[neya]

This happens because news agencies realized that the original definition of NEWS isn't a viable business model. If I were a reported of a news agency that followed the traditional news model - I'd be saying something like "Hey, this happened here at this time." Because that's the original definition of NEWS (North East West South).

However, over time, news agencies realized the potential of injecting opinions into NEWS as real news. "Hey, here's what we think of what happened at this place at this time. Here's what you should be thinking too" Suddenly, they can do things they couldn't do before:

1. Change the direction of what you should be thinking about.

2. Change the tone of the opinion to reflect positivity or negativity.

3. Masquerade wrongful events as right ones by parallel justifications and unneeded context.

4. Masquerade advertisements as opinions.

5. Derive strong reactions from readers thus increasing engagement.

And this gives them enormous power over us. THIS is their business model - the ability to control (us) a given set of people.

For eg., that's why Facebook is powerful. The value they add to their investors and advertisers isn't being able to connect with everyone and anyone. Instead, they can use their newsfeed to tune what you should be thinking about, how and when exactly. All those reactions they collect, is to fine tune exactly these parameters.

Imagine being able to change your mind or distract you around election time. How valuable is it to governments? I'm not saying they do these things, but then this is the weapon the media (Facebook, Yahoo, etc.) possesses and they could/could have been doing these things to control us.

So, this is what the newspapers are selling.

So, when Yahoo writes "Hey Apple suxxx here's why you should be buying an Android phone instead", you know it's a slow day for them and they just want to increase their engagement and ad revenue. That and probably they took money from some Android maker behind the scenes (this happens all the time).

/endrant

[BurritoAlPastor]

“News” doesn’t derive from the compass directions; that’s a folk etymology. It’s literally just from a weird pluralization of “new”.

Anytime you hear that a word is derived from an unusual contraction or acronym, please check it against a real etymology source.

[CPLX]

> Because that's the original definition of NEWS (North East West South).

Huh? News is just the plural form of the word new.

[inscionent]

Today's media landscape is more diverse and independent than ever before. This is why I can read 16 reviews about a video game then watch 50 more.

All individual actors have agendas and flaws. Maybe a harsher review is produced on a bad day, but that doesn't inherently mean the reviewer is on the take.

Don't confuse media, the obvious medium, with journalism, the content, that is how propaganda is mislabeled and spread.

Examples 1 and 2 could be raw opinion rooted in fact that the reader disagrees with or could be propaganda. Heavily dependent on the context and source.

Examples 3 and 5 are stated in the negative and perceived as propaganda, but where does rightful reporting end and 'unneeded context' start? When the reader begins to disagree? Again heavily dependent on the context and source.

Example 4 is a paid endorsement, exactly what should be expected in a capitalist system.

Also news isn't based on an acronym for cardinal directions. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/news-etymology/