Internet News - Obligatory Video

[imoldernu]

Am curious as to what others think about the shift of news on the internet, from printed articles, to videos... (usually preceeded by a 30 second video commercial.)

Also... the increased use of popunder sound.

Is the internet turning into a dumbed down propaganda machine?

...or is this too harsh?

I feel increasingly frustrated by seeing what appears to be an interesting headline... then going for more information, only to be faced with a commercial, and then finding out that the video clip was something I was not interested in.
I long for articles I can scan and dismiss if it's not what I expected. Could it be that this is the new America? Designed for people who cannot read?

Whaddya think?

 

[Lazarus]

Hate it.

Also there is a trend to re - title articles to get you to click on them again. No new content.

Watching the media cover things that I have knowledge of makes me cringe at all the inaccuracy's and political spin put on them. I am sure they are just as bad with the things that I don't have much knowledge of.

I think journalism is pretty much a thing of the past. Just sound bites and ratings now.

 

[Brdofpray]

Generally, if I see that the story is a video link, I will skip it. Or if I do click, and find a story below the video window, I mute the sound, scroll down so note to bothered with the video, and read/skim the story.

I do not like commercials while I browse.

 

[rbmrtn]

hate it. much rather read the article. The video usually is too slow, doesn't play or some other issue.

 

[ls99]

I found it maximally irksome. Solution: Stop looking at the junk. In fact I am slowly concluding that much of news is not worth watching, even on the internet. Gave up TV a while back.

Figure if it is relly important, someone will mention it in the coffe shop. They also have a TV running with no sound, just subtitles. The box is about 15 feet up on the wall, so easy to ignore.

Fortunatately the National Weather Service info on the internet is not corrupted yet. The operative word is.... yet.

 

[Sarah in SC]

The answer to your troubles is Twitter. Short headlines, click through to the article if interested in reading more.

 

[target2019]

The quality of internet news reporting is now equivalent to what you see on the tube.

I rarely go to the video-enhanced links, preferring a portal which presents related links for a particular story. Google News is an example of a portal. Story appears with a run-in from a single news outlet. Expand to see related outlets.

The internet used to be a science/education oriented medium. As with most things it has been re-engineered for the masses.

There are pockets of sanity. Consider this site we are on.

 

[imoldernu]

The answer to your troubles is Twitter. Short headlines, click through to the article if interested in reading more.

Imoldernu emerges from cave... Have resisted Twitter and Facebook. On your recommendation, will take the big step.

 

[Sarah in SC]

imoldernu, start with just a couple so you aren't overwhelmed.

I find that I can grab my iPhone first thing in the morning and scroll through a handful of headlines to find out anything important, then go on about my business. I might check it a few times during the day, then again before bed. Local news stations are nice for up-to-the-minute news/weather/traffic stuff.

Have fun!

 

[healthyandfun]

Yes, have noticed this irritating trend. Even the written articles on the ABC news app have started to have an advertisement that covers the entire article for 10 or 15 seconds. The CNN app is almost all videos. Good solutions anyone
Much prefer reading over viewing.

 

[GalaxyBoy]

+1

When it comes to Internet news sites I always skip a story if it's a video link. I'd much rather read it, and I figure if it's newsworthy at all it would have a written version.

For example, on the nbcnews.com site right now the leading video links are "After Newtown, parents impose (toy) gun control," "Lost camera card returned 3 years later," "Family welcomes second Christmas baby," and "Dancing babies’ dad: Web fame is ‘amazing’." None of these interest me in the least.

On a related note, on the tube there's this trend to play 10 seconds of video that loops endlessly. And now the human interest "stories" are just YouTube clips with the obligatory repeats plus mandatory slow-motion repeat. And don't get me started on this trend to play "background" music with vocals at the same level as the voiceover!

 

[donheff]

The answer to your troubles is Twitter. Short headlines, click through to the article if interested in reading more.

I am trying Twitter just to stay [-]immature[/-] young at heart. But the noise seems to outweigh the signal too much to make it worthwhile.

Also... the increased use of popunder sound.

By popunder sound, do you mean the odd sound tracks that seem to come out of nowhere, and have no visible kill control, forcing you to close a tab or even kill the browser to get rid of them? Irritating as hell.

 

[ERD50]

Also... the increased use of popunder sound.

... and then finding out that the video clip was something I was not interested in. I long for articles I can scan and dismiss if it's not what I expected.

This is my big issue with all this video - news, websites where I want info on a product, etc. Video is perfect for some things, but as you say - I can't scan/skim. I hate watching a 10 minute video only to find - nope, they didn't cover what I was looking for. Coulda scanned the text in 10 seconds to figure that out.

Could it be that this is the new America? Designed for people who cannot read?

Is the internet turning into a dumbed down propaganda machine?

...or is this too harsh?

I feel increasingly frustrated by seeing what appears to be an interesting headline... then going for more information, only to be faced with a commercial,

Whaddya think?

I think it's just a way to get the commercial out there, and collect more ad money. Heck, they offer this stuff for free, so I can't complain if they lock an ad to it. They gotta make money, so it's understandable. So unless I'm going to pay for a subscription, I will decide to take the ads or leave it.

-ERD50

 

[Midpack]

The answer to your troubles is Twitter. Short headlines, click through to the article if interested in reading more.

Imoldernu emerges from cave... Have resisted Twitter and Facebook. On your recommendation, will take the big step.

I am trying Twitter just to stay [-]immature[/-] young at heart. But the noise seems to outweigh the signal too much to make it worthwhile.

I agree with Sarah, Twitter is ideal for scanning and reading news IMO. You may already know this, but to avoid "the noise" - just FOLLOW the sources you're interested in. You don't have to read anything else, it doesn't make sense to try to wade through all sources, that would be an overwhelming waste of time.

For example, I follow 51 organizations and people. Organizations like The Economist, Atlantic magazine, TED, Engadget, NBC5 Chicago for example. I also follow some activity/hobby sites like Americas Cup and several local restaurants & shops. And then I follow Anthony Bourdain, Rick Ferri, Scott Monty and personal friends.

When I open Twitter, I get a series of 140 character messages from those I follow and nothing else. Most have links to articles or more content. I just scroll through, read the ones that interest me, and I've caught up on my 51 favorite people/sources - usually takes about 10-20 minutes. You could never browse 51 websites as thoroughly that fast.

You can FOLLOW and UNFOLLOW with a click, simple.

Two of my favorite local lunch places post their daily specials with pics on Twitter every morning. I can see what they're featuring, and often decide where to eat based on that. I don't have to call and ask or go on cold, it's available on Twitter (and/or FB) 24/7. Very handy...

If any of the sites are too prolific, I just UNFOLLOW them. I followed Huffington Post, and dropped them because they flooded me with stories that were only marginally interesting.

I followed Occupy Wall Street when it started. Never planned to stay engaged, but I read what they were thinking in real time for a few weeks. It was interesting, but I dropped them when it ceased to be interesting.

And lastly if you want to read up on a particular topic, you simply search Twitter and read all oh want. Hashtags help facilitate that. And Twitter always shows what's trending, IOW the ten topics with the most posts, so you read that if you like - or not.

Twitter can be very helpful IMO...if you try it and still don't find it useful, that's fine.

 

[Nords]

Am curious as to what others think about the shift of news on the internet, from printed articles, to videos... (usually preceeded by a 30 second video commercial.)
Also... the increased use of popunder sound.
Is the internet turning into a dumbed down propaganda machine?
...or is this too harsh?
I feel increasingly frustrated by seeing what appears to be an interesting headline... then going for more information, only to be faced with a commercial, and then finding out that the video clip was something I was not interested in.
I long for articles I can scan and dismiss if it's not what I expected. Could it be that this is the new America? Designed for people who cannot read?
Whaddya think?

I'm pretty sure that the society literati were equally appalled when Gutenberg took all the soul out of illuminated manuscripts with his robotic printing press. Just think of all the unemployed monks!

I am trying Twitter just to stay [-]immature[/-] young at heart. But the noise seems to outweigh the signal too much to make it worthwhile.

There sure is a lot of crap on Twitter, but I use it two ways:
1. Following bloggers I care about. Their tweets lead me to other articles (or other blogs) that don't show up on their own blogs.
2. Breaking news. If you see one headline (or a name) then Twitter will probably have the best summary of the headlines. When a tsunami siren fires up on Oahu, Twitter has the answer before the Civil Defense crawler shows up on our TV screen.

I force myself to follow 50 or fewer. If I want to add a new follow then I drop another one. If someone starts puking out 20 tweets a day from a "livecast" or an automated app, then I'm probably dropping them too.

I occasionally click on the "Trends" section. Trending on Twitter is generally bad for the trendee but it's one heck of an eye-opening cultural education for the rest of us...

 

[ohyes]

Unless there are hilariously funny videos that someone plants in front of my face, I avoid them.

I thought it might be my learning style.

Rather than a youtube on how to do something, i prefer a list :

#1 Do this

#2 Now, do this

Photos and diagrams are helpful; attention span cannot bear watching a video.

Same with the news. Just tell me what happened. i subscribe to a couple news feeds, read the paper every morning....can skim and get the gist....move on to happier things.

 

[growing_older]

Hate it.

Also there is a trend to re - title articles to get you to click on them again. No new content.

I also hate the video "news" and avoid them whenever I can. In the worst cases, the links aren't identified as a video story and I end up there anyway. In that case, Google News is my friend. I can usually find the details of the story in print format by doing a quick search there. The retitled stories and the 15 page slide shows that give a few sentences of content on each page just to boost page view counts are also distressing wastes of time.

 

[jim747]

Hate the commercials. I've resisted Twitter but might have to give it a try.

Remember when we used to ask...if the internet is free, how is anyone going to make any money? Now we know.

 

[Richard4444]

I hate those commercials so I pretty much use the app 'Zite' on my iPad. One simple lists the topics one is interested in (e.g., Wold News, US News, Finance, Retirement, Gadgets, etc., etc) and Zite lets you choose and read all the recent and pertinent articles that it scrounges from all over the web. Very, very easy.

 

[Tyro]

Generally, if I see that the story is a video link, I will skip it. Or if I do click, and find a story below the video window, I mute the sound, scroll down so note to bothered with the video, and read/skim the story.

I do not like commercials while I browse.

+1.

 

[Tyro]

Is the internet turning into a dumbed down propaganda machine?

Turning into?

 

[ERD50]

Is the internet turning into a dumbed down propaganda machine?

Whaddya think?

Turning into?

Only if you let it.

The internet is also full of more open information than we ever had access to. When I go to research something now, I can get a variety of views, and I can be careful to determine if the information comes from a source with some credentials. It's fantastic.

Just a few years ago, about all I could do is go to the library and hope they had something on the subject. It would be less likely that I could get multiple viewpoints if it wasn't a popular topic. And then, you'd pretty much have to figure that "they wouldn't print it if it wasn't true" You had very little capability to cross check anything.

I think it is easy to see what is propaganda and what isn't. Avoid it, unless you are curious to see what others are thinking. A small price to pay to have all this info available, IMO. Like anything, it is a tool that can be used or misused.

-ERD50

 

[GalaxyBoy]

The thing that concerns me about using services that tailor the news to only what you are interested in is that I might miss those serendipitous stories about things I didn't think I was interested in, but was.

 

[target2019]

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events

Wikipedia has a news portal. Above is a link to the mobile version.

 

[Richard4444]

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events

Wikipedia has a news portal. Above is a link to the mobile version.

Thanks Target ... I just book-marked it (non mobile). Looks great !! Thanks.