news and views

passing by.

Cameras and crews at all van­tage points, prepared to capture the latest micro or macro disaster or event. Fearing today's scoop will go to amateurs with cell­phones.

Must be tough being pros in news reporting business these days. So much non-pro com­pe­tition, and so many formats and ways to spread any type of story. “Breaking News” most defi­ni­tely isn't what it once was…

Commercial players are in the game to catch our atten­tion, increase their popu­lar­ity, and, as a result: attract paying adver­tis­ers and other sponsors.
To achieve this all avail­able means are applied, including to angle and adjust every­thing they present to us towards their owners' and adver­tis­ers' preferences.
End result: tailored news (free and independent press, anyone?) … and we just pass by – you know – to check up on what's going on in our world.

Those of us who do not follow the various news-streams all that closely, may miss out on some­thing here and there. At the end of the day I don't think we miss “lost news stories” all that much though, as that's not where we get most of our news.

click-through alternatives

With so many sources at our finger tips – on and off line, there are plenty to choose from and even more to ignore. The click-through rate can be incredibly high at times, as we search for news about what's really going on in the world.

As for the many alternatives: the most eagerly promoted sources are often the least reliable, and “more manda­tory” sources are decid­edly unreliable – not to mention often quite slow to deliver and low on actual content.

We also have a high number of copy-cat presenters, contra­dictors, and aggre­gators of news avail­able to us, which range from quite good to not worth looking into. The wide range in quality is not sur­pris­ing, as anyone with the neces­sary resources can partic­i­pate in such an activity.

Checking up on news can indeed make for an inter­est­ing few minutes, with every­thing more or less simul­tane­ously avail­able at a click of a button and/​or tap on a screen.
If we want to go deeper … well, that is gonna take a little more time, and demand a little more focus. Some­times it pays, and some­times it's just a fun passtime activity.

in-depth research

Things that really matter rarely ever show up, or gets debated, in major news-streams and social media. We are mostly fed, and also par­tici­pate in spreading, less important stuff and lots of dis­trac­tions. No problem as long as we are aware of how it works.

Letting the buzz pass for what it is, while collecting and analyzing data from reliable sources – including histor­ical ones, is the smart way to fill our need for real and relevant news. Keeps us ahead of what is reported as news, and prepared for what is to come.

Main factor in any serious research, is to not let anyone else be in control of what data to search for and analyze. We must be totally in charge of our own research, and let others take care of theirs.
Rules out use of only one search engine or aggre­gator, as none are that inde­pen­dent and/​or reliable.

Another very important factor is to let collected data speak for them­selves, regard­less of what they say and whether we like it or not. Data that are being modi­fied, or “massaged”, to fit certain pro­files, pre­con­cep­tions and/​or pre­fer­ences, are tot­ally worth­less for anyone who seeks know­ledge based on facts.
If you don't like to find out you may be wrong, don't start looking for facts.

That something is found to be true, does not mean it contains the whole truth and nothing but the truth. There is always more data avail­able, some­where, and one can not call it “in-depth research” unless and until one has made honest attempts at col­lecting all relevant data.
Sometimes collecting a some­what complete set of data, takes more than a 15 min­utes search…

Warning: practicing in-depth research on life around us, can be addictive. Better start with small doses…

mental exercise

The above is raw mental processing, and all electronic devices are reduced to dumb terminals – which they of course mainly are anyway.

To me it comes natural to sort and process incoming data I find reasons to ques­tion the quality of – in­clud­ing but not limited to news and views – as described above. Have done it for as long as I can remember, and rarely ever reflect on the process.

As I have long since concluded that at least 90% of every­thing really is crud1, the better I can dis­crimi­nate against the shit, the more time and energy I can set aside for what matters in life.

sincerely  georg; sign

Hageland 20.nov.2016
last rev: 24.nov.2016



www.gunlaug.comadvice upgradeadvice upgrade navigation