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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 trap!
...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...
is that almost the whole thing is just a list of Fark stories. "
You'll get over it.
I'm sure "SlashdotMedia" will improve on all the wonders that Dice Holdings blessed us all with
Does anybody actually edit or proof these book "reviews", or do the "editors" just copy and paste it from their inbox? Seriously, the opening three lines are so stilted and crap that no proper editor would accept this review. Couple that with the traditional "it's" screwup and I didn't want to read any further.
But I did. And lo and behold it's a typical Slashdot "review", consisting of ten paragraphs summarizing each chapter individually followed with "I thought this book sucked/ruled because...". My criticism of this "review" is that almost the whole thing is just a list of the chapters.
If this was a book review for an elementary class you might slide by with a B, but otherwise you get a D.
Quick! We must continue the cycle. Someone Digg this article, then get that as a link on the main page of Fark. Or add reddit into the mix as well.
AccountKiller
Noam Chomsky's "Necessary Illusions" has a very good look at why US news media is practically useless.
Short version: the media companies have trained themselves to avoid conflict with the powers that be. The powers that be hardly need to come down on media anymore. These days if you see a news story regarding the powers that be coming down on the media - it's fluff.
Long version: it's Chomsky - you'll have to read it for yourself. Unless anyone else wants to elaborate...
Thanks for explaining that. I'm sure no one understood.
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.
I work for Drew Curtis Presents Fark.com, so I am really getting a kick out of most of these replies.
Some of you guys are very good at making it sound like you know what you are talking about. But trust me.... You don't. I think you just want to make yourself sound smart, when in reality you don't know what you are talking about. This is how bad info gets passed around. If you don't know about the topic....Don't make yourself sound like you do. Cuz some slashdotters believe anything they hear.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
It's BanniNation Formed by a number of posters from fark who had finally had it with the way Drew runs Fark. It's a user-moderated fark-ish site, and IMO, has a much better community feel than fark does. It's nice being able to discuss a topic without worrying about the banstick coming down on your head.
I was an avid Fark user since 2001. I will no longer even hit the front page, as they have neutered Fark and alienated many of their loyal readers by instituting a new ban system without informing people what it was. Pictures that were *always* considered "safe for work" (such as the attention whore girl, are now deemed NSFW, and posters are banned without explanation. As one poster here has already mentioned the whole "you'll get over it" redesign was a bit of an odd approach, but I could live with that, what I cannot live with is the extra crappy censorship they have rolled out. I tried to give them the benefit of the doubt, as I loved visiting the site because it was a small bastion of free speech. Now they have chosen to eliminate that, fuck 'em.......
Thank you, Ric Romero.
You are one of those people who clog Wikipedia with painfully irrelevant "Internet zeitgeist" crap, aren't you?
sic transit gloria mundi
I like the topic, too bad the book doesn't seem worth anything. I started out as a Journalism major and after 2 years of that I realized how I was rewarded (straight A's) for writing BS papers 30 minutes before class that I knew were completely wrong and morally disagreeable. (I switched to CS after I realized what a joke the journalism field was.) As long as you are citing someone else for reference you can selectively choose anything to make such a bias "news" piece that it will be publically acceptable. General media isn't geared to inform objectively anymore. Capping newspapers to 8th grade reading level, selectively chosing sources, and lazy investigations about one side of the story because it's more accessible is a serious downfall. Don't even get me started on television news, somehow 30 minutes of random sound clips and bad b-roll keeps me informed? I don't think so. /.ers, is a combination of zero accountability (mods), and crappy moderators when they are in place. I have a choice in which bias opinion I watch, I don't have a location to form my own opinion without a lot more work. Add to that the network ratings are counted in thousands and a single letter coming in to the news station from a field expert telling them they don't know jack... there doesn't seem to be any insentive to even make a correction these days.
Does anyone know of accountability actions for bad/misinformed/misleading journalism?
The problem that I see in the media, that hits home to most
Chomsky isn't a communist, he's an anarchist, as he's said numerous times.
And he's still smarter and better informed than any right winger.
"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.
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!
"Chomsky describes himself as a "a libertarian socialist", whatever that means."
Libertarian Socialist
The libertarian solution to the failures of capitalism is to apply more capitalism til the failures are fixed.
We formed bannination.com where we can have lots of naughtiness and moderate ourselves instead of having someone making all the calls.
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.
Old and busted: Modding someone informative for providing good information.
New hotness: Modding someone informative for providing redundant information!
Does anyone ever actually read these "book review" "comments", or just copy and paste it from the last book review article? Seriously, the whole comment is so unoriginal that no proper moderator would give it +1 insightful. Couple that with the traditional sarcasm and I didn't want to read any further.
But I did. And lo and behold it's a typical "Slashdot 'review'" "comment", consisting of three paragraphs (if you can call them that!) criticizing the article generally, then specifically criticizing it, then summarizing with a snarky grade-school analogy.
If this was a comment on Fark, you might slide by with a "You suck," but otherwise you get a "goatse.cx link".
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
In an age where Brittany Spear's hair (regardless of which end of her it is or isn't on) is considered to be "newsworthy", we are all dooomed!
2 cents
QueenB.
HDGary secures my bank
You're forgetting about all the "human interest" stories that they churn out to help sell newspapers and airtime.
Those are stories without a press release or a press conference. They mostly originate from police reports. Every local paper has a crew ("reporters" is too complimentary) whose job it is to fashion police reports into stories (if it bleeds, it leads).
The other source that I'm seen is stories that get picked up by to local newspapers that first appeared in school newspapers or club newsletters. That's where all the "nice kids", "cute pet", "interesting hobby", etc. stories come from.
You've fallen victim to an inside joke. See here. Scroll down to "I work for."
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
my first thought when I saw the redesign was that the programmers there don't really grok XHTML. They totally went about it the wrong way. You are supposed to think about data streams and then later use css to style it. But Fark's programmers clearly thought about presentaion only, and tried to make the data stream fit the layout they wanted. Along the way, they ended up with inline styles, extra useless divs, etc. The whole thing is just very awkward. They obviously aren't geeks.
And no, that isn't meant to flame them. IT's just my humble opinion. That site is so big now that they should be able to do better. All drew had to do was to ask his millions of users to help out. Hell, even slashdot had a css contest.
I'd been on Fark for a long time, and I think it jumped after the second election of Bush (around early 2005). Before that, comments were basically a bunch of people trying to say the funniest thing possible or derail the thread with an inappropriate pic. Boobies ruled (the NextDoorNikki thread was legendary). There was a balance of left wing and right wing views, and the flamewars were hate filled diatribes with no real point except to flame the previous poster or prove the existence of God, usually by the same person, which is pretty damn funny sometimes. By the second Bush term, 90% of the comments are from deadly serious (i.e. boring) left wing people trying to prove how much Bush sucks (not that we don't already know), the average thread isn't fun at all, moderation is nuts, and the main page has so many articles on it that it ended up looking like an early version of TotalFark. Plus, the ever important Boobies disappearing had a major impact on the fun factor. Just try having fun without Boobies.
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.