Slashdot Mirror
Your Opinion Counts At CNN — But Should It?
theodp writes "Some people love how CNN employs Twitter to engage its audience. Not Steve Dahl. 'I am not interested in the take of @stinky on the Fort Hood shootings or any other current events,' complains Dahl of the access the media gives to Internet know-it-alls. 'I am watching CNN because I expect them to gather the news, not act as a clearinghouse for any bonehead with a computer, a cable modem and a half-baked opinion.'"
This question on a site like this seems incredibly ironic.
While I mostly love Slashdot for its comments and the talks between members, it just doesn't work everywhere. If I'm watching CNN from TV, I'm looking for intelligent, fact-checked news and opinions from professionals, not from some mommy who is twittering without understanding any of the issues behind specific things.
and why should I care...?
Don't like it, don't read it. Christ, the only reason why I read user comments on CNN, or Amazon reviews, or anything else where the wisdom of the masses extrudes itself is an urge to rubberneck. It isn't as if they're touting these commentaries as fact-- it's just a poorly moderated scribble board, and it says so on the flap.
How funny is that: A guy airing his opinion on a public medium about how other people's opinions shouldn't be aired on public media...
We need a CNN story on this (complete with tweets) to bring things full circle.
-b
No offense, but I've stopped responding to AC's.
I am watching CNN because I expect them to gather the news [...]
Yeah, that's definitely where you went wrong.
If I had a nickel for every time I had a nickel, I'd be richcursive!
That's what I was thinking as I read the blurb.
If I want solid information I head over to a site like PhysOrg. If I want to see what others are thinking I head to Slashdot.
News services have become such an opinion mill that it's starting to make it hard to take them seriously. There is a time and place for people to banter on but I don't want it from a news outlet.
I've seen far too many people around here armed with little more than a high school education think that they have a better understanding of the universe than engineers who are in the field. I know the public opinion on just about anything is 10 times worse. We already have a half a million forums for these people to spout their crap on. Do we really need another?
I find it amusing that there's an opinion piece that's against opinion pieces. What's Dahl's claim to lipping off "you aren't allowed to lip off?"
This was a gem (emphasis mine): "I was held accountable by management, listeners and, most important, advertisers."
That's the ugly of a Dahl editorial and the beauty of a slashdot comment -- you can voice your opinion here without anybody threatening to fire you because you spoke out against the status quo.
"When did public opinion merit the same amount of airtime as the actual story?"
When we got the internet. It used to be that only the rich could use the freedom of the press, because you had to actually own a press to have freedom of it. Now we, the people, have freedom of the press, too. The rich and the corporatti don't like us unwashed masses having a voice one bit.
Free Martian Whores!
I have to agree. When they first started reading net comments it was OK, but they've taken it too far. Every once in a while if there is a really insightful comments it's fine, but it’s starting to seem like they're crowd sourcing journalism. If they're not just reading something off the internet then their fiddling with their latest data visualization tool. They seem to spend more time mucking about with new technology than they do reporting. Anybody else that hologram they used during the campaign coverage? There is something very wrong with special effects on the news!
To be fair, the BBC are prime offenders at this vox populi crap too. Quite apart from the prime idiocy on display on their "Have Your Say" comments pages, they practically plead for viewers to text or email their views which they then proceed to display and read out live on air. Obivously this is driven by their need for content, any content to fill airtime on their 24-hour news channel, but it is ridiculous that they stoop to parroting some randomly selected half-wit's opinion on complex issues.
Getting rid of downmods on Slashdot sounds great in theory but it would just result in GNAA posts lingering at 1 (or 2 if the guy doing it has good karma). Which means I'd have to set my threshhold even higher to avoid seeing them, which would bury comments that are actually useful.
The Slashdot moderation system has its flaws, but it seems to work better than most of the alternatives out there.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
I remember my Dad Yelling at the TV for whenever those Darn Democrats did A n y t h i n g . And if the news covered too much positive that those darn Democrats did he would change the channel. Hence why like only watches Fox news now... However with CNN just posting the comments from other people it allows think their views have meaning and they may get 2 seconds of fame if they actually read them on the air. They will probably still stick to the station and watch it.
Just like in the old Roman Days right before the collapse lets hide all the problems of the world and give them a good show. As long as they are kept entertained they wont revolt.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Sort of random:
I read at 0 because I have found that this gives me the best overview. Things seem to only end up at -1 if they really deserve it (copy paste stuff), however things will sit at 0 even though they are reasonable comments, or at least as reasonable as some of the +5, insightful stuff. So I don't think that the slashdot system is bad, just that you need to read at 0 to get the best use out of it, after all, every so often AC says something worth reading, which is why we are supposed to focus on modding things up instead of down.
Do Or Do Not, There Is No Spoon, There Is Only Zuul. Everything in the above post is probably opinion.
I am watching CNN because I expect them to gather the news
That is his first problem right there. They don't gather news, they gather entertainment and they present that entertainment with whatever spin they feel will best cause the effect they're looking for whether that be sympathy, outrage, shock, etc.
Don't get me wrong either, I'm not saying CNN is the only one like this and this isn't a political viewpoint where I'm categorizing news media into good, bad, left, or right. I'm saying all "news" programs are like this and have been this way for a while.
As for the public interaction via Twitter I don't see how that is a bad thing. In fact I think its a great way for them to keep in contact with their audience, live, and get the pulse of the public. I think it's great that someone at CNN is at least making an attempt at keeping up with some current technology trends and have found a way to use it as a possibly useful communication tool.
N P R
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I was thinking "Yeah! Because the reporters already do that! Unfortunately they cost more too."
Why on Earth are they wasting airtime putting twitter on TV? Answer: Because it's cheaper than making informed commentary. We've gone from "Reality TV" to "Reality TV News".
I'm starting to think the "news" networks should just set up a camera at the local grocery store and post a sign saying "What's your opinion on issue X? Look this way (arrow) into camera and speak your mind." Change the sign once a week and set up 20 of them with different questions. Imagine the savings when they can fire their whole newsroom and investigative journalism staff!
I find CNN (and other "news" stations) too often use the internet as a way to inject opinions that they don't want to state themselves because it would make them look bias. For example, you read three message from intelligent people who are in favor of government health care, and one from some moron who is opposed. The message is that the majority of people are in favor and the few who aren't are morons. However, the anchors themselves didn't say anything. They were just giving viewer comments. It is a way to inject opinion in to the segments that are officially reserved for news.
I've seen far too many people around here armed with little more than a high school education think that they have a better understanding of the universe than engineers who are in the field.
Yeah! Leave those discussion to those of us who have PhDs in Universal Engineering!
While on one hand, I agree that a bunch of tweets from random people are not all that interesting or newsworthy, I also have to say that Dahl's column reads an awful lot like the same old media elitism we've become used to. Only the opinions of professional journalists are wanted, the unwashed masses should just shut up. It was a lot nicer in the world of journalism when you could say any old stupid thing and not get called on it. Nowadays, if a journalist says something stupid, he can expect to have his ass handed to him from some pajama-wearing blogger - oh, the humanity. But I do agree that it's primarily bloggers fulfilling this function, rather than random Twitterers, who for the most part are not contributing very much value.
Eliminate the weapon, and you make it a choice: either mod 500 posts in a 1000-message thread up, or all 500 posters' signals are lost in 500 posts of GNAA noise.
Because it takes less effort to downmod a post to -1 than it does to post at 0 or +1, Slashdot's actually readable, even at 0 or -1.
Taking away downmoderation would require work on the part of every legitimate reader. Most legitimate readers aren't willing to work if they have to click/mod to make everything readable (on a large thread, you'd wind up with carpal tunnel syndrome after the first hour), but the trolls are more than willing to put the time in to make everything unreadable.
If you want a system where only the "blessed" are heard and the moderation system goes out of its way to emphasize the article and de-emphasize the comments (even to the point of requiring Javascript and multiple mouseclicks to read anything, and putting the comments in the wrong chronological order so that only the most recent few are ever visible), there's Gawker. It makes Digg look useful. Me? I come to Slashdot (albeit in classic mode :) to get away from that sort of thing.
There are times when it's interesting to see the reaction of the populace, but I'm looking for insightful commentary, not trite catch phrases and indignant attempts at cleverness. To make things worse, most of the newscasts that use social media as part of their show will pose their question and pick two respondents as follows:
Do you agree with Proposition 782?
I appreciate that news outlets want to show all sides of the debate, but typically they display two polarized responses, which basically cancel out any sort of rational discourse. It seems to be there only so that you can agree with A/B and shout "Damn right!" at your TV.
The moon may be smaller than the earth, but it's much farther away!
What makes the know-it-alls and bone-heads that work in the news any better than know-it-alls and bone-heads who don't?
Most media people you see day-to-day have the mistaken impression that they actually know WTF they're talking about. Unfortunately, they don't.
The problem with removing down modding is that there is then no way of filtering out the actual spam, aside from setting your reading level above the default which then means that you miss the ACs with good comments that don't get modded up.
I still think that the slashdot system is the best I have seen, I just wish there was some more stringent way of knocking people out of the moderating system, and that up mods counted for a lot more than down mods.
One of the interesting effects of down modding a good comment is that they CAN'T down mod all of the replies that it garners, and there are enough people that read at -1 that there will be comments.
Do Or Do Not, There Is No Spoon, There Is Only Zuul. Everything in the above post is probably opinion.
No it doesn't. It encourages the public opinion. Unlike with CNN's forum, there are no "overlord" journalists for people to echo. It is whatever people think after reading the 10-30 words in the summary (and MAYBE TFA) that usually doesn't have opinion attached! Oh, and when they do, God help the poster of that summary.
No, I like slashdot because the modders here generally see through the bullshit people think they are passing as genuine opinion. In other words, the honest thoughts of people shine and all the propaganda people think are their thoughts gets flushed.
No it doesn't. It encourages the public opinion.
It shapes the public opinion. "I don't know what I'm talking about, so I'm going to go with whatever public opinion says and get that word 'Informative' next to my name!" "Oh, look, BSOD jokes get modded up!" "Chair throwing!" "I've never used an iPhone but it sucks!" "I'm glad I don't own a TV anymore!" "Save Farscape!"
No, I like slashdot because the modders here generally see through the bullshit people think they are passing as genuine opinion.
Oh, please. The modders are people who have had good karma for a while. They're not trained staff. They mod up or down based on their opinion. It's like being back in grade school at recess.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
You've got your perspective upside-down and inside-out is all.
Digg has ceased to be relevant precisely because of "bury brigades" - organized groups of people who mod down anything they disagree with. Digg is where the term originated, though it fits well for a good number of Slashdot's abusive modpoint users as well (on multiple sides of any issue; look how many posts get downmodded because they discuss the good and bad of Linux or Microsoft for another example).
The purpose of Slashdot's moderation as stated is NOT to "see things gone", it's to see things rise to the top. The most insightful comments are supposed to rise. The -1 moderation options were only provided to be a last resort against truly ridiculous abuses such as GNAA trolling. Unfortunately, once you have bury brigades, this model ceases to work correctly. Organized groups work out how to use and abuse the system, create multiple accounts to game the modpoint lottery, target individuals over and over, and engage in their own brand of trolling along with modpoint abuse, the goal of which is to eliminate all thoughts but their own from view.
If you really want to see the cream rise to the crop, then give more room on the top and don't worry so much about pushing things down. And remember, what you (personally) feel is "off-topic" is relevant and even insightful to other people, which is another reason why giving out weapons is a bad thought.
Looking at your posting history is seems like many of your comments are exactly what I would like to see gone
Funny, looking at your posting history I feel the same about your comments - boring, mostly off-topic or highly redundant. The difference is that I don't want to see them "gone." I'd be perfectly content leaving them alone. If one or two of yours rose to a 6+ on the 10 scale, fine. If not, no big deal to me.