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Comment by graemep | Hacker News Reader

> I like the system in UK and Germany where taxpayers need to contribute a fee (but not a tax, to avoid government interference) to fund broadcasters and news.

In the UK it does not improve the quality of available news very much.

> I think not consuming news is not a reasonable approach in our day and age, you have be informed in order to make good decisions.

Bad information does not make for good decisions. Your argument is addressed by the article.

It is far better to read long analytical articles, and even more to read books, on the issues you wish to be informed about. A smaller number of works (i.e. books and articles) that give you real understanding, rather than a lot of superficial information that you will mostly not retrain.

Consuming lots of news, gives you a lot of information, but makes it harder retain, analyse and comprehend it.

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> In the UK it does not improve the quality of available news very much.

I disagree, I don't think there's anything better than BBC news for junk food type news, an update on current affairs or the Olympics or something when you do want it.

Of course it's not hard analysis or thought-provoking opinion pieces, pay someone else directly if you want that.

But if someone mentions riots say and I just want to quickly read a couple of things for a high level understanding of what's going on, it's great.

The problem with this approach is that you think you are getting a high level understanding but in fact you are not getting the understanding at all. You just get an opinion view based on what facts are reported and what facts are not.

A lot of news is based on opinion but I feel like the BBC try more than most to be impartial see: https://www.bbc.co.uk/editorialguidelines/guidelines/imparti...

In fact some of the issues may be caused by being too impartial and giving weight to opinions which many feel should be ignored.

Indeed BBC is one of the better ones, however not great judging by the 90s standard ;)

True, but for the kinds of thing I'm thinking of, and the level of understanding I want (at that point at least) I'm fine with that. (And as sibling says BBC is hardly awful in that regard.)

Take the protests/riots example, I had no awareness of it whatsoever (I don't follow the news any more, just HN really), but I heard enough to be confused and want some idea. The potential political bias in whether it's described as racist/terrorism/peaceful/righteous doesn't really matter to me, I just wanted 'oh, people are angry about things in the vicinity of X, and there are riot police out'.

If I wanted more, yeah the likes of the BBC aren't going to give me deep nourishing (to continue the junk food analogy) insight, and I'd seek out a broadsheet, an insightful blogger, books on the subject, etc. But I don't, so I can instead move on.

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