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Why Does Sensationalism Improve Ratings ?


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What kind of people are more likely to watch news when it contains:

- celebrity news ?

- gory details ?

- shocking sexual perversity ?

- moral outrage ?

Maybe if we make some discoveries around that, we can figure out how to separate entertainment news with the news that people need to make a decision.

There's too much sugar in my coffee...

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What about decisions around political action ? These are decisions that almost 40% of the population, and falling, needs to make.

Irrelevant when it comes to making money. Watch a good financial news channel and you will see how the exact same information is digested and communicated for a specific purpose. As for your other concern, you can lead a horse to water....

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Irrelevant when it comes to making money. Watch a good financial news channel and you will see how the exact same information is digested and communicated for a specific purpose. As for your other concern, you can lead a horse to water....

Weird path this question took.

Me: "We need to have news for supporting [our] decision making"

You: "Financial news does that."

Me: "No, political decision making."

You: "No, that's irrelevant"

So, you don't want to talk about the topic at hand. New thread for you.

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What kind of people are more likely to watch news when it contains:

- celebrity news ?

- gory details ?

- shocking sexual perversity ?

- moral outrage ?

Maybe if we make some discoveries around that, we can figure out how to separate entertainment news with the news that people need to make a decision.

There's too much sugar in my coffee...

It's what I call Infotainment, which is not informative or entertaining. Entities like CNN report on useless stuff like celebrities. There are channels for celebrities, don't need that crap on the daily news. CNN is not the only one affected, most MSM, and you can throw CTV news in there as well.

It's all the shock value that people love. But they are shocked at something that really does not matter. They are shocked when Lindsay Lohan and her drug problem, but not shocked when they read about the TSA invasive pat downs. But it's more or less the conditioning that TV provides to people. For example, if CNN does not report it, it is not true. However, we have youtube and a lot of videos that shows a completely different story.

There are many good news alternative sites, which is part of the new current trend of Journalism 2.0. More and more people are going to independent media outlets for the real news. The MSM no longer has the monopoly on information giving. I am a listener of Alex Jones and have been for some time. To most he is a kook and what have you. However, guys like Alex and the Drudge Report were key in getting the TSA scanner/pat downs controversy to the MSM stage.

Modern MSM news focuses on the real petty stuff and not the real stuff that matters. MSM is controlled and filtered by whoever owns them.

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Maybe specialization will kill of this trend, and we'll be left with 'real' news - which important people pay attention to - and pablum, for the non-voters and the Lohan lovers.

That's OK...it looks like it will still be mostly American sources and content for some. They don't see that angle at all.

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Maybe specialization will kill of this trend, and we'll be left with 'real' news - which important people pay attention to - and pablum, for the non-voters and the Lohan lovers.

I don't see why a news organization can't cover so-called real news, whatever that means (probably news that Michael Hardner considers worthy), and other news. Let people decide for themselves what they want to follow. It's called freedom. Stop trying to regulate and micromanage everyone's lives.

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I don't see why a news organization can't cover so-called real news, whatever that means (probably news that Michael Hardner considers worthy), and other news. Let people decide for themselves what they want to follow. It's called freedom. Stop trying to regulate and micromanage everyone's lives.

I'm not trying to regulate people's lives. The fact is that I think certain things are just "bad" and would like to say so. Are you trying to shut me up ?

If you have no opinion on good or bad, and therefore also like to shit next to the dinner table go ahead, please, by all means.

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I'm not trying to regulate people's lives. The fact is that I think certain things are just "bad" and would like to say so. Are you trying to shut me up ?

If you have no opinion on good or bad, and therefore also like to shit next to the dinner table go ahead, please, by all means.

This guys derail the majority of threads around here with this same kind of off-topic giberish and nonsense these days.

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I don't see why a news organization can't cover so-called real news, whatever that means (probably news that Michael Hardner considers worthy), and other news. Let people decide for themselves what they want to follow. It's called freedom. Stop trying to regulate and micromanage everyone's lives.

Do you think reporting on the likes of Lohan and her drug problem are news? There is stuff happening all over the world that we really need to pay attention to and be aware of. So why do people pay more attention to celebrity gossip instead of what their government is doing? You are being distracted from the real stuff that is happening. And this is all part of the conditioning that you have endured since birth, without you really being aware you have been conditioned.

It's propaganda. It's distraction. It's a farce.

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Do you think reporting on the likes of Lohan and her drug problem are news? There is stuff happening all over the world that we really need to pay attention to and be aware of. So why do people pay more attention to celebrity gossip instead of what their government is doing? You are being distracted from the real stuff that is happening. And this is all part of the conditioning that you have endured since birth, without you really being aware you have been conditioned.

It's propaganda. It's distraction. It's a farce.

And yet, you, miraculously, are unaffected. And I, also, not caring about Lohan, am miraculously unaffected. And in fact almost anyone else who you could talk to on this board, or other people I've talked to in real life are also, miraculously, impervious to this gigantic propaganda plot.

Must not be very good propaganda.

Anyway, most MSM sources are private corporations and do what makes them money. They now have more competition than ever, so any journalistic principles some of their newspeople might have will generally be a secondary consideration after making money. Operating an MSM source like CNN takes a huge amount of money, and they have to turn a profit, so stories that people aren't interested in won't be receiving a huge amount of time.

On the other hand, there are many other news sources that are much cheaper to operate and cover these stories in great detail. The reality is we, today, have access to more information than ever before, from more sources (and more types of sources) than ever before, and it is up to us to choose which we information we want to consume and what information we care about.

You can't blame any of this on "conditioning" or "propaganda", what people spend their time watching/reading/listening to/discussing/tweeting/etc is up to them.

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Maybe specialization will kill of this trend, and we'll be left with 'real' news - which important people pay attention to - and pablum, for the non-voters and the Lohan lovers.

The problem is we already have that stuff and nobody likes it. Theres still good news programs out there where journalists determine the content based on journalistic value, as opposed to marketing teams. Theres still some good print media as well.

I would like to see a format that might be called Snippet Media. Basically how it would work is that each news "matter". It would be logged inside a database and given a matterID. Then as new information became available it would also get logged into the database and linked to its matter. The "Snippets" would then be categorized into various categories like "Known", "Alledged", and be grouped by type (expert analysis, editorial, raw data) and so on. Any experts journalists and editors would be ranked and tracked, and there would be information about them as well.

So instead of reading dozens of disjointed articles, many of which were half editorializing or so called "expert analysis", you would see an interactive and constantly expanding tree with branches of organized data, links to analysis by your favorite exports, etc, and a list of "facts" reported in the media that have already been found to be bogus/wrong, and those would be linked back to the expert/editor/journalist.

Something that actually gives you command of the data.

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Interesting idea.

There are websites that address criticism of the general news. Do you follow any ?

Not really... generally once I know a bit about a story Ill use google to find articles about it, paying barely any attention at all to what site theyre on. Ill try to read a good selection of pieces.

I I dont have cable TV so my news comes completely from the web. There IS some good sites out there but Im not very interested in the editorializing and "expert analysis" that makes up most of the traditional news format. Id like to have that sometimes, but only if I request it. What Id really like is a good database of the raw data rendered into snippets that link back to the origional articles in case I wish to read them, and a set of tools to organize it.

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Anyway, most MSM sources are private corporations and do what makes them money. They now have more competition than ever, so any journalistic principles some of their newspeople might have will generally be a secondary consideration after making money. Operating an MSM source like CNN takes a huge amount of money, and they have to turn a profit, so stories that people aren't interested in won't be receiving a huge amount of time.

bingo

Edited by Moonlight Graham
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And yet, you, miraculously, are unaffected. And I, also, not caring about Lohan, am miraculously unaffected. And in fact almost anyone else who you could talk to on this board, or other people I've talked to in real life are also, miraculously, impervious to this gigantic propaganda plot.

Must not be very good propaganda.

Well, I think people are waking up to that fact. The propaganda is no longer working, which is good. The internet is helping make that happen. Why do you think Egypt cut off the net? To avoid people from working together. That would happen here in an instant if people started uprising.

Anyway, most MSM sources are private corporations and do what makes them money. They now have more competition than ever, so any journalistic principles some of their newspeople might have will generally be a secondary consideration after making money. Operating an MSM source like CNN takes a huge amount of money, and they have to turn a profit, so stories that people aren't interested in won't be receiving a huge amount of time.

Read the bolded statement. Money first.. everything else second. And you don't see that as a problem?

On the other hand, there are many other news sources that are much cheaper to operate and cover these stories in great detail. The reality is we, today, have access to more information than ever before, from more sources (and more types of sources) than ever before, and it is up to us to choose which we information we want to consume and what information we care about.

True, and this is why I think the Journalism 2.0 will get more popular, money does not really matter and does not mean quality and important news will get out to the masses. As you stated above.

You can't blame any of this on "conditioning" or "propaganda", what people spend their time watching/reading/listening to/discussing/tweeting/etc is up to them.

I believe people have been conditioned to give a certain response. Do this experiment yourself. Talk to some people, ask them two questions. Did you hear the latest about 'insert celebrity here'. And then ask, 'So what do you think of the Florida governor nulling Obama's health care bill? Note the responses.

Now ask if conditioning is not happening.

Edited by GostHacked
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