now it seems like 24 hours isn't nearly enough time to get everything in, because the definition of "news" has expanded to fit the 24-hour medium. Now someone's "wardrobe malfunction" counts as news, as does just about anything else that courts attention. Social media hasn't improved the situation as a 24/7 "personal news" medium. I only vaguely remember the time before everything and everyone was just a button push away. It was a long time ago now.

  4. #24
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    Quote Originally Posted by Alan View Post
    I think you're right, but I'd put the effective date much earlier. I think it was the advent of CNN and the Baby Jessica in the well drama which started it all in the 80's.
    Ah that might be ... I insulated myself from cable TV in the 80s for religious reasons and I must have forgotten the 90s already.

  5. #25
    Senior Member Tradd's Avatar
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    I was a news junkie from a young age. I began reading the local paper in first or second grade. We got cable in 1982. I loved news all the time! I later got a journalism degree and was a newspaper reporter in northern Michigan in the early 90s.

  6. #26
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    Quote Originally Posted by catherine View Post
    Good point, Steve, but the difference is, everyone got the same news--maybe you would choose between the Daily News and NY Post, but basically there was a wide variety of information, and as you turned the pages, your eyes would glean the headlines of a variety of topics. Today, people self-select topics and news sources online and it narrows their worldview, IMHO.
    Quote Originally Posted by SteveinMN View Post
    But there was quite a difference in the coverage and even the viewpoints among the Post, Daily News, and Times (though until the last decade or two, there wasn't much difference between the Post and Daily News). Choosing one paper over another made it possible to remain in your bubble through reading only what the editors chose to cover, how the journalists wrote stories, etc. I don't see that as much different from today except maybe in tone, which has become stronger on all sides of the spectrum.

    I also think the competition for eyeballs on-line is such that viewers do get presented a variety of headlines/viewpoints on topics that may or may not be interesting to the them. Some on-line news sites provide op-eds. It would be nice if Facebook or Twitter did, but I think they rely a little too much on diversity being provided by a heterogeneous group of friends/followers. Some people also use aggregators like Apple News or SmartNews or whatever Google probably has in that space.

    There's plenty to decry about how social media checks facts or stems flat-out misinformation. But channeling consumers into an echo chamber is nothing new.
    I also think choosing one paper over another was also a way, at the time, for people to signal to others which 'tribe' they were part of. Certainly someone looking at a bunch of people on a train reading various papers would have a different opinion about someone reading the NY Post versus someone reading the Wall Street Journal. And who knows, perhaps the reader of the Wall Street Journal would have recognized a difference between himself and someone reading Barron's. (I have no idea why but my father had a strong preference for Barrons when it came to investment information. Every sunday morning he went out to a newsstand in denver and bought it religiously. However, judging from his longterm investing success perhaps he was on to something.) Certainly not as individualized as the curated online presence one can create today, but still notable to other people seeing them.

  7. #27
    Senior Member JaneV2.0's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tradd View Post
    I was a news junkie from a young age. I began reading the local paper in first or second grade. We got cable in 1982. I loved news all the time! I later got a journalism degree and was a newspaper reporter in northern Michigan in the early 90s.
    I bought my first TV because of CNN. I still like 24 hour news.

  8. #28
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    You want to talk old? I used to listen to the news on shortwave radio.

  9. #29
    Senior Member Tradd's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by LDAHL View Post
    You want to talk old? I used to listen to the news on shortwave radio.
    Not shortwave, but I love radio news. I’m addicted to BBC Radio - and not the World Service. Primarily Radio 5 Live and Radio 4.

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