What ive always found crazy about the 24 hour news cycle is how little information is in there.
For a while I watched msnbc all day, just to have something on in the background.
In a day they would cover maybe 6 stories, just over and over and over. Here’s some new talking head to give their take, it’s effectively identical to the take the last 5 talking heads gave.
I stopped watching it because I realized that in a given day I was maybe getting about 20 minutes of information on repeat.
The channels have time, they could give complex and nuanced discussions around the 6 interesting things that happened that day, they could expand their coverage to the other 100 or 1000 interesting things that happened. But everyday they find the 6 stories that will lead to the most eyeballs watching the most ads and hammer them.
Agreed, but also: If they run out of info on the 6 things they run an opinion piece about it and just make shit up for hours until more info comes out it the next bug thing can be sensationalized. Do that enough and no one knows what’s real info and whats just spitballing.
It’s by design. If you missed the first round of those six stories, you can just listen to them in 20 minutes. If you get distracted on story number three, you got 20 minutes to go before the next time story number three comes out. It’s designed for ads, like you said, not for information.
They probably assume a good chunk of their audience is people not really paying attention, or who tuned in halfway. For someone watching all day it’s repetitive, but for someone who just showed up it’s fresh. If they did something deep that needs context, the people who arrive 35% of the way through are going to be lost.
Yea I just had it on for noise myself but at some point I thought “haven’t they already gone over this” and then it was like seeing something you couldn’t unsee.
It makes sense to have that “drop in” aspect but it really makes me wonder about people that do just sit and watch Fox News all day. I think after 3 or 4 days I decided music or silence was better.
How many times can you get angry about the same news story over and over?
What ive always found crazy about the 24 hour news cycle is how little information is in there.
For a while I watched msnbc all day, just to have something on in the background.
In a day they would cover maybe 6 stories, just over and over and over. Here’s some new talking head to give their take, it’s effectively identical to the take the last 5 talking heads gave.
I stopped watching it because I realized that in a given day I was maybe getting about 20 minutes of information on repeat.
The channels have time, they could give complex and nuanced discussions around the 6 interesting things that happened that day, they could expand their coverage to the other 100 or 1000 interesting things that happened. But everyday they find the 6 stories that will lead to the most eyeballs watching the most ads and hammer them.
Agreed, but also: If they run out of info on the 6 things they run an opinion piece about it and just make shit up for hours until more info comes out it the next bug thing can be sensationalized. Do that enough and no one knows what’s real info and whats just spitballing.
All news radio was a thing for decades before cable came along.
Most people would turn it on to get the weather/sports/traffic updates/headlines, and then turn back to music.
It’s by design. If you missed the first round of those six stories, you can just listen to them in 20 minutes. If you get distracted on story number three, you got 20 minutes to go before the next time story number three comes out. It’s designed for ads, like you said, not for information.
but complexity and nuance don’t drive viewer numbers and ratings.
They probably assume a good chunk of their audience is people not really paying attention, or who tuned in halfway. For someone watching all day it’s repetitive, but for someone who just showed up it’s fresh. If they did something deep that needs context, the people who arrive 35% of the way through are going to be lost.
Yea I just had it on for noise myself but at some point I thought “haven’t they already gone over this” and then it was like seeing something you couldn’t unsee.
It makes sense to have that “drop in” aspect but it really makes me wonder about people that do just sit and watch Fox News all day. I think after 3 or 4 days I decided music or silence was better.
How many times can you get angry about the same news story over and over?