Philosophy Now Forum

So much happens in a day on a planet with billions of humans. Who chooses or what body selects the news we read. Is it Reuters who choose and then the media pick and choose according to what will sell papers. Does the choosing of news have a political dimension. What was/is the news like in a communist economy compared to a capitalist. How does news change over time. What is news. And what are we supposed to do with it.

Depending on your position and depending on where you work journalists should have some degree of independence, but independence within the limits of what can be thought as a sellpoint. They make their own cases, but those cases must be believable contributions to the running and profiting of the company.

Then of course you have the fetch'n'interview or fetch'n'report journalists, which probably many journalists are to some degree, that go after what the boss says.

It also depends upon country I guess. In some countries media is more authoritarianly ran with top to bottom communication lines directing the paper or website content, while other countries can tend to have more liberalized environments where each journalist takes more responsibility by themselves but also in so doing has more freedom and power to do the stories they like.

Ok thanks tvot. It is the journalists who choose then. Within an ideological framework of what news is. What do you think our (the consuming recipients) role is. What are we supposed to do with it?

well news is supposed to give us information about the world, information for which we cannot or cannot easily acquire ourselves. When we get news, we use it as information to make decision, if we have decisions to make that require such kind of information. In the old days, before internet, you would get pretty bad information, but it would be more difficult to find out yourself also (wasn't as cheap and easy to just take flight to France to see the protests yourself for instance). Now the information is probably somewhat better but more importantly you have many many many more sources to compare so you can easier make your own judgement on the accuracy and reliability of the given topic. Taking into account what are easy mistakes to make for a journalist or whether a journalist might work on significant self-censorship and the like.

useful idiots

-Imp

useful idiots

Enlarge on it.

Pluto wrote:

useful idiots

Enlarge on it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.p ... l%20idiots

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/05/ ... diots.html

-Imp

I have an idea of what it means but I wondered its relevence to the thread. The term is itself an ideological one.

Pluto wrote:I have an idea of what it means but I wondered its relevence to the thread. The term is itself an ideological one.

so is the selection of what is presented as news

-Imp

Pluto wrote:So much happens in a day on a planet with billions of humans.

and most of us will never know most of it - but that's okay, because most of it is none of our business.

Who chooses or what body selects the news we read.

Every managing editor chooses what news to run - according to the first amendment. Well, that is, so long as it doesn't compromise national security, isn't legally actionable, doesn't insult the mayor, offend a noisy interest group, infringe on copyright, alienate a demographic, get a crony of the publisher in trouble, bore the audience, lose a sponsor, offend a mogul or piss off the governor's secretary.

Does the choosing of news have a political dimension.

At least three political dimensions. (national, regional, occupational)

What was/is the news like in a communist economy compared to a capitalist.

There are no communist economies. There are political regimes that label themselves communist, but it's a lie. The news media in countries with so-called communist governments vary with the severity and efficiency of the government's control - just as they do in countries that label themselves democratic.
A common characteristic of communist news is that it lies tediously about production and co-operation, while the capitalist media lie frivolously about consumption and competition.

How does news change over time.

In its vocabulary and fashion. No announcer in the 19th century said "nucular" or identified murder victims by the number of children they had. The content doesn't change: somebody done somebody wrong, a crop failed, and there is an army and a snowstorm heading this way.

What is news.

Gossip read out loud in a solemn voice.

And what are we supposed to do with it.

Snort, swear, snicker, sigh, then get back to making widgets, traffic jams and babies.

The Voice of Time wrote:well news is supposed to give us information about the world, information for which we cannot or cannot easily acquire ourselves. When we get news, we use it as information to make decision, if we have decisions to make that require such kind of information. In the old days, before internet, you would get pretty bad information, but it would be more difficult to find out yourself also (wasn't as cheap and easy to just take flight to France to see the protests yourself for instance). Now the information is probably somewhat better but more importantly you have many many many more sources to compare so you can easier make your own judgement on the accuracy and reliability of the given topic. Taking into account what are easy mistakes to make for a journalist or whether a journalist might work on significant self-censorship and the like.

Yes, '...supposed to give us information about the world...' I like this sentence. Is the information better now, maybe. It would be interesting to see news from another century. So, to read a newspaper from 1922 on a particular topic, and then find a matching topic from 2013. (If anyone has or can find news from other centuries please post it on here).

I think information (news) now (maybe it always has been) has homogenized.

Another question, what is the difference between 'information' and 'news'?

Impenitent wrote:

Pluto wrote:I have an idea of what it means but I wondered its relevence to the thread. The term is itself an ideological one.

so is the selection of what is presented as news

-Imp

Beautiful!

There are no communist economies. There are political regimes that label themselves communist, but it's a lie. The news media in countries with so-called communist governments vary with the severity and efficiency of the government's control - just as they do in countries that label themselves democratic.
A common characteristic of communist news is that it lies tediously about production and co-operation, while the capitalist media lie frivolously about consumption and competition.

Great post Skip. The communist is tedious, the capitalist, frivolous. Is it conscious lying or just an opinion I wonder.

Is it conscious lying or just an opinion I wonder.

Both, of course. The deliberate lying is dictated by powers above the writer: his boss, his boss' boss - all the economic and political overlords. The opinion is sometimes unconsciously picked up from one's culture, from what one has heard often and never examined critically; sometimes it's consciously assumed in order to be gain approval; to be promoted, popular and fashionable.

Humans are [probably] unique in having so many separate brain compartments that we can believe five or six mutually contradictory "facts" at any given moment.