[PaulDavisThe1st]

Suppose that the media reported on only one issue: the progress of the sun across the sky. Every day, they would report that it rose (in the east), grew higher in the sky, and eventually set (in the west). Periodically there would be analysis pieces that took a longer view, and noted how when the weather was warmer, the sun rose to a higher position in the sky, and that when it was colder, the rise point was a little more to the south.

After a year or two of this, by the metrics of TFA, this coverage would contain essentially zero information (at least for anyone who had followed said coverage for a while).

And yet ... every single part of it would be true, and there would be no other "sides" to consider. For most humans, the knowledge that the sun behaves in this way is of some importance, though less so in a modern industrialized society.

So ... the question is not about how much information there is "today's media". It's about whether or not what the media contains is true and whether or not it is important (which might often be synonym for "useful").

[WarOnPrivacy]

How about this. Once you've covered the sun-progress-scenario, it's covered. Stop covering it.

Also, don't lead with the exact same sun story as 300 other news orgs. Perform actual journalism instead.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

And yet every day, thousands of people reach an age where they start to follow "the news", and may read, for the first time, of the miracle of the sun's journey across the sky.

Do we just ignore them?

[smt88]

Can you be explicit with the types of stories you're referencing?

What are "covered" stories that the media still writes about but should stop?

[vaccinator]

They do it with most subjects because they don't have enough original content to fill in the time.

[smt88]

That's true of 24-hour news, sure. Theu have to fill air time. But most people don't consider that format to be real journalism.

Is there an example of a story on mainstream news sites that was covered without new info? I'm curious to see an example or two, which should be easy to find if it's really happening with most subjects.

[WarOnPrivacy]

> Is there an example of a story on mainstream news sites that was covered without new info?

In this thread, you and I have brought up a couple of points. I highlighted the tendency of prominent news orgs to choose their headline articles from one small stack of stories. That should be self-evident unless you rarely see different news sites with related headlines - which would be really odd.

You asked about news stories that don't add any content, which is a somewhat different issue. For that I offer news orgs parroting biz/gov/LEO press releases - without vetting for accuracy or without supplying relevant historical context. Though that's a particularly pervasive problem in local & state news, major news orgs tend to do it whenever they get in front of federal LEO/IC officials (eg: James Comey + "Going Dark").

One final example that fits both points is news sites republishing Reuters/AP/UPI articles verbatim.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

I don't think there can be much debate that there's a lot of bad journalism out there, of a variety of different types and for a variety of different reasons.

But the TFA was an attempt to use information theory to explain why (and how) one should seek out multiple journalistic sources, rather than an observation about the problems with journalism itself.