Is it time to limit how much news the media can report?
Discussion
By this, I don't mean limiting the topics on which the media can report - I'm all in favour of freedom of the press - but limiting the actual amount of time they're allowed to do it in.
It just seems to me that there's too much at the moment. All these 24 hour news channels have a desperate requirement to actually produce 24 hours of news per day, so any newsworthy story, plus a whole host of other utterly non-newsworthy ones are absolutely done to death over and over and over again.
We see correspondents in Venice being asked to comment on the fact that the correspondent in Tokyo still has no reaction from the Chilean ambassador to Japan concerning the SNP's desire to fund Scottish independence through a return to whale-hunting, and all the time the sense of hysteria being generated just goes up and up.
Would it not make sense to limit all broadcasters to a maximum of maybe 90 minutes per day of news coverage, to be split up as they see fit? At least that way they'd maybe have to concentrate on what actually really was news, rather than trying to make news out of nothing just to fill their schedules.
It just seems to me that there's too much at the moment. All these 24 hour news channels have a desperate requirement to actually produce 24 hours of news per day, so any newsworthy story, plus a whole host of other utterly non-newsworthy ones are absolutely done to death over and over and over again.
We see correspondents in Venice being asked to comment on the fact that the correspondent in Tokyo still has no reaction from the Chilean ambassador to Japan concerning the SNP's desire to fund Scottish independence through a return to whale-hunting, and all the time the sense of hysteria being generated just goes up and up.
Would it not make sense to limit all broadcasters to a maximum of maybe 90 minutes per day of news coverage, to be split up as they see fit? At least that way they'd maybe have to concentrate on what actually really was news, rather than trying to make news out of nothing just to fill their schedules.
Kermit power said:
All these 24 hour news channels have a desperate requirement to actually produce 24 hours of news per day,
The trouble is, they don't. most channels will have a handful of stories to cover each day and simply roll these over each hour. I'll sometimes have BBC News 24 on in the background and it's obvious that the newscasts are more often or not recorded and repeated rather delivered live.The TV media talks a lot, too much, but only on a small number of subjects and never in great detail. For example, we have plenty of time within the 24 hour news slot to be given the full scientific argument against man-made global warming, or a proper analysis on the state of our economy with full breakdown of what's spent and where. However, we get none of this, only superficial guff just enough to keep the peasants thinking their are being informed.
I sympathise with this POV - it doesn't seem like long ago when "newsflash" meant something - nowadays anything and everything is "Breaking News!" in large lettering on the real-time ticker.
Unfortunately, it's not going to be possible to regulate or legislate this. Leaving aside the question of whether or not it's actually a good idea, the proliferation of channels, voices, information can't be stopped and its impact is far too profound for any government to control, unless you're in North Korea.
Instead, the key is education - building people's analytical and critical skills to sort the informational wheat from the chaff.
Unfortunately, it's not going to be possible to regulate or legislate this. Leaving aside the question of whether or not it's actually a good idea, the proliferation of channels, voices, information can't be stopped and its impact is far too profound for any government to control, unless you're in North Korea.
Instead, the key is education - building people's analytical and critical skills to sort the informational wheat from the chaff.
plenty said:
I sympathise with this POV - it doesn't seem like long ago when "newsflash" meant something - nowadays anything and everything is "Breaking News!" in large lettering on the real-time ticker.
Unfortunately, it's not going to be possible to regulate or legislate this. Leaving aside the question of whether or not it's actually a good idea, the proliferation of channels, voices, information can't be stopped and its impact is far too profound for any government to control, unless you're in North Korea.
Instead, the key is education - building people's analytical and critical skills to sort the informational wheat from the chaff.
In the UK??? You're 'avin' a Turkish, incha??Unfortunately, it's not going to be possible to regulate or legislate this. Leaving aside the question of whether or not it's actually a good idea, the proliferation of channels, voices, information can't be stopped and its impact is far too profound for any government to control, unless you're in North Korea.
Instead, the key is education - building people's analytical and critical skills to sort the informational wheat from the chaff.
Charlie Brooker says it all better than I could articulate:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RRmE0_n0K4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RRmE0_n0K4
tzfan said:
plenty said:
I sympathise with this POV - it doesn't seem like long ago when "newsflash" meant something - nowadays anything and everything is "Breaking News!" in large lettering on the real-time ticker.
Unfortunately, it's not going to be possible to regulate or legislate this. Leaving aside the question of whether or not it's actually a good idea, the proliferation of channels, voices, information can't be stopped and its impact is far too profound for any government to control, unless you're in North Korea.
Instead, the key is education - building people's analytical and critical skills to sort the informational wheat from the chaff.
In the UK??? You're 'avin' a Turkish, incha??Unfortunately, it's not going to be possible to regulate or legislate this. Leaving aside the question of whether or not it's actually a good idea, the proliferation of channels, voices, information can't be stopped and its impact is far too profound for any government to control, unless you're in North Korea.
Instead, the key is education - building people's analytical and critical skills to sort the informational wheat from the chaff.
Engineer1 said:
tzfan said:
plenty said:
I sympathise with this POV - it doesn't seem like long ago when "newsflash" meant something - nowadays anything and everything is "Breaking News!" in large lettering on the real-time ticker.
Unfortunately, it's not going to be possible to regulate or legislate this. Leaving aside the question of whether or not it's actually a good idea, the proliferation of channels, voices, information can't be stopped and its impact is far too profound for any government to control, unless you're in North Korea.
Instead, the key is education - building people's analytical and critical skills to sort the informational wheat from the chaff.
In the UK??? You're 'avin' a Turkish, incha??Unfortunately, it's not going to be possible to regulate or legislate this. Leaving aside the question of whether or not it's actually a good idea, the proliferation of channels, voices, information can't be stopped and its impact is far too profound for any government to control, unless you're in North Korea.
Instead, the key is education - building people's analytical and critical skills to sort the informational wheat from the chaff.
Parrot of Doom said:
Tangent Police said:
Mainstream media is a f
king joke anyway for important issues. None of them are impartial.
Their days are numbered IMO.
They haven't been impartial for 400 years. What makes you think that anything is going to change?king joke anyway for important issues. None of them are impartial. Their days are numbered IMO.
Climategate has blown the integrity of the BBC out of the water hugely and has made a damaging hit on a fair few papers. Who is behind the Iron Curtain again?
Tangent Police said:
Parrot of Doom said:
Tangent Police said:
Mainstream media is a fking joke anyway for important issues. None of them are impartial.
Their days are numbered IMO.
They haven't been impartial for 400 years. What makes you think that anything is going to change?king joke anyway for important issues. None of them are impartial. Their days are numbered IMO.
Climategate has blown the integrity of the BBC out of the water hugely and has made a damaging hit on a fair few papers. Who is behind the Iron Curtain again?
I think people are also becoming better at filtering information and examining journalism for bias, though. It's difficult to see as even with online commenting a lot of newspapers moderate away posts that don't agree with their editorial slant; I've certainly had posts to the Times which corrected some wrong "facts" in their editorials quietly disappear without trace.
(Incidentally the Guardian is one of the better papers for this; being a bunch of lefties with all the awkward free-speech ideology that implies, they're much, much more even-handed with their comments section and it's not unusual to see a comments thread that's a well-researched and lively debate even tacked on to the end of a relatively poor article.)
(Incidentally the Guardian is one of the better papers for this; being a bunch of lefties with all the awkward free-speech ideology that implies, they're much, much more even-handed with their comments section and it's not unusual to see a comments thread that's a well-researched and lively debate even tacked on to the end of a relatively poor article.)
Parrot of Doom said:
Tangent Police said:
Parrot of Doom said:
Tangent Police said:
Mainstream media is a fking joke anyway for important issues. None of them are impartial.
Their days are numbered IMO.
They haven't been impartial for 400 years. What makes you think that anything is going to change?king joke anyway for important issues. None of them are impartial. Their days are numbered IMO.
Climategate has blown the integrity of the BBC out of the water hugely and has made a damaging hit on a fair few papers. Who is behind the Iron Curtain again?
Gassing Station | News, Politics & Economics | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff