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It's Not News, It's Fark
"In It's Not News, It's Fark, Drew Curtis takes a critical look at the mass media. He promises to examine why the news is often not news at all, to look at the fear mongering, the cyclical nature of the news and the fluff that is passed off as important. Drew breaks down these not-news stories into 8 separate categories and gives examples, along with user comments from Fark. Unfortunately, 230 of the books 278 pages (including the index) are used for these examples. What time is spent talking about the media and the advertisement model it is built on, is insightful a bit cynical and very brief." Read below for the rest of the review.
It's Not News, It's Fark How Mass Media Tries to Pass Off Crap as News
author
Drew Curtis
pages
278
publisher
Gotham Books
rating
6
reviewer
Robert Rozeboom
ISBN
978-1-592-40291-5
summary
A look at why the mass media puts out so many stories that aren't really news.
The book starts off with a brief Fark history lesson. What Drew did before Fark. Its first incarnation and how it got to be what it is today. The author then gives us an outline of the different types of news stories that he considers not newsworthy. Drew points out that since most news is brought to you by an entity that makes its money selling ads, the more eyes watching those ads the better. History has shown that nothing attracts eyes like fluff, fear and stretching the truth. There is a reason why there are so many tabloids in the checkout lane.
The first type of news story Drew covers is what he calls, 'Media Fearmongering'. Everything from finding bacteria on your keyboard, terrorists in your home town to animal attacks. This is the most easily recognized type of non-story.
We then move on to, 'Unpaid Placement Masquerading as Actual Article'. This includes most surveys, new words in the dictionary and all things publicity stunt related. Everything you'd read in the 'Lifestyles' section of the newspaper.
Next is, 'Headline Contradicted by Actual Article'. Misleading headlines to outright lies are addressed. Drew makes the point here that the people who run these stories often realize that they are misleading at best but know that they will generate traffic.
'Equal Time for Nutjobs' covers Noah's ark being discovered, conspiracy theories and a guy who thinks the garden of Eden and Atlantis are in Florida. The crazier the claim the better.
Then we have 'The Out-of-context Celebrity Comment'. Why do we care what someone who pretends to be someone else for a living, has to say about Nuclear proliferation? Who knows but we sure do.
Drew next looks at 'Seasonal Articles' . The amount of money lost due to a fall in productivity because of the Super Bowl, inspecting your Halloween candy, and traffic spikes during holiday weekends. All of these stories should look familiar.
The next chapter is, 'Media Fatigue'. How do you know when a big story has just about run its course? Wait for the stories about whether or not the media has given it enough attention or if they've gone too far.
'Lesser Media Space Fillers' covers everything that couldn't fit into one of the other categories as well as some of Drew's personal observations of what type of stories tend to get the most coverage.
Each one of the chapters has a collection of Fark comments after every example story. The comments seem to be chosen at random and are frankly extraneous. The only reason I can think of to include them is that someone in marketing wanted to tie the book more closely to Fark.
The final chapter of the book is by far the most interesting to read and only 14 pages long. This is the wrap up of the problem as Drew sees it and what he thinks the mass media should be doing instead. His ideas are well reasoned and in my opinion spot on. As long as the media is driven by advertising they will walk the line of responsible, informative journalism and outrageousness as close to outrageousness as they can and still be taken seriously by a majority of consumers.
My criticism of this book is that almost the whole thing is just a list of Fark stories. If you've read Fark you've read 90% of this book. It would have been more interesting if the book was an actual discussion of the shortcomings of the mass media, why it is in the place it's in and what could be done to change it. Those topics are covered but in such a brief way that they almost seem like an afterthought.
If you like reading Fark and for some reason you want to read a collection of Fark stories and a few comments in a non-computer screen format you will love this book. If you want to read about how the mass media works and some thoughts on how it could be better you'll love 50 pages of this book.
You can purchase It's Not News, It's Fark: How Mass Media Tries to Pass Off Crap as News from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
The first type of news story Drew covers is what he calls, 'Media Fearmongering'. Everything from finding bacteria on your keyboard, terrorists in your home town to animal attacks. This is the most easily recognized type of non-story.
We then move on to, 'Unpaid Placement Masquerading as Actual Article'. This includes most surveys, new words in the dictionary and all things publicity stunt related. Everything you'd read in the 'Lifestyles' section of the newspaper.
Next is, 'Headline Contradicted by Actual Article'. Misleading headlines to outright lies are addressed. Drew makes the point here that the people who run these stories often realize that they are misleading at best but know that they will generate traffic.
'Equal Time for Nutjobs' covers Noah's ark being discovered, conspiracy theories and a guy who thinks the garden of Eden and Atlantis are in Florida. The crazier the claim the better.
Then we have 'The Out-of-context Celebrity Comment'. Why do we care what someone who pretends to be someone else for a living, has to say about Nuclear proliferation? Who knows but we sure do.
Drew next looks at 'Seasonal Articles' . The amount of money lost due to a fall in productivity because of the Super Bowl, inspecting your Halloween candy, and traffic spikes during holiday weekends. All of these stories should look familiar.
The next chapter is, 'Media Fatigue'. How do you know when a big story has just about run its course? Wait for the stories about whether or not the media has given it enough attention or if they've gone too far.
'Lesser Media Space Fillers' covers everything that couldn't fit into one of the other categories as well as some of Drew's personal observations of what type of stories tend to get the most coverage.
Each one of the chapters has a collection of Fark comments after every example story. The comments seem to be chosen at random and are frankly extraneous. The only reason I can think of to include them is that someone in marketing wanted to tie the book more closely to Fark.
The final chapter of the book is by far the most interesting to read and only 14 pages long. This is the wrap up of the problem as Drew sees it and what he thinks the mass media should be doing instead. His ideas are well reasoned and in my opinion spot on. As long as the media is driven by advertising they will walk the line of responsible, informative journalism and outrageousness as close to outrageousness as they can and still be taken seriously by a majority of consumers.
My criticism of this book is that almost the whole thing is just a list of Fark stories. If you've read Fark you've read 90% of this book. It would have been more interesting if the book was an actual discussion of the shortcomings of the mass media, why it is in the place it's in and what could be done to change it. Those topics are covered but in such a brief way that they almost seem like an afterthought.
If you like reading Fark and for some reason you want to read a collection of Fark stories and a few comments in a non-computer screen format you will love this book. If you want to read about how the mass media works and some thoughts on how it could be better you'll love 50 pages of this book.
You can purchase It's Not News, It's Fark: How Mass Media Tries to Pass Off Crap as News from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
...it's a revenue stream.
I like Fark and all, but it's getting a little ridiculous lately, especially with the changing away from the old days of naughtiness that alas, are gone...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
>"it would have been more interesting if the book was an actual discussion of the shortcomings of the mass media, why it is in the place it's in and what could be done to change it. Those topics are covered but in such a brief way that they almost seem like an afterthought."
Then again, if you were really looking for an insightful analysis of centralized media, maybe your time would have been better spent reading Marshall McLuhan or Noam Chomsky than Drew Curtis.
Just a passing thought...
All else is publicity.
It's a big issue, ignoring this commercial for "Fark" (which I hadn't heard mentioned in years). There are very few US newspapers left with much news. The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal are about it.
The San Jose Mercury News used to be one of the last remaining local papers with real reporting, but since Knight-Ridder sold it to some suburban throwaway publisher, it's had very little real content. Most of the reporters are gone.
The real test is this: did the story originate with a press release or a press conference? If it did, it's publicity. Take a printed newspaper and mark the non-wire-service ads for which this is not the case. There won't be many such stories. In some papers, there won't be any.
I stopped reading Fark after they started censoring *that* special number. Plus they took away boobies links and seemed to start removing any image that showed more than an inch of female cleavage.
/.
It used to be a fun low IQ flamewar filled insight into the minds of folks who would argue the relative hotness and sharp-kneed attributes of any female media celebrity. Some of the threads were freaking hilarious and definitely made my difficult work days a little easier.
In my opinion Fark has made some terrible decisions lately: Fark "TV", terrible redesign without any user feedback, increasing censorship and more paid links. I hated the decision, but it's gone from my bookmarks.
Makes me remember my love for
----- Documentation is worth it just to be able to answer all your mail with 'RTFM' - Alan Cox.
The problem is that Chomsky is just another ideologue, and you can't trust ANYTHING from an ideologue no matter how smart they are (or manage to seem). I even agree with his basic view here, but I wouldn't trust him as a reference.
"It's a trap!" refers to the statement made by Admiral Akbar in Star Wars and is a catchphrase often employed on Fark.
... and everywhere else on the internet, too.
Chomsky describes himself as a "a libertarian socialist", whatever that means.
:)
He's one of those guys that heavily criticizes the USA, but still seems to admire it. Constructive criticism as opposed to the destructive type we usually get in the media.
As for free speech, he refuses to even take legal action when someone libels him, so I'd say he favors free speech.
I dunno. Even after being aware of him since my teens, sometimes I'm still not sure what to make of the guy.
If the Slashdot reviews are convincing you NOT to buy the crappy, non-searchable dead-tree products featured, they're valuable as well.
It sounds like this book could be included within its own subject matter.
Boobies links were often the best threads. Now only TFers can comment on the threads. Once a day there would be a good thread "She's too fat" "She needs a sammich" going back and forth with everyone posting photos (or links to photos) of someone who they thought was hotter.
I still read fark daily for news, but lately it has felt completely sold out.
1) Censoring of a NUMBER. I even posted a huge base-10 number created by me pounding the keypad... it was deleted.
2) Censoring of boobies in threads. There was a recent article ABOUT cleavage and some mod went all "OMG NO BOOBS IN THREADS" on the thread. If you're browsing Fark at work then you should know a thread about breasts is going to have pictures of breasts. I have "Images like Opera" installed and have it not display any images on sites originating at forums.fark.com.
3) The new layout SUCKS. Slashdot, when they went CSS, did it tactfully, I'll notice more features and slicker integration as time goes on. Fark threw all UI logic out the window. Thankfully there is greasemonkey.
Although it's rare for a first post to be on topic, this one is. "It's a trap!" refers to the statement made by Admiral Akbar in Star Wars and is a catchphrase often employed on Fark.
I see your "Get moderators attention to fix egregious moderation" and raise you one pedantry: they call it a cliche on Fark
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
The BBC are definitely on the better end of journalism, that being both reason for and symptom of its betterness. The fact that every single Prime Minister of England hated the BBC is another piece of evidence that it's pretty awesome.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
People have always loved gossip. It's just easier to get and much more plentiful now.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
It would have been useful for the reviewer to briefly outline what Fark is and what its context is. I have been net-enabled since 1994 and never heard of Fark, but in reading some of it briely, I did laugh a fair amount.
Some background would have been helpful.