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Comment by mixmastamyk | Hacker News Reader

Unfortunately, a lot of this is spent watching corporate news-product, leading to heavily warped worldviews.

I’ve yet to find a news source without an agenda, corporate or non-profit

https://www.afp.com/en

Agence France Presse is a bit of an oddity in terms of structure. Legally a corporation, it has no shareholders and is forbidden by its bylaws to receive public subventions. It mostly sell news feeds to other medias.

You may be surprised by the clear design and the absence of ads.

It is managed by an assembly of 18 people, mostly representatives from local medias (who are all biased in different ways) and 3 members sent by the government. Its finances are managed by specialized magistrates.

In my opinion it is a great model organization of private-public collaboration and an example of correctly set incentives for a good neutral news agency.

PBS News Hour is about as close as you're going to get in America, in terms of lack of strong political bias and emphasis on factual, 'hard' news.

I wonder if you have reviewed the work done by Ad Fontes Media. They've made the most thorough effort I've come across to determine the degree and nature of bias in various media organizations.

https://www.adfontesmedia.com/

Every generation thinks their parents got it all wrong.

That doesn't mean previous generations didn't make any mistakes.

Many had it right, but then watched to much TV.

s/to/too/

Or even worse, an increasing amount is spent on conspiracy sites and even 4chan; the Q-anon thing seems almost entirely driven by seniors.

I assure you, people over 65 are not getting their views warped by anything, only reinforced.

Plenty of people in the 70–90 years old range have been radicalized to a shocking degree in the past few decades after a steady media diet of right-wing radio and TV, which for many has crowded out more traditional news media.

I know folks who used to believe in helping refugees, standing up for human rights, guaranteeing every citizen the right to vote, crafting policy under guidance of experts, holding politicians and businesses accountable for corruption and fraud, supporting science, etc., but now spout unhinged conspiracy theories about e.g. civil servants and climate scientists, stand up for murderous autocrats, and echo very strange racist ideas about social relations.

It’s very difficult to listen to a steady drumbeat of fear and hate for years and years and not come out with a warped worldview. Especially when a broader community of these old people’s friends are all consuming the same propaganda.

It’s like you’ve met my grandparents.

I see the other side in my family. They subject themselves to a nonstop firehose of seething Trump outrage and Russiagate. They hate the president but are obsessed with hating him. I’m no fan of him either but this doesn’t seem healthy. A two minutes hate that lasts 24/7.

It’s all a heinous mess. Just an endless stream of low-quality trash that addicts people of all stripes.

There's a dedicated contingent of folks hyper-critical of every president, it's exhausting. Even Trump does something right once in a while, in the broken-clock sense.

Maybe their lives haven't developed how they wanted them too and thus are less optimistic in general and looking for scapegoats (or causes) to their unhappiness.

Do you honestly believe folks who begin to echo racist ideas about social relations did not have racist thoughts prior, but were 'introduced' to them via mass media?

I understand that many people want to believe their elders are good, rational, intelligent people, and it's that damn media diet. I'm sorry - it's not McDonalds that makes people obese, it's people willing to become obese that continue going to McDonalds.

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