I distinctly remember how my grandfathers, both of them, would not consider themselves done with the daily newspaper unless they read the first section, or typically for one of them, the whole paper.
These days we selectivaly choose which articles to read, which to not read. We read what we enjoy or are passionate about, we don't read what depresses us, or conflicts with our worldview.
From what I can see, this is leading to greatly warped worldviews all around. We feel like we are fully informed while only having seen one side of the issue, we then dismiss reporting from the other side or more and more, centrist or neutral reporting as driven by ideology as if what we are reading and hearing is not driven by ideology.
We need to rethink what social platforms can be. The power of connection across borders is amazing, but it's turned into funhouse mirrors.
(1) A red car just passed outside my window.
(2) Tensions in Kashmir are easing.
Both statements are true. They weren't true five days ago. Therefore they are "news".
I fail to see why it's the fault of "the quest for profit" when newspapers will tend to give the second news higher billing.
Profit-driven (and also non-profit) publishers have a motive to publish stories that "people want to read", yes. But there's a difference between "want to read" and "feel-good news". I'm no fan of global warming, and yet the pesky newspaper I subscribe to insist on reminding me that it exists.
Restaurants and supermarkets are just as, or even more, profit-driven. But that has not lead to a monopolisation of nutrition at the low quality end of the spectrum that appeals to our base instincts: McDonald's exists, just as tabloids do. But spinach or the New York Times steadfastly refuse to disappear.
Back in the Old Days, newsrooms were full of people who debated what the news was, in terms of which stories to run, which ones were headlines, and which ones were below the fold on the second page. Those people were, let us be clear, straight White men who either were cis and hetero or were able to fake it well enough to have a professional career. Most of them were Christian, and if you go back far enough in some regions that effectively excludes Catholics.
They were news judgment, in terms of the news sources which mattered. They were the gatekeepers.
So we have different gatekeepers now. This is only deeply disturbing if you thought the gatekeepers never existed, or went away entirely.
I mostly use Apple News for reading news and after a few months of marking stories as good or bad, it's getting better and better at showing me stuff I actually want to see.
They don't gather that information to "serve you better" they gather it "serve you up better"! They are going to use the information to grab the attention of your eyeballs for their own purposes not to better serve you. Remember if your not paying for the product you are the product.
If you mark shallow, screaming articles as bad and they continue serving them you’ll soon switch to another platform.
It’s in your responsibility to use the tools wisely.