Low Traffic Neighbourhoods?

[Stevek76]

Yes but see point about mainstream shows. What's the viewing figures of those vs the breakfast show and evening news? What's the online view count of the front page news articles (where two opinions are presented) vs the fact check article published hours/ a day later that never features more prominently than the side bar?

[Jdsk]

Yes but see point about mainstream shows. What's the viewing figures of those vs the breakfast show and evening news? What's the online view count of the front page news articles (where two opinions are presented) vs the fact check article published hours/ a day later that never features more prominently than the side bar?

Yes, the more popular shows are more popular.

And building on what works well is one of the important ways to get the message across.

Jonathan

[reohn2]

Yes, but you don't want your supposedly impartial broadcaster, whose job it is to give you the facts and the angles to allow you to make your own mind up, to come down on one side of a debate that is still active. It is their job not to do that.

The operative word there is job what a person does in their own time is their own business IMHO anyway.
There's no laws being broken,if an individual has signed contract that specifically states otherwise then I'd agree but that doesn't seem to have been so in the JV case

[pwa]

Yes, but you don't want your supposedly impartial broadcaster, whose job it is to give you the facts and the angles to allow you to make your own mind up, to come down on one side of a debate that is still active. It is their job not to do that.

The operative word there is job what a person does in their own time is their own business IMHO anyway.
There's no laws being broken,if an individual has signed contract that specifically states otherwise then I'd agree but that doesn't seem to have been so in the JV case

I know that in my own humble "nobody" job I signed something to say I would not speak ill of my employer in a public manner, i.e. on social media. I'd be surprised if newsreaders are not explicitly required to stay out of public discussion of current affairs, except as impartial presenters. Their job would be undermined if they were known to be on one side or the other. JV's job isn't much different.

[reohn2]

Yes, but you don't want your supposedly impartial broadcaster, whose job it is to give you the facts and the angles to allow you to make your own mind up, to come down on one side of a debate that is still active. It is their job not to do that.

The operative word there is job what a person does in their own time is their own business IMHO anyway.
There's no laws being broken,if an individual has signed contract that specifically states otherwise then I'd agree but that doesn't seem to have been so in the JV case

I know that in my own humble "nobody" job I signed something to say I would not speak ill of my employer in a public manner, i.e. on social media. I'd be surprised if newsreaders are not explicitly required to stay out of public discussion of current affairs, except as impartial presenters. Their job would be undermined if they were known to be on one side or the other. JV's job isn't much different.

You may well be right but you could be wrong,neither of us know for sure.

[Cugel]

Yes but see point about mainstream shows. What's the viewing figures of those vs the breakfast show and evening news? What's the online view count of the front page news articles (where two opinions are presented) vs the fact check article published hours/ a day later that never features more prominently than the side bar?

Yes, the more popular shows are more popular.

And building on what works well is one of the important ways to get the message across.

Jonathan

Indeed - whatever the message and style of the rhetoric delivering it. PR "economical with the truth"; fact-free propaganda; lies, damn lies and Boris Telegraph articles; potted Daily Hate Mail sludge, ready to consume when a gurgle of intolerance is poured on it ...... .

"News" is a very different thing from what it once was. Once it was a constituent of the glue that holds a nation and its peoples together. Now it seems to be a solvent that dissolves everything into a slurry of nutrient-free mental ready-meal, that rapidly goes-off as its being gulped down and exuded, making its way thickly down into the cultural sewers, where it creates the social equivalent of fatbergs.

Mass media for mobs.

Cugel

[Jdsk]

"News" is a very different thing from what it once was. Once it was a constituent of the glue that holds a nation and its peoples together. Now it seems to be a solvent that dissolves everything into a slurry of nutrient-free mental ready-meal, that rapidly goes-off as its being gulped down and exuded, making its way thickly down into the cultural sewers, where it creates the social equivalent of fatbergs.

Mass media for mobs.

When was the Golden Age of news holding the nation together?

Thanks

Jonathan

[Cugel]

"News" is a very different thing from what it once was. Once it was a constituent of the glue that holds a nation and its peoples together. Now it seems to be a solvent that dissolves everything into a slurry of nutrient-free mental ready-meal, that rapidly goes-off as its being gulped down and exuded, making its way thickly down into the cultural sewers, where it creates the social equivalent of fatbergs.

Mass media for mobs.

When was the Golden Age of news holding the nation together?

Thanks

Jonathan

Once upon a time, a long time ago.

Perhaps you're too young to remember the days when journalists were often that. Of course, we did have The News of The Screws, The Daily Hate Mail and such. But somehow the mass media were part of a more homogenous and commonly found set of attitudes then, even if the attitudes contained a proportion of rather unpleasant attitudes. Political Party differences occurred within a larger commonality that none of them seemed keen to deconstruct. Perhaps you're familiar with the notion of The Post-War Settlement?

These days, one main political party - that currently in power - seems poised on the brink of eschewing democracy in favour of some sort of gradual and creeping totalitarianism. Various of the current news organs seem eager to help. It began with Thatcher, who let that old Tory geni out of the bottle - the one that would like to rid itself of restraint by anything as annoying as an opposition within a democracy, to its various business enterprises and financial interests.

Plenty of little devils in the mass media seem to be working hard on its behalf. They whisper through our eyes, as we imbibe the PR, propaganda, opinions and chatter. Facts are now made of jellied eels, sold to us in various colour pies also containing various delicious toxins.

Cugel

[Jdsk]

"News" is a very different thing from what it once was. Once it was a constituent of the glue that holds a nation and its peoples together. Now it seems to be a solvent that dissolves everything into a slurry of nutrient-free mental ready-meal, that rapidly goes-off as its being gulped down and exuded, making its way thickly down into the cultural sewers, where it creates the social equivalent of fatbergs.

Mass media for mobs.

When was the Golden Age of news holding the nation together?

Once upon a time, a long time ago.

Perhaps you're too young to remember the days when journalists were often that. Of course, we did have The News of The Screws, The Daily Hate Mail and such. But somehow the mass media were part of a more homogenous and commonly found set of attitudes then, even if the attitudes contained a proportion of rather unpleasant attitudes. Political Party differences occurred within a larger commonality that none of them seemed keen to deconstruct. Perhaps you're familiar with the notion of The Post-War Settlement?
...

Thanks.

I was expecting a personal comment rather than a date.

Jonathan

[Stevek76]

Re historical news. The Victorian/Edwardian papers were pretty awful for fact light sensationalist nonsense, it's not a new thing!

Yes, the more popular shows are more popular.

And building on what works well is one of the important ways to get the message across.

How are we defining 'well' here? If it's by what's 'popular' (i.e. viewing stats) then it's probably not getting a good message across.

[Jdsk]

Re historical news. The Victorian/Edwardian papers were pretty awful for fact light sensationalist nonsense, it's not a new thing!

Yes, the more popular shows are more popular.

And building on what works well is one of the important ways to get the message across.

How are we defining 'well' here? If it's by what's 'popular' (i.e. viewing stats) then it's probably not getting a good message across.

I was referring to the high quality documentaries as things that work well.

I'd like to see the same key facts repeated in lots of channels by lots of analysts. That would include the health benefits and comparisons of those benefits to the harms.

Jonathan

[Vorpal]

I would like to see British schools, and for that matter, schools in every country, train children & youth in analytic thinking, how to identify conspiracy theories, and fact-checking.

They do this in Finland, and to some extent in Sweden in Norway, though I think that the training could be improved substantially in Norway & Sweden. In Finland, they specifically learn media analysis, and dissect articles from newspapers and the internet.

In Norway & Sweden they stop short of that, other than for young people who take media & communications, either as an elective course, or 6th form focus topic.

[Jdsk]

"Theory of knowledge (IB course)":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of ... IB_course)

...

The French Bac includes Philosophy, but I'm not sure what's in that since the 2021 changes. It might be the traditional meaning with all of its problems. Analytical (or critical thinking) is much more important.

Jonathan

[Vorpal]

"Theory of knowledge (IB course)":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of ... IB_course)

...

The French Bac includes Philosophy, but I'm not sure what's in that since the 2021 changes. It might be the traditional meaning with all of its problems. Analytical (or critical thinking) is much more important.

Jonathan

Only a small minority take IB.

In Finland, it's not just a class in critical thinking, but threaded all through the the national curriculum https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... -fake-news

[Cugel]

I would like to see British schools, and for that matter, schools in every country, train children & youth in analytic thinking, how to identify conspiracy theories, and fact-checking.

They do this in Finland, and to some extent in Sweden in Norway, though I think that the training could be improved substantially in Norway & Sweden. In Finland, they specifically learn media analysis, and dissect articles from newspapers and the internet.

In Norway & Sweden they stop short of that, other than for young people who take media & communications, either as an elective course, or 6th form focus topic.

When I were a lad, 264 years ago, there was still a notion within the schools of Blighty that knowledge consists basically of "facts". These "facts" were regarded as either the exudation of various unimpeachable authorities (e.g. those of history or geography book authors) or the result of "science". There was no suggestion that such authorities could be wrong, mistaken, immature or otherwise less than perfect. Once we had "the facts" we knew immutable truths.

In the 60s I went through a typical British grammar school education. Facts and the methods for manipulating them (science & maths) were the fodder for our lessons. The objective of learning them was to demonstrate one understood them via examinations.

In the second year of the sixth form, there were peripheral subjects allowed as a sort of relief from the examinable subjects. One bright spark of a teacher introduced "philosophy" since this was one of the subjects entirely absent from school curriculums but omnipresent in the universities of the time, to which a number of us sixth formers would decant should we have good enough memories to pass the exams.

This subject, however, did not go down well with headmaster or most of the teachers! Questioning the authority of school-taught facts and methods was seen as a likely outcome of any "philosophy" (indeed - it was!); and such questioning would be a fundamental underminer of all the school stood for - an agent to promulgate a still dominant British Empire outlook.

So, a number of us briefly had our eyes opened to the possibility of alternative facts and the possibility that various methods of examining and analysing things, from history to science, might not be infallible. At university, some of us had our eyes opened even wider by a history department that included a critical look at various methods of constructing history; a revelation of the many & various modes of rhetoric, logic and various philosophical schools with their various contending base propositions giving wildly different conclusions; the history not just of science but of the scientific method; and so forth. As for the politics department! Well, they were stuffed with a variety of contending world views.

For many, such a leap in education, from fact-memorisation to analytic thinking, was a huge lurch & transformation in our own world-views. It was often said .... "I wish they'd taught us like this at school". But they didn't. Do they now? I get the impression from those I know in various levels of academe that things have got more, not less ossified in the schools; and perhaps also now in many universities, where education has become a product to serve a career or to generate a lucrative patent, rather than a means for thinking more clearly.

Cugel