Bad Storms/Worse Coverage

[imwjl]

Originally Posted by buddyhu

There is a middle ground.

I think it is a rare individual who can consult any new source many hours a day. But devoting 30 - 60 minutes a day to knowing a bit about what is happening in the world outside of one’s small circle of acquaintances is accessible for most, and has some value. It is also possible to find sources that are less biased and less inclined to engage in click-bait/fear mongering to goose their viewership/readership numbers.

If you choose not to be informed, then that is a choice you are entitled to make. There are consequences for the rest of society when people make such a choice. But it is a popular choice, and IMO, society is unlikely to thrive as long as people choose a comfortable ignorance over the discomfort of seeking the truth that lies underneath the noise and provocation.

I am another who feels that local weather news is not the stuff that will usually get coverage on the National news, unless there is reason to believe that it might be of interest to folks who live in a very different climate and a distant location…which usually means the weather event must be catastrophic or far-reaching in its downstream effects (like disrupting commerce, or closing the stock market).

While maybe nice for some or at least luxury, willful ignorance is also something in the tool box for other societies and some people to take advantage.

[Mr. Jelly]

Seriously? News is a money-making business. Many news outlets are not news outlets at all. The most watched news outlet has successfully argued in court at least twice that they cannot be held to any news standard as they are news entertainment, so they have artistic flexibility and what they report are opinions. Notice that many years ago murders stopped being reported in larger cities. The numbers got too high, and people quit giving the stories attention. As for weather stories here in the mid-west we've always watched as we get the snowstorm or bad weather, and it doesn't get reported until it gets out east where the larger populations are.

[Dotneck]

Originally Posted by skinnerb

Would you like to know more about our record rains here in SW Washington state? Several roads have failed traffic accidents are up and local fruit crops are in doubt.

Why, yes I would. I’ll be traveling up that way next week.

[tbeltrans]

Rather than watching news, whether local or national, I prefer to go to local stations' web sites to get the weather forecast and skim the top news stories, stopping to read those I consider important. If some item bears enough concern to go digging further, I do that.

Knowing when certain events will likely affect my life, the economy, etc., is important to me and I seem to be able to find out about these in time to do what I need to prepare with this approach.

Tony

[rokdog49]

Originally Posted by Mr. Jelly

Seriously? News is a money-making business. Many news outlets are not news outlets at all. The most watched news outlet has successfully argued in court at least twice that they cannot be held to any news standard as they are news entertainment, so they have artistic flexibility and what they report are opinions. Notice that many years ago murders stopped being reported in larger cities. The numbers got too high, and people quit giving the stories attention. As for weather stories here in the mid-west we've always watched as we get the snowstorm or bad weather, and it doesn't get reported until it gets out east where the larger populations are.

A man after my own heart.
‘Nuff said.

[imwjl]

Originally Posted by Mr. Jelly

Seriously? News is a money-making business. Many news outlets are not news outlets at all. The most watched news outlet has successfully argued in court at least twice that they cannot be held to any news standard as they are news entertainment, so they have artistic flexibility and what they report are opinions. Notice that many years ago murders stopped being reported in larger cities. The numbers got too high, and people quit giving the stories attention. As for weather stories here in the mid-west we've always watched as we get the snowstorm or bad weather, and it doesn't get reported until it gets out east where the larger populations are.

That's not making sense to me. An analogy that comes to mind is the existence of so many poor food, beverage and entertainment choices is for sure, but it's been pretty easy and almost always so to have a life full of quality versions.

On the murder topic, an award winning journalist and journalism lecturer I grew up with was assigned to rural coverage for a while. She said murder is a rural problem too and quality reporting means both or none at all. Also that selective reporting such as in big cities skews the thoughts of people who don't manage their cognitive biases well. Earlier this month the Wall St. Journal had an article on rural crime pointing out it's been nearly commensurate with populated areas. In some reading I've done I also recall underreporting is a rural problem and especially for rape.

I'm going to maintain my position that a lot of people have really poor news habits almost like diet and exercise matters. With that is the point I brought up earlier on willful ignorance. At times our new social media world has it looking like advertising that is almost a fashion trend.

[srick]

Originally Posted by imwjl

On the murder topic, an award winning journalist and journalism lecturer I grew up with was assigned to rural coverage for a while. She said murder is a rural problem too and quality reporting means both or none at all. Also that selective reporting such as in big cities skews the thoughts of people who don't manage their cognitive biases well. Earlier this month the Wall St. Journal had an article on rural crime pointing out it's been nearly commensurate with populated areas. In some reading I've done I also recall underreporting is a rural problem and especially for rape.
.

Yes. Crime happens everywhere. My neighbor used to be the assistant Police Chief in our inner ring suburb. About six years ago, he became Chief in a rural town situated 35 minutes drivetime to the north.

I ran into Carl about six months later and asked him how the ‘quiet life’ was. He told me that in the last week they had to deal with an AK47 home invasion, a drug factory, and more. He also added that the only reason that you didn’t hear about this on the news is that it takes an hour for the news crew to get up there an hour or two to cover the story and an hour to get back. Plus, the primary newspaper for the region has pretty much dropped coverage because of costs.

Crime happens everywhere. Where there are more people, there seemingly is more crime, because simply, there are more people. And as has been said before, the coverage is biased: “If it bleeds, it leads.”

[The Watchman]

There seems to be this deeply ingrained belief in people, that if something gets on the news, that someone, somewhere, is going to do something about it.

[imwjl]

Originally Posted by srick

Yes. Crime happens everywhere. My neighbor used to be the assistant Police Chief in our inner ring suburb. About six years ago, he became Chief in a rural town situated 35 minutes drivetime to the north.

I ran into Carl about six months later and asked him how the ‘quiet life’ was. He told me that in the last week they had to deal with an AK47 home invasion, a drug factory, and more. He also added that the only reason that you didn’t hear about this on the news is that it takes an hour for the news crew to get up there an hour or two to cover the story and an hour to get back. Plus, the primary newspaper for the region has pretty much dropped coverage because of costs.

Crime happens everywhere. Where there are more people, there seemingly is more crime, because simply, there are more people. And as has been said before, the coverage is biased: “If it bleeds, it leads.”

The county where our cabin is has barely 30,000 population. Over time there have been lots of conversations with neighbors who are there year-round and ones who come from afar. The locals talk about their safety. In one of those fun debates we found that adjusted for population several rural counties in the area have more violence than the cities they put down.

In the past few years that rural area has had a specific group dressed military style with serous weapons parade around some weekends and on holidays. People associated with that group have gotten in serious trouble for well documented violence and plotting crimes.

This sort of stuff is why I've really enjoyed behavioral economics reading.

[ewalling]

Originally Posted by srick

He also added that the only reason that you didn’t hear about this on the news is that it takes an hour for the news crew to get up there an hour or two to cover the story and an hour to get back. Plus, the primary newspaper for the region has pretty much dropped coverage because of costs.

Maybe this is one reason why, when the news teams do get rolling on a local catastrophe, they go on and on and on and on about it, interviewing first one bystander ("It was really bad..."), then another ("This was really terrible ..."), then they are waiting for more news, then they're back in the studio for thoughts, then back on location for the latest information from police and more not-to-be-missed comments from other bystanders. I often feel - can we please move on? We get it - something bad/disturbing happened, but can we please hear about other news of the day?

[Rolph]

If the news was a valuable resource, there would be solutions to the chronic problems the news constantly rehashes. Most people in the news industry are offering opinions with little regard to accuracy or relevancy. That's why very little ever changes here in America, although our ears and eyes are bleeding due to innane excessive coverage of what someone defines as "news". The paper sources are often worse.

[imwjl]

Originally Posted by Rolph

If the news was a valuable resource, there would be solutions to the chronic problems the news constantly rehashes. Most people in the news industry are offering opinions with little regard to accuracy or relevancy. That's why very little ever changes here in America, although our ears and eyes are bleeding due to innane excessive coverage of what someone defines as "news". The paper sources are often worse.

What do you watch or read to be able to say something like that? All I can guess is you might confuse opinion with news, and don't read or subscribe to well regarded sources.

From running enterprise infrastructure in food and transportation business I see all the time how quality news is vital and great sources are abundant.

Our cabin neighbor I'll see later today is in one of the US biggest freight firms oil and chemical division. The quality news they find and must follow all the time is in part why we don't have a dead or extremely dysfunctional economy as some do have. It's same for his brothers who are or were airline pilots.

For reference, I take in a lot of content from Wall St. Journal, NY Times, The Economist, and a lot from paid tier Apple News+ that gets you 300+ papers and magazines. I also follow the mostly web for two local TV stations owned by larger firms. I discussed them early in these posts.

By no coincidence, many I know who do follow and depend on news find same as me. Sources the ad fontes project finds most accurate and most centered are quality.

Most days I don't like most of what's in the opinion sections of my contrasting subscriptions. When I catch people upset about them for their opinion pieces it's usually just a display of someone being naive or daft.

[Mr. Jelly]

I'm not against the news. In fact, I stay on top of the news more so than most. I do believe one should be aware of the inherent filters that are realities.

An interesting event to be involved in are news releases. What struck me was that the only people at allot of news releases are the people speaking and the reporters. Evidently not many people are that concerned or even made aware of the news releases. If there is more attractable news the information put out at the news release doesn't see the light of day. If it's a slow day, it's hot news. Is it news then or not? Or just product to sell advertising?

We have seen it played out on national news where if a politician wants to bury some damaging news about himself, he does something, or an accomplice, very outlandish and the damaging news gets pushed aside.

[srick]

Originally Posted by ewalling

Maybe this is one reason why, when the news teams do get rolling on a local catastrophe, they go on and on and on and on about it, interviewing first one bystander ("It was really bad..."), then another ("This was really terrible ..."), then they are waiting for more news, then they're back in the studio for thoughts, then back on location for the latest information from police and more not-to-be-missed comments from other bystanders. I often feel - can we please move on? We get it - something bad/disturbing happened, but can we please hear about other news of the day?

That's a really good point. And it really exemplifies the 'entertainment' bent of today's television news. Essentially, the producer\reporters establish an outdoor 'set' with guests.

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by Mr. Jelly

Seriously? News is a money-making business. Many news outlets are not news outlets at all. The most watched news outlet has successfully argued in court at least twice that they cannot be held to any news standard as they are news entertainment, so they have artistic flexibility and what they report are opinions. Notice that many years ago murders stopped being reported in larger cities. The numbers got too high, and people quit giving the stories attention. As for weather stories here in the mid-west we've always watched as we get the snowstorm or bad weather, and it doesn't get reported until it gets out east where the larger populations are.

Just so and the same network actually argued that
" No reasonable viewer takes the (host) seriously " Unfortunately that does not address the growing epidemic of unreasonable viewers. That gorge and thrive on gulping down the fear based vomit being propagated solely because of "the resulting ratings"