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by gridlockd 2073 days ago
> MSNBC at least seems to be informing their viewers on domestic issues better than that baseline.

The difference is only about 5% to the "no news" crowd. Also, people that are better-educated tend to lean liberal and therefore might prefer to consume liberal outlets, but that doesn't mean liberal outlets are better at informing people. Looking at the frontpage of MSNBC, it's almost exclusively political opinion pieces centered around the US.

Moreover, the key question is not whether you're being informed better by consuming this media, but whether it is worth risking some of your well-being by consuming it. Research has found that media that is upsetting is the most addictive. People with addictions make up all kinds of rationalizations on how their addiction has upsides. The idea that you've been wasting time consuming ultimately useless information that irritates you - it's not very attractive.

5 comments

100% of Americans believe, that 50% of the American population is filled with morons, the rest of them are either average or intelligent. To find out, if the person is intelligent or not, all you have to do, is check is if they support the same party that I support.
> Also, people that are better-educated tend to lean liberal

Do you have a source on this?

> Research has found that media that is upsetting is more addictive?

Do you have any source for tjat research? (Not doubting you, just curious.)

Anger is the emotion that most activates you and spurs you to action [1]

[1] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1528077

Being spurred to action != addiction.
> better educated

Then you can fill in the blanks faster and don't need quite as much spoon feeding

> Also, people that are better-educated tend to lean liberal

better educated, or indoctrinated?

Yea and isn't HN always going on about how education != intelligence? It's great branding too, hook your cart up to the liberal party and suddenly you're smart, refined, enlightened, morally superior. No questions asked. SW/SV lives in a bubble. Most of eng is more conservative. Aero,EE,ME.. these are no dummies.