Is news actually very useful or helpful beyond a local level?

[The Nothingness]

Local affiliates of the major networks are just as guilty of spreading the narrative from the powers that be. The contradictory and mixed messages they send is so infuriating, especially when they lie about basic human biology. Case in point, one of my local stations recently covered the discovered remains of a young women who had been missing for some time. The segment had an interview with the decease's, as the lower third said, partner. The partner looked male and sounded male but had a female name and the voiceover addressed the partner with female pronouns

 

[Agent Abe Caprine]

Ask yourself what decisions you think the daily news program will help you make, and you'll understand why I don't watch it.

What if my daily activities include finding new ways to get high at a shady gas station?

 

[Uncle Sid]

Marshall McLuhan said, “World War III is a guerrilla information war with no division between military and civilian participation,” in his 1970 book Culture is Our Business. Most of use were born with world war III fully in swing. Media only exists to sell your attention to other people, and the buyers are all weaponized.

 

[melty]

I think very high level information is perhaps useful but there's not really a need to engage with the news media for it. I go bouts without news or social media and people just tell me anything that's actually important. But honestly even if they didn't I'm not sure I would be affected.

 

[Schinna]

One of the worst things I've realized about the modern media is its role in degrading and shielding you from information.
If you search for any topic you'll find the page results filled with both big and little name news outlets that have edited, cut, parsed, bleeped, blurred, layered or otherwise worsened the quality of a datapoint in order to be okay for babyTV. These results are pushed to the top by google and SEO optimization.
An example that sticks out in my mind is the Adam Toledo shooting video. When I first went looking for it I went through several google pages that were all filled with news outlets that had part of the video, but had the relevant data blurred or cut in a way that you couldn't actually make a determination as to whether or not the shooting was justified. I think I wound up on some literallyfuckingwho website before I managed to actually find a video that hadn't been so processed it was useless. (The official police release has since moved to the top of the search results for "adam toledo video" but this is how it was when I first had to look for it.)

 

[Fatniggo1488]

I don't really know how one could argue that the bigger picture doesn't have an impact on them, or that they're better off not knowing the big picture. The whole thing of it is, if you live in the US, one of the reasons you're spending half a paycheck on a week's worth of food is because uncle shlomo decided it was worthwhile to spend your tax dollars on missiles for Israel, weapons for Ukraine, gender reassignment surgery for dirt farmers, and gibs me dats for Tyrone.

Being ignorant of these things doesn't make you less effected by them, it just makes you more willing to go along with them. It's like a pig being led to a slaughter house. Yes, the pig that doesn't know what's going to happen to it is going to be happier than the pig that does know something is wrong, but it doesn't change the end result.

Also I find it interesting that the people who typically advocate for "ignorance is bliss" tend to be those who most support the democratic status quo. You would think they would be the most opposed to democracy since their belief system seems to naturally imply that the common man should not be deciding on governmental (big picture) policy but this is never actually the case, and these types tend to be the most ardent defenders of democracy.

 

[Geddy Lee's Fee and See]

I watch Styxhexenhammer summarize the major news points of the previous day or so in the morning for 20 minutes and then go on my merry way. The 24 hour news cycle is canceraids.

I truly hope you're not suggesting that /pol/ is about pure, unadulterated truth lmao

To be fair, pre-2016 /pol/ was an entirely different place than the shitshow it is now. In fact, that goes for most boards on 4chan, especially after 2018.