Tag: Analysis

I almost wrote about this yesterday but I didn’t want to break tradition with ‘Tacticool’ Thursday. Usually, one of the first things I do is scan the headlines on the Bing homepage when I log on. I still like to be informed and well rounded. There were at least four articles concerning whatever hullabaloo is happening with the TV show ‘The Bachelor’.

Admittedly, I clicked on one of the articles to try and determine how serious whatever issue is happening could be with so many stories in the headlines. From what I could tell, it seems to be a whole lot of nothing. Not only did I not learn anything, I looked at a couple more articles to see if it was just poorly written – which I see a lot of these days and got about the same level of information.

I did some more research for the purposes of this article where it seems like one contestant did something in her past that is now considered racially insensitive and apparently the host put out a defense of the contestant and both of them, including the TV show is now on the ‘Woke Blacklist’. Wow, I invested my time for that?

For the record, I find these shows and their ilk to be trashy and vapid. I root for their demise. On the side of freedom, entertainment and choice I have no problem with their existence. That being said, the lines between news, entertainment and opinion almost don’t exist. If you actually look at my screenshot there are four articles on ‘The Bachelor’, four other entertainment articles, three ads and two on politics. That is my ‘front page’.

Granted, there is no specific guarantee what Bing is presenting, there is some sort of Artificial Intelligence (AI) running to present customized view based on previous clicks. I suppose that the application of the definition of news is subjective as well. I looked up the definition of news for clarity.

Giving the smell test about ‘The Bachelor’ information

1a. The event is recent

1b. The information is previously unknown to me

1c. It does not have influence to me, but unfortunately it has the appearance to effect a lot of people.

2a. It was reported on a ‘news’ aggregator Bing.

2b. Honestly, I cannot defend this definition.

Here is where the rubber is going to meet the road, so to speak. In my opinion, applying the five sub-definitions of news ‘The Bachelor’ story fails to meet two of the five definitions. Additionally, I give a conditional pass to being displayed on Bing, however given the preponderance of all of the articles I would wager don’t fit the definition either and actually discredit Bing as a valid provider of news. Just because I don’t know something that just happened is a flimsy excuse to call anything news.

Another opinion, but the two most important definitions are worthiness (2b) and specified influence (1c). Admittedly, those two have some subjective aspect to them. One person’s worthiness is not necessarily another. But, let us take a look at that definition.

Now, applying ‘Worthy’ to the situation

1a. No

1b. No

2. No

When we play word games, if there is one definition that fits then we say it meets the definition ignoring the others. I think that is where we are getting to with news. It is actually a word game that meets one definition, it is a recent, unknown event.

I am going to credit Glenn Beck for bringing to my attention that we all have bias. I am surely not objective, I have already stated my opinion on the show and this article that I am writing is categorized as ‘opinion’ to begin with. That is fine, I can accept that. The problem is when bias is used to manipulate the facts to propagate an agenda, without transparency of doing so.

Let me circle back to the premise. I guess what disturbs me is not that there is a mixture of articles both what I think is important and not. For instance, I often look at sports articles which I would argue are not important as well. But, the weighted number of articles are skewing the entire page as irrelevant.

Within my circle of concern, I feel as though people are bombarded with information that is not worthy without the transparency of how their individual view is made. If they chose to have their ‘news’ be 90% entertainment but could resolve a different proportion if desired, then I would be more fine with it. Just like 1984, information either makes people believe anything they are told or nothing. I fear that it is more the former than the latter.

Without getting too conspiratorial, I feel we are being programmed. It is the very premise of this site “End Your Programming”. I won’t speculate why even though I have my own opinions. My hope is that we occasionally get critical about the world around us and how we interact so that we make choices rather than be led.