[lapcat]

It's definitely privileged to take a trip to the Galapagos, but I don't think it's privileged to ignore the news. A lot of poor people ignore the news. They may be too busy, or they may feel powerless to change anything. I think the real question is what exactly this entirely content-free statement means: "I’ll be focusing more on stories that actually matter instead of chasing the flash-in-the-pan ephemera that nobody remembers the next week."

[truculent]

Privilege isn't just about wealth. The point is that although anyone can ignore the news, the news won't necessarily ignore them!

[slyall]

The point is that 90% of the news is unimportant. Often you can read a weekly and that is enough

A politician said something and other politicians reacted. Usually unimportant unless it was backed by a law or something. If it was important then the weekly will cover it.

Main Character of the day on Social media. unimportant

A crime happened nearby. Unimportant

A celeb did something. Unimportant

Something happened to random person. Unimportant

Sport result. If you follow that team you already know, if not then not important.

Seriously go to the front page of the New York times or some other outfit and count the stories that you needed to read today.

[ffuxlpff]

All of this is very easy to filter out while browsing the internet. Not when you are speaking with actual persons. Believe or not, there are still people who watch television and believe in old media.

Television teaches them that the proper response to someone disagreeing is to get angry and shout when the opposing party tries to explain their point of view. Something that is useless or even technically impossible in anonymous net forums.

If you look at the old media, important decisions are mentioned but completely ignored after someone has said something offensive or an accident happened somewhere.

Social media is people and people are the problem, not technology or anonymity. Everyone who has spent Christmas with relatives knows this.

[hvb2]

> Believe or not, there are still people who watch television and believe in old media.

Enlighten me, where do you go for proper investigative journalism that is not considered old media?

[BigGreenJorts]

YouTube? Lots of people doing legit investigative journalism on there it's pretty impressive.

[hvb2]

I guess I would always wonder who's paying them. YouTube doesn't pay them a salary so is it the ads or is this one side of the story paying for exposure

[ryandrake]

I think OP's point is that if your life is so blessed that "90% of the news is unimportant to you" then that itself is a great, fortunate privilege.

For example, I can tell you that if you are an immigrant in the USA from one of the (now many) targeted countries, even one with legal residency, news about ICE's actions is very relevant and very important to you.

[braza]

> For example, I can tell you that if you are an immigrant in the USA from one of the (now many) targeted countries, even one with legal residency, news about ICE's actions is very relevant and very important to you.

Exactly. There's a post from last week on how media/journalism became more entertainment than information, and I think the complete opposite of the first reply: If you have bandwidth and time to consume most of those "world news", then you're the privileged.

One example: In Germany if you watch/read the state regional public broadcast from Berlin[1] for 2 days you will learn more about the whereabouts of Donald Trump, the President of Ukraine, sports news, or some broad reporting about "cultural" aspect of the city (e.g. about Hildegard Knef, something about Karl Lagerfeld and so on), or general gossip.

The city itself has fewer private investments than 5 years, the schools lack basic infrastructure, educational ratings are dropping, delays in public transportation, the hospitals are lacking personnel, 10% unemployment, and an awful housing situation, squeezing the working people.

[1] - I'm totally in favor of public broadcasting that comes from the principle called "broadcast what you want to become or aspire to be" that is more focused on factual journalism (i.e., no commentary), educational programs (especially with Public Universities STEM lectures being broadcasted), educational cartoons, classic music and orchestras, and space/nature/technology documentaries.

[Yodel0914]

This is something outraged rich people tell themselves to feel better about their outrage.

[slyall]

and the ICE news would be that 10% that is important.

[hypeatei]

> ICE's actions is very relevant and very important to you.

Maybe the first few stories are, but what past masked goons throwing up Nazi salutes and sending people to foreign labor camps do you need to keep up on? If you're into politics, then sure, but your average Joe probably doesn't need to know that they're, yet again, terrorizing people and acting like a secret police force.

[mslt]

Apparently more people need to see more information about those things because they’re still happening

[rockskon]

Maybe you need to read more news if you think we have people in charge who'd care about public opposition to the practice.

This is foisting misery on people who have no capacity to affect change.

[dasil003]

That's just it though, the "news" is not providing valuable information to the majority of people, it's mostly a series of takes designed to fit into easily digestible narratives so they can attract enough viewers to survive as a business.

[rockskon]

Almost all news ignores just about everyone unless someone else actively tries to inject the news into their life.

Being relentlessly informed of all the miseries of the world is a choice for most people in developed countries not in the middle of a war.

[lapcat]

> Privilege isn't just about wealth.

Which poor people exactly do you consider privileged, and why?

> The point is that although anyone can ignore the news, the news won't necessarily ignore them!

What can they do about the news, though? I specifically said, "they may feel powerless to change anything".

[XorNot]

We live in democracies. The price of entry is a citizenry informed enough to choose how they want many issues of state handled.

The alternative is worse, and the result of an uninformed citizenry can be disasterous and a regression towards non-democracy.

[phantasmish]

99.9% of people would be better voters if they put five hours a week toward reading about and better understanding shit from an undergrad liberal arts program (history, political philosophy, statistics, media studies, basic physical science, economics) and five hours a year into catching up on the news, than vice versa.

[its_ethan]

The price of entry is actually just being born in the country (or at least that's all that's required in most democracies).

You personally might have the expectation that when you vote, you should be informed about what you're voting on/for - but that is entirely optional.

edit: I'd love to hear about some of your proposed solutions to solving this problem ;)

[XorNot]

Increase education funding, mandate a couple of levels of free choice liberal arts/philosophy type courses to ensure people have to expand their thinking a little, focus on critical thinking and media analysis skills in primary and secondary education - not as the main focus but certainly as important, civic building classes.

News media gets harsh anti-monopoly rules: no more billionaires owning every station in every jurisdiction, in fact no more conglomerates whatsoever. More independent funding for local news: I'm content for a bunch of these to go bankrupt on a regular basis but we'll sponsor more people putting out independent journalism.

At an international scale spin off an entity like the Federal Reserve which would be the Federal International Reporting Bureau with some iron clad rules about funding changes and the sole mission to baseline the availability of boots-on-the-ground international journalism, with a mission charter the citizenry must have accurate reporting to understand how they will choose leaders to guide international politics. This one would be tricky to get right, I suspect you'd probably end up tying resource allocation to government funding alotments and the like via some automatic mechanisms.

The first and last are probably pie in the sky: really let's start by shredding a couple of media empires into 50 different fiefdoms and let them battle it out for views, but there'll be no more mergers or cross-media ownership that's for sure.

[elcritch]

Personally I'm all for breaking up the media conglomerates. Especially the news. There is a tremendous amount of group-think from professional elites who all goto the same universities and then go work in the same newsrooms. When combined with endless M&A it creates insular monoculture with low tolerance for opposing views in most of these news outlets.

> At an international scale spin off an entity like the Federal Reserve which would be the Federal International Reporting Bureau with some iron clad rules about funding changes and the sole mission to baseline the availability of boots-on-the-ground international journalism

That sounds great in theory, but given the recent scandals at the BBC and uncovering of systematic bias there we can see how fragile such institutions can be. Even without M&A driving it the BBC has become a primarily leftist monoculture.

> Increase education funding, mandate a couple of levels of free choice liberal arts/philosophy type courses to ensure people have to expand their thinking a little

Sounds great, but also prone to systemic bias. Universities in general have become echo chambers in liberal arts departments.

Perhaps combine that with options for doing national service of some sort that would balance out education. Afterall, classroom learning only gives one aspect of life and experience. Often just exposing people to new places and environments broadens their outlooks.

[resize2996]

> Which poor people exactly do you consider privileged, and why?

those with insulation from genocide and displacement despite poverty.

their point is that, say, a german peasant in 17th century couldn't avoid the Thirty Years War.

[josephg]

German peasants in the 17th century seemed to manage just fine without 24/7 news coverage.

Almost all news that's actually important - that might actually affect your life - will find you one way or another. Most news isn't important (eg sports drama). Or it isn't urgent (eg tariff news). Or both, like celebrity gossip.

Only a vanishingly small percentage of news is both urgent and important. And there's plenty of people in my life who would tell me if - for example - we needed to evacuate the city due to a fire.

Really. You can switch off. It'll be ok. Try it, and you'll see.

[ffuxlpff]

He referred to the Thirty Years War where instead of doomscrolling the peasant especially living in southwestern Germany would get his war news by getting killed or starved and his home burned down.

[wolvoleo]

I ignore the news a lot too. For the reasons you mention, I can't change anything and it only makes me angry seeing all the far right nonsense happening. There's no point anymore. I just follow the tech news now. It does lead to me being out of touch with some local stuff though but who cares. I'm in some pretty niche communities anyway so what goes on in the mainstream isn't that relevant to me.