- SpongeBob is talking a
lot about global warming, and he's only looking at
it from one point of view. - Why I hate the news. - Brainwashed by the mainstream media. - Oh, brainwashed. - Santa just is white. - Jesus was a white man too. - He wrote a sentence ending
with a brand new word. - [Sean] The President and
a small group of people know exactly what he meant. - It seems like a weird
title for me to use because I'm a journalist. At least that's what I think I am. I worked at a journalistic institution. I just did a piece at
"The New York Times." Can you call me a journalist? I'm a journalist, right? Now I'm feeling insecure. Okay, so whatever. I'm a journalist but I
kind of hate the news. Let me explain. (whooshing) - [Announcer] CNN Breaking News. - [Woman] Tonight, it
all comes down to this. - So, let's just first define
what the news is or should be. The news or the press
or the fourth estate, this sort of sacred thing, is meant to be a magnifying
glass on our society. It's meant to look at the things
that are really important, to make people stand accountable, to highlight the issues that
you should be thinking about when you're voting or going
about your day-to-day life. It's meant to give you
important information about things like, I
don't know, pandemics. (upbeat music) - Clearly Nickelodeon is
pushing a global warming agenda. - In short, it's meant to
keep the people informed and aware of what is
important in the world. But as a news consumer myself and as someone who wants to be informed and to understand how the world works, I find that the news less and less and less actually helps me do that. - It is not the newspaper- - But now you're pedaling in dishonesties - So I've been thinking about this and I wanna share it with you. I'm gonna give you three
reasons why I hate the news. Number one, the news often tells you what isn't actually
happening in the world. There's this onion article
that just sums it up so well .00003% of things
that happen actually matter. Oftentimes we look at the
news and we see crazy things that are happening around the world. If there is a mass homicide, that would be national
news tomorrow morning, if there's a terrorist
attack around the world, that will be national
news tomorrow morning. If a prominent politician says something really embarrassing, that will be national
news tomorrow morning. - What's the naughtiest
thing you ever did? - I have to confess when me and my friends sort of used to run through
the fields of wheat, the farmers weren't
too pleased about that. - What all these things
have in common is that they don't happen very often, they're super rare. They don't teach us anything about how the world actually works, they teach us about how
the world doesn't work and how sometimes it does,
the outliers, the aberrations. My big problem with this is that someone who reads the news every day
and uses it as their gateway into the world will often walk away with a completely delusional version of how the world works. They will assume that terrible
things happen more often than they actually do. Our view of the world is at stake here. When the information available to us is the stuff that doesn't
happen very often, the stuff that's actually
an aberration from the norm. We get a distorted view
of how the world works. Number two, the news
has become way too fun. - [Man] Meeting with
the pirate, no problem. - [Announcer] Tonight,
president Donald Trump fighting for a second term as
a deadly pandemic gets worse. - This is not a legal proceeding. - This is the congress of the united- - This is an impeachment. - My old colleague, Carlos
Maza has thought a lot about how fun the news has become. I called him up and we chatted about it. How are you? - I know good to see your face. See for longest, as long as
you've had corporate news in America is that we have a product that is trying to meet two
very different objectives or a suit, a very different incentive. - What Carlos explained to
me that was really helpful was that the news has
two opposing incentives. The first incentive is what I
talked about at the beginning of this video, which is
to inform the people, to teach you what you should care about, to give you a framework for
understanding the world, for highlighting important information the public should know, but then there's this other incentive. - The corporate media is
trying to sell you a product and they sell your
product to make you think you need as much of it as
humanly possible all the time. (upbeat music) So newscasts should be
maybe an hour every day and then you're done
like, go do your thing. You have this other incentive though, while you have a corporate
media environment that is like always breaking. (logo squishing) There's always a new thing
that you have to worry about. So you have this basically
impossible impasse of a product that you should
not really need that much, that shows a specific function
being run by companies that want you to need it all the time. - I am not distracting. - You've been doing it for
over a year and a half. - I haven't been doing that. - Well you have. - What this does, is it
incentivize programming that is optimized to appeal to our senses, whether it's fear based sensationalism or whether it's flashy graphics, article titles that are
a little bit click baity. The economic incentive
that is built into news makes it really difficult
for news to honor that first incentive. - I call them a moron, and then I modified
that word with a vulgar Anglo-Saxons term that is
also intelligible in dutch. - And instead, to prioritize entertainment and false feelings of this is
important or this is scary. (upbeat music) - [Announcer] This is CNN breaking news. - It seems like a really dangerous thing to be so subject to economic forces. Okay, my number three is
that the news tricks you into feeling informed. For a long time I read
the news every single day, I would go on and read
multiple different outlets and I would feel that day like check. Okay, I believe that I'm
an informed smart person and I've just sort of
confirmed that belief because there's this sort
of like glorification of the person who like
really up on the daily news. What I've learned is that
that's actually not the case. - Why don't people just check out and that's a legitimate response, like if the town prior in your
village constantly screaming, 10,000 horrific things at
you from other villages that you don't live in,
after all you'd stop really meaningfully listening to it because your brain can not
sort out what catastrophe is real and meaningful and
what you shouldn't respond to. So you have this like kind
of ambient anxiety always that makes it so that your
brain becomes numb to the drug. You stop really caring about
what you should engage in. - Spending a lot of time
chasing the new cycle is a lot of mental energy. It's a lot of mental energy
that could be applied to understanding how the
world actually works, consuming things that actually shed light on important issues like,
policy or I don't know, historical trends that maybe
are not as flashy and reactive, but are way more indicative
on how the world works, how things get done, how
change gets made in a society. Instead because of this
entertainment incentive, the news doesn't actually end
up being super informative. You're not actually learning
a lot about anything other than what happened that
day, who said what to whom and why, and then how a
billion people reacted to why that person said whom. And it's like, it becomes a
giant gossip first almost. - Binge watch like the
Rockford files, Netflix. - Or modern love
- That's terrible. Modern love makes me sick. - How about person of interest? - Ooh, I like that, that's a good show. - Can I say something now? - Yes.
- No! - It's built to appeal
more to our gossip impulse than to our desire to
learn about the world. The epidemy of this is the sort
of like pseudo debate format that a lot of TV news takes apart. - The five person talking head panel, you have moderator who pretends
to be relatively neutral and then four commentators
two from the left, two from the right who
are arguing about whatever the topic of the day is. That format is a straight rip from ESPN. Like those formats are a
carbon copy of the arguing and almost like a reality
TV model that has been used in sports media for a while. - This is not journalism. This looks like journalism
because it looks like there's a robust debate going on. - Stop it, you're abusing
power right now on air. Stop filibustering her. - But journalism is about evidence. It's about going out
and gathering evidence and scrutinizing it and
then putting it together and presenting it to a reader. In this sensationalized news segment, no evidence is being
examined or scrutinized or cross-examined. - It serves no educational function, regardless of what you
think about politics, watching two people
argue is not informative because it's too fast paced, it triggers your tribal defenses, you're not gonna be open-minded and there's no time to examine evidence, no matter how long that fight goes on for, you are not gonna learn
anything meaningful from it. All will happen is that
you will leave thinking, "God, I really hate the other side." And God by sight is so right. It's the opposite of what
journalism should be doing. - You don't leave a debate
like this anymore informed, all you do is leave a debate like this with like an understanding
that your side is right, the other side is wrong
and like how awesome that like the people who
represented your side were like so hard on the opposing side, which is a super awesome
impulse if you're like in a football stadium watching
your favorite team play. But when we're talking
about like real issues and real policy, this sports
framework of commentary and fighting is not very useful because it tricks people into thinking that they're informed, that they're like, "oh, I get the issues now
'cause I watched that debate." But instead all they were was entertained. - I'm tired of having this
discussion over and over again. - So those are my three reasons
for why I hate the news. So let me just say one thing, which is there is still amazing journalism being done right now,
really important journalism that is communicating important evidence, about important ideas
that truly can inform you about how the world works. The incentives of this industry
make it harder and harder for that journalism to happen. But the journalists who are
out there collecting evidence, reporting on really difficult things, talking to lots of experts,
trying to piece together, all of this information so that
they can inform the public. Those are the people
who are doing this work in spite of the entertainment,
corporate 24 hour news cycle that has sort of taken
over what news should be. And what I really believe
and I learned this working at Vox, a place that
really focused on context and explainer journalism,
there's a demand for it, there will always be a
demand of voyeuristic demand for seeing terrible things happen. There will always be
demand for entertainment and shouting matches, but
I believe that most people want to understand,
they want to understand why this certain policy will
work and the other one won't. They want to understand the real debates, the philosophical and political debates that are happening in our system. They wanna understand how our system works or doesn't work. And if only our news
industry could focus more on that desire, that desire to understand, instead of this facade of information that is really just entertainment. - The media is shoving
this down your throat. - By the way, our ratings are great. - Shouldn't they for a period
of time not go on the attack? - They were fear-based. - They were fear-based. - Hate in teleprompt. - Can you give us an answer,
why were you attacking us. - Don't be rude, you are fake dues. - All right, well, that
was a little bit of a rant. Just taking some deep breaths, glad I got that out of my system. If you want a place to put
your rants and thoughts out into the world, choose Squarespace, which is a one-stop
shop where you can build an online presence as someone
who runs an internet business and thinks about internet,
community, and marketing, all this stuff,
Squarespace truly does have an amazing set of tools
for developing a voice and a presence on the internet and doing so in a beautiful way. They've got these templates
that are like really nice looking and
well-designed, it's all easy and drag and drop, it's not like code. Like you go back and
you build your website. Squarespace supports this channel and I'm really grateful for that. There's a link in my description,
if you click that link, you get 10% off your first
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support this channel, but it also can kickstart
your online presence if that's something you're
thinking about doing, you should check out Squarespace. So thank you all for being
here and for listening to my big rant about the news. I am in the middle of
brainstorming, some really fun wild big deep videos for 2021, some international explainers
that I am working on right now that I think
you're all gonna really like, and they just take more
time to do journalism, just takes more time. I have to go and like read all this stuff, talking to the experts,
reading all of like the journals and the think
tank pieces and all this stuff, putting it together that just takes time. But quality journalism is an
important thing, so anyway have a great day I'll talk to you later. - SpongeBob what are you doing? - Just rolling another tire on the fire by global warming Mr Graham. (upbeat music)
I think this speaks more to how people get into journalism nowadays. Because anyone who went to J-school reached this conclusion in their first semester and had it driven home in the first 30 seconds of their first shift at a major media outlet, but it would probably elude anyone who launched their career by making YouTube videos or writing freelance pieces for websites.
I like this guy's stuff, but it seems patronizing for a dude who's been on YouTube for close to a decade and worked at major national media outlets like Vox, albeit as a freelancer, to be like "Hey guys, I've just had an epiphany, and I really struggled with this, but after a lot of critical thinking and examination, I realized it was true, and here's why." I know he's trying to hold the hands of an audience who hasn't known any other media landscape, but I just found myself thinking "Really, my dude? Are you sure you just figured that out?"
Right off the bat, this guy conflates print and broadcast journalism as delivering the same product. Sorry, that's just not true. As a video journalist I can see how he would make that mistake, but lumping the mediums together with broad, sweeping generalizations about "the news," that's not actually "the news."
I'm gobsmacked if anyone thinks the AP, Reuters, The Times and broadcast cable news (pick any of them) deliver the same product.
The irony of him using a clickbait title (he’s really just talking about cable news and clarifies later that a lot of great journalism is being done in print) to then hawk a Squarespace sponsorship is really too much. I like his videos normally but this one was so pretentious and will be great fuel for the anti-media crowd. Great job!
I wrote this comment while watching the video, understand I'm not disagreeing with Johnny per se, but I also believe things can be better.
1: things don't matter
Much of what he described as the "news" is more specific to the 24hour newscast. And what I noticed was CNN and FOX.
I will be an outlier, and say I like 24 hour news.
What sold me on it is NPR.
I tried to write a piece a while back, and I had an email theread with Robert Smith regarding NPR as a whole, but specifically the programing like Planet money.
In the "interview" he mentioned that NPRs main goal when they make a podcast is for podcast use first, and radio second.
There is alot of information out there in the world that needs to be told.
Yes I need to listen to Up First to understand what is going on in the day, but I also need to listen to other supplemental podcasts to understand why that stuff happens.
We can have a 24 hour newscast like CNN and FOX (news) and fill it with high quality content that actually teaches people (and I believe there is a market for it)
2: the news has become too fun.
Fun news is accessable news.
There is a reason why late night shows (last week tonight, the daily show, eca) are popular. And are gaining popularity over traditional news outlets.
But I never heard of any actual criticism of the journalistic integrity of last week tonight. To my understanding it's a very well documented show. And I get the added benefit of getting it delivered to me by a parrot in a suit. (Correct me if I'm wrong please)
I liked Vox because once again it was accessible. The graphics made it easy to understand alot of subjects and I know that's their main MO.
Sometimes you need to make the food to deliver the sauce to your mouth.
For the same reason why my roommate needs to make chicken so she can put Mole in her mouth, many journalists needs to package their work in a fun way.
This is a fancy way of saying that I'm more likely to get what you're trying to say if it's spoon fed to me with graphics and jokes than written like a wikipedia page (coming from a guy who LOVES wikipedia)
3: I hate debates period. And i believe presidential debates should be replaced with a 3 day debate that allows candidates to work with their teams with proper rebuttals that need to be cited. No argument here
I would like to point at Audi (the car manufactur) on how you can create better news.
The 4 circles represents 4 automakers that banded together to make Audi.
WAYYY back in the day when cars were new, you would buy a engine from one company, chassis from another, the cab from a theird, eca, eca.
And this is how luxury cars (and for a while all cars were a luxury item) were created.
When Ford started becoming a major manufacturing power, other automakers wanted to complete, so they would band together.
The reason why it's called "Mercedes-Benz" with the hyphen is because the Benz family partnered with someone else who named his company after his daughter. They were equal partners.
Audi is a stronger example with "the auto Union" becoming one brand.
But I think better examples on how journalism can be fought back is with Fiat-Chrysler.
Two companies that are Separate, but work together for a similar goal.
This is why Curiosity hub became a thing, higher quality youtubers what're to make high quality content without being mixed in with alot of other BS from YouTube.
I think it can happen with journalism because I agree with Johnny, people want to learn, but the issue is that it needs to be packaged to the masses not just to be easily accessible, but recognizable.
Vox is not fringe, but when you compare it to names like NPR, MSNBC, FOX, CNN. Vox is a fucking baby.
They can not create and sell enough content to complete.
But youtube as a whole can.
So how do we get people to watch Vox+other high quality content and understand that it all works together?
I've worked in broadcast and print news for 30+ years, and there's a lot of truth in what this guy says. When I started out there was no internet, and no 24-hour news and I can safely say the world didn't feel as crazy as it does now. I don't know for sure if those things are connected but it feels like they are.
One of the factors, that he doesn't go into much, is the insatiable appetite of the 24-hour news medium: as broadcast/online journalists our primary job is now feeding the beast that is 24-hour news. This leads to time-filling journalism and inevitably a degradation of the product that drowns out the good journalism that occasionally surfaces.
I'm not sure what can be done to improve matters. I don't think the public can be re-educated as a significant proportion are so used to the product that they proudly describe themselves as "news junkies". And journalists have become part of the problem as their living depends on the current system.
Is this guy fucking serious? He hardly focuses on print media and then barely looks at papers with large national appeal. I work for a small local paper and most of the news we carry is the stuff people are asking about or should know about like local government, education and community goings on. This guy’s focus on pundits and cable news identifies the growing problem of media illiteracy. His broad generalizations are just adding fuel to the argument people have against “the media”. It’s not the media, it’s pundits and not reporters. Also, this guy saying people aren’t getting news that matters to them doesn’t understand how news works. There is local news and not everyone is obsessed over national issues. Finally, he doesn’t understand journalism. Shit like this makes me fucking sick.
That was repetitive and an assault on my eyes
This should be titled: "I'm a Journalist Who Hates MSNBC, CNN and Fox News."
It's also no surprise he brought in Carlos Maza on there to add to the BS. They bring up how there should be just one program a day that has important news for the day.
MOTHERFUCKER THAT'S CALLED THE EVENING NEWS!
CNN, MSNBC and Fox News are going to have wall-to-wall news because that's what their network is about. That's like complaining that CNBC only talks about business stuff all day.
This is such a tired commentary that will likely get praise from people as being so well-thought out because they haven't heard someone share this opinion in the past year.
This is blatantly irresponsible clickbait that leads viewers to believe that all news is bad. The author knows bounce rates on video. You can't say 3/4 of the way into your video, "Hey there's still good news in the world!" and expect people to see it.
Like others have said, he hates cable news. Duh, we all do. That's a very tired old argument but an important one that the author intentionally left out for wreckless clickbait purposes.
But what baffles me is the hypocrisy of this video. He complains that people reporting on rarities creates a distorted view of the world, but he also uses selective clips from the most garbage moments of cable TV. Yes, cable TV is trash, most of the time. But you painted it to look like trash ALL of the time. Does Jim Acosta do great journalism? Yes. Does Chris Wallace do great journalism? Yes. Their medium sucks, but they still do great work.
That's as much energy as I'll spend defending cable news.
Video needs a TL;DR - Print journalism is (mostly) good and cable news and being addicted to a 24/7 news cycle is (mostly) bad for you. But who would click on such an honest video title?