I am using a few atom/rest readers to have a common point of collecting my news. As I read a lot, it struck me about a trend in the web-news media. The arguments for an article are very much personal and based on social connections of the author with some of the people in the midst of the events rather than analytical and documented with solid sources or numbers. Some of the articles are simple author's opinions about what is connected dots - events, stories, people - all culminating with a take away usually stated in the title. Very seldom you will see more then three extra independent sources, like stats, numbers from non-governmental agencies, data from industry chambers, etc.. In today fast-food and fast-media consumption the slow pondering on the pertinent amount of available information is not considered.
I agree that people empathize with social struggle and life un-fairness and it's much easier to get tears than drive your readers through a maze of numbers and logic arguments but the net benefit for the readers is null. Maybe my wish would be to advance the writing skills of the authors and the bar knowledge of the readers to eject such articles and push them to the internet silence. If in the time of paper these authors were called tree wasters, in our time I call them "bandwidth eaters" - zero info with medium cost to your spare time.
Another point I want to touch is about comments. It struck me that all comments are useless most of the time as being raised on the spur of the moment with a passing pondering. It is true you cannot ask for depth in a comment to an article but there are smart people out there with numbers under their sleeve ready to break or augment the arguments. Where are they? A recent event in the news was about the amount spent for Barrack Obama's visit in Asia which, presumably, would have cost 120 millions per day. A false and blatant point aired on all news until someone proved it is not true. But it filled media air, make a point of discussion and fed social anger. Or maybe those people are so busy working that media is like a dog barking at the wrong tree?
I agree that people empathize with social struggle and life un-fairness and it's much easier to get tears than drive your readers through a maze of numbers and logic arguments but the net benefit for the readers is null. Maybe my wish would be to advance the writing skills of the authors and the bar knowledge of the readers to eject such articles and push them to the internet silence. If in the time of paper these authors were called tree wasters, in our time I call them "bandwidth eaters" - zero info with medium cost to your spare time.
Another point I want to touch is about comments. It struck me that all comments are useless most of the time as being raised on the spur of the moment with a passing pondering. It is true you cannot ask for depth in a comment to an article but there are smart people out there with numbers under their sleeve ready to break or augment the arguments. Where are they? A recent event in the news was about the amount spent for Barrack Obama's visit in Asia which, presumably, would have cost 120 millions per day. A false and blatant point aired on all news until someone proved it is not true. But it filled media air, make a point of discussion and fed social anger. Or maybe those people are so busy working that media is like a dog barking at the wrong tree?
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