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I think for baby boomers, they are used to getting their news from 1-2 sources only. So they believe anything the tv station or newspaper tells them. For our

by _qzu4 5y ago

I think for baby boomers, they are used to getting their news from 1-2 sources only. So they believe anything the tv station or newspaper tells them. For our generation, we are much more critical about the news we are getting and know how the internet can be manipulated. So having grown up with the internet, we tend to have more antibodies.

acdha 5y ago
I think one factor is the entry cost & inertia of older mass media formats: it's not like newspapers, radio, or TV were ever 100% reliable sources of unbiased information but the cost of the staffing, equipment, need to print locally, etc. meant that there was a lot of money on the line and that much more local accountability. If you printed a bunch of scurrilous allegations about someone, you had assets which could be seized and employees who might face something like libel charges. Local distribution also meant that you tended to build a reputation over time which people could take into account when deciding whether to trust your reporting. I don't want to oversell that as a perfect solution but it's pretty different from an era where a teenager in another country can anonymously register dcpatrioteagle.com, pay to pump a bunch of nonsense on Facebook, and disappear without a trace when their reputation catches up with them.
- nowherebeen 5y ago
  > the cost of the staffing, equipment, need to print locally, etc. meant that there was a lot of money on the line This is a double edge sword. The internet changed the equation whereby now it is more important to create engagement by creating controversy to keep viewership up for advertisers. To a non-American like me, CNN and Fox News, have a remarkably similar format. Johnny Harris explains this best: https://youtu.be/BkUH2tP8PYw https://youtu.be/BkUH2tP8PYw
  - acdha 5y ago
    I definitely wouldn’t say the old way is without its own problems - only that it’s what most older people were familiar with. Remember that cable TV is something which became popular when the boomers were in their 30-40s so at least from an American perspective you can kind of view the 20th century as a series of escalations returning to and then blowing past the worst of the yellow journalism era.

by _qzu4 5y ago

acdha 5y ago

I think one factor is the entry cost & inertia of older mass media formats: it's not like newspapers, radio, or TV were ever 100% reliable sources of unbiased information but the cost of the staffing, equipment, need to print locally, etc. meant that there was a lot of money on the line and that much more local accountability. If you printed a bunch of scurrilous allegations about someone, you had assets which could be seized and employees who might face something like libel charges. Local distribution also meant that you tended to build a reputation over time which people could take into account when deciding whether to trust your reporting. I don't want to oversell that as a perfect solution but it's pretty different from an era where a teenager in another country can anonymously register dcpatrioteagle.com, pay to pump a bunch of nonsense on Facebook, and disappear without a trace when their reputation catches up with them.

nowherebeen 5y ago
> the cost of the staffing, equipment, need to print locally, etc. meant that there was a lot of money on the line This is a double edge sword. The internet changed the equation whereby now it is more important to create engagement by creating controversy to keep viewership up for advertisers. To a non-American like me, CNN and Fox News, have a remarkably similar format. Johnny Harris explains this best: https://youtu.be/BkUH2tP8PYw https://youtu.be/BkUH2tP8PYw
- acdha 5y ago
  I definitely wouldn’t say the old way is without its own problems - only that it’s what most older people were familiar with. Remember that cable TV is something which became popular when the boomers were in their 30-40s so at least from an American perspective you can kind of view the 20th century as a series of escalations returning to and then blowing past the worst of the yellow journalism era.