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126 points giuliomagnifico | 10 comments | | HN request time: 1.165s | source | bottom
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habosa ◴[] No.45158369[source]
If you want to keep a light pulse on national news without the clickbait and doomscrolling, I recommend https://text.npr.org

It’s text-only, no photos or videos. Updates only once or twice a day. No comments section or any other distractions.

That’s been my main change to my news diet. Deleting the NYTimes app and replacing it with that site has made me much happier.

I still read a lot of local news (San Francisco things that affect my life) but I just realize that national political news is not something I need to track 24/7

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nsagent ◴[] No.45158727[source]
I was previously a long time listener and donator to NPR (similarly for NYT), but their progressive bias for the last decade has seriously degraded the quality of their reporting. I remember when their articles and radio coverage was much more balanced.

For that, I think The Economist is much better. It has more direct reporting, with seemingly less editorializing. Try their news in brief to keep up.

I think the main reason I've pulled back from the consuming mainstream media is directly tied with the change in reporting style rather than the news fundamentally being more depressing or anxiety-inducing.

For example, I was listening to Left Right and Center until a few weeks ago when Sarah Isgur departed. The show really should have been called Left Left and Center, because if anything Sarah Isgur was more center leaning while Steve Inskeep is definitely quite progressive. Now the show feels even more lopsided. It's as if journalists are so entrenched with their point of view that they can't see the wider landscape. I truly wonder if social media has clouded journalists' perception as well, which might be contributing to this phenomenon.

I really do want balanced coverage. I want to know what each side of the political debate actually thinks, from their own mouth. It turns out that a lot of the people I was indoctrinated to vilify, were in fact people who believed differently than I did, but certainly weren't so toxic as to be simply pilloried for their beliefs. That approach is tiresome and I've lost hope that such reporting will return. That's why I've given up.

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1. margalabargala ◴[] No.45159004[source]
What I've observed is similar to what you describe, but in my view the cause is different. NPR's reporting is much the same as it has always been; what's happened is there has been a huge shift to the far right the last decade, and reporting on where the right used to be now looks like left leaning bias.

The same is not true of the left. What's labeled "progressive" really isn't; the left has moved right too. 15 years ago, the US was on the verge of passing universal healthcare. That's not even on the radar today.

Media orcs have not all kept up with these changes. Something that was "left right and center in 2015, would look as though it was mostly leftist today, because the ground has moved.

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2. ◴[] No.45159301[source]
3. ◴[] No.45159358[source]
4. qcnguy ◴[] No.45161049[source]
You're assuming the left stays static. The left lost interest in economic issues after 1990 and shifted to cultural issues. The modern Democrats are not more right wing than they used to be unless you ignore all the issues they've taken up that wouldn't have been recognized by Bill Clinton era Democrats.
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5. margalabargala ◴[] No.45161697[source]
Totally disagree. The left has absolutely moved further right.

Firstly, the example above with healthcare.

Secondly, deregulating things like zoning are rather popular with the modern left, and generally free-market approaches to housing. Dems are less friendly to unions than they were, lip service aside.

I don't think there's much that wouldn't be recognizable to a Clinton dem. The identity politics around trans rights etc are the same civil rights the left has been supporting for a century. Abortion is the same debate we've been having since the 60s.

The left has either not changed stance, or moved right, on all issues.

6. afpx ◴[] No.45161885[source]
NPR is definitely not the same as it was in 2005-2010. I was a heavy listener and donated for many years. But, now most of the time I have to turn it off - too much virtue signaling over critical thinking.
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7. margalabargala ◴[] No.45162004[source]
Do you have an example?

I'm not saying you're doing this, but often when people say something is "virtue signalling" it's actually "critical thinking but with either base values or a conclusion I do not agree with"

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8. afpx ◴[] No.45162708{3}[source]
Actually, it's exactly that: they completely omit the values or conclusions that they don't agree with or understand. I hear it every day. They dismiss half of the country as 'extremist', 'far-right', 'uneducated' - those are the actual words I heard used today to describe the types of people who make up over half of my neighborhood.

A couple of days ago, I heard a host and a reporter literally mock and make fun of RFK Jr. when they should have been trying to educate him and his supporters. Trust in institutions (including the news) has completely eroded, and instead of trying to build it back, they double down on what hasn't worked.

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9. OrderlyTiamat ◴[] No.45165503{4}[source]
This is exactly a good example though, because they wouldn't have made fun of a right wing politician way back when- RFK jr is just that ridiculous. Linking vaccines to autism, stopping vaccine and cancer research which is going to cost millions of lives, and more.

You're asking the impossible, such a person can't be reasoned with, and will certainly not listen to education from NPR. Mocking is the correct response. To me, your example exactly underlies the point that NPR didn't get more extreme, but the news they cover did.

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10. afpx ◴[] No.45166915{5}[source]
Take that thought process to the logical conclusion and you may see why people on the right are justified in being scared of you. I.e. what happens when most people are incapable of following your "reasonable" rules? Virtue Signaling leads to Pharisees which leads to Totalitarianism