Techdirt Podcast Episode 164: Getting News Without Social Media

from the the-pros-and-cons dept

Wed, Apr 25th 2018 1:30pm — Leigh Beadon

Social media can be an extremely powerful tool for gathering, finding and sharing the news. It can also be... a bit of a disaster. It would be nice if such an important question had a simple answer, but they never do, do they? So this week, we're discussing and dissecting whether or not social media is "good" for the way we consume the news.

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Filed Under: news, podcast, social media
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9 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 25 Apr 2018 @ 1:48pm

Ignorance is the only excuse for not using RSS.
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- Anonymous Coward, 25 Apr 2018 @ 1:56pm
  
  Re:
  Read the post before accusing people, the RSS link is right there above the sound cloud thingy.
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  - Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 25 Apr 2018 @ 4:32pm
    
    Re: Re:
    I do believe the AC was referring to getting ones news through RSS feeds. Lots of headlines, read what interests you, and you get to pick sites that tend to not produce 'fake news'. Personally I review several hundred headlines daily via RSS, and read those that catch my interest.
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    - Anonymous Coward, 25 Apr 2018 @ 4:55pm
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      The comment is attached to the podcast notification, and the podcast does have an RSS feed. Also, there is an RSS feed item for articles right there on the main tab of the home page.
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      - Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 25 Apr 2018 @ 7:17pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        What are you saying? That there is an RSS link to the podcast? Yes there is. That there is an RSS link to Techdirt articles. Yes there is. That there is some way of noticing a comment on Techdirt is discernible to some comment on one of their RSS links? No, there isn't. I don't use RSS to bring me Techdirt articles. They are my homepage. It doesn't need to be yours, but it is mine.
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- keithzg (profile), 25 Apr 2018 @ 4:56pm
  
  Re:
  Definitely using RSS myself. Specifically, Nextcloud News on my own Nextcloud instance, with native clients synced to that on my mobile devices and even one on my e-reader! Looking forwards to sitting out on bright summer days and reading Techdirt :D
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The_Jerk, 25 Apr 2018 @ 11:43pm

I pull news from here, the BBC, TorrentFreak, and am heavily considering adding Al-Jazeera and a Japanese news source such as the Ashai Shimbun. The last two are difficult to justify due to ongoing problems with availability. I really wish I could find an alternative EU source in case I need to one day replace the BBC outright, but no luck there. The Union just doesn't seem to fund a state broadcaster as well as you'd think.
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Wendy Cockcroft, 26 Apr 2018 @ 5:52am

What is news?
While I agree in full that getting news via social media is not the most effective way to become informed of current events I'd worry about the siloing enabled by the search engines that we also tend to use when seeking information on an assortment of subjects.

When people aren't willing to go against the social grain, they'll look for news from sources that confirm their biases. The problem is bigger than merely getting news on social media; most people I know are too lazy to look for news beyond it.
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Anonymous Coward, 26 Apr 2018 @ 7:42am

Getting News Without Social Media
That would destroy current News Media, considering most of what they 'report' about these days is about what somebody 'tweeted' about something.

Do they even have reporters anymore?
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