Has News become something that happens to other people?

[phantom000]

I remember, last Fall, watching Covid-19 spreading out of China and thinking 'i've got better things to do then worry about an epidemic on the other side of the planet.' Even when it entered the USA I didn't really care until it was in my own home town.

And later when the riots began I took little notice of them until their was one in my home and my response was 'what in the world is going on?'

It's not a good thing, obviously, but does anyone else feel they have come to a similar situation? That they tend to look at news as 'stuff happening to other people?'

[Thebestoftherest]

I don't know, I mean if that was too why would any one outside of DC care about the politics?

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

News is divided into Global, national, or regional.

I'm pretty sure global news has been a thing for a long while, like if you heard a plague was happening.

National news coverage of congressional affairs has been something for as long as I can remember.

National news tends to get the most coverage through the use of affiliate networking in the form of NBC, CBS, ABC, and eventually Fox.

Of course, global news is more incorporated into commercial news media the more it enters general public discourse, and it works similarly with political affairs.

Then there's newspapers that are probably more important, but I don't know as much about. But I do think local newspapers are pretty significant compared to national papers relative to TV news coverage.

[Beastro]

The news always was. It's kinda like how treason never prospers, because if it does none dare call it treason; when the news hits you, you never look on it as new.

The issue now is the hypnotic focus social media that sucks us into the spectacle of popcorn gazing at current events. I find it increasingly disgusting and see it almost like a modern version of bread and circus'.

[Nealithi]

If you mean a sense of near apathy toward the news. . I think the answer is, as always, more complicated.
The way I see it we get inundated horror and sideshows in the most cynical fashion disguised as keeping us informed. Every fire, tornado, or violent mob. A shooting occurs get a sound bite from somebody vaguely in the area. And the media seems to look for someone of the lowest common denominator. Why? Because the producers think we the public at large are stupid. There was once a report that news anchors had to keep their vocabulary down to a fifth grade level or they would lose the audience. Then as a break from all the death and tragedy. Hey see this woman that had tons of children? Or how about these vapid women? Don't you want to be like them?

And I think you get so much of this bad and frivolous news that you begin to get numb to it. "The first recorded school shooting" versus the "The tenth school shooting Tuesday". The first is horror and outrage. The second we are looking around and asking. "Why are we sending kids to these target ranges?"
I don't think it is we don't care. But exhausted about news that is not happening in your own backyard.

[Thebestoftherest]

One darker stories do get people attention. I do think we need to have daily good stories as well.

[Robovski]

The make you scared/outraged and watch/read formula of news is exhausting, self-consuming, and damaging to society. I can't wait for the machine overlords or the SMOD at this point.

[phantom000]

Douglas Adams once wrote that most people don't like to live in the universe because its just too big. They prefer to live some place of a much more comfortable size, such as their home town.

I wonder if he might be more correct then he realized. If most people, whether they consciously realize it or not, see themselves as part of a small community and unless something effects that community its not real to them.

[Beastro]

The make you scared/outraged and watch/read formula of news is exhausting, self-consuming, and damaging to society. I can't wait for the machine overlords or the SMOD at this point.

I've given up on news long ago and never was into watching the main channels. Visited my old neighbour and got a taste of it on her TV. It's disgusting, like eating decently and then tasting food with too much salt in it.

Like nutrition, whatever information is there, the news the way it's presented now is like informational fast food. Stop eating it.

Douglas Adams once wrote that most people don't like to live in the universe because its just too big. They prefer to live some place of a much more comfortable size, such as their home town.

I wonder if he might be more correct then he realized. If most people, whether they consciously realize it or not, see themselves as part of a small community and unless something effects that community its not real to them.

We are limited beings, we cannot handle too much of the universe even if we wanted to. Even right now as we speak most of the universe in your immediate surroundings is existing with you completely oblivious to it. See the how limited the visual spectrum is, for instance. There's a reason why the friendship/connection limit for people is restricted to about 200 people.

This isn't a bad thing, it's just how we are. An issue with the Modern world is how we feel we should be better than to be that way and hold such limitations in contempt.

unless something effects that community its not real to them.

Spend a day drinking up as much of the tragedy of the world and make yourself feel as much of it (You won't succeed, but you can try) then think about how long you can sustain that, much less do so remaining functional living with some semblance of joy and meaning in the rest of your life.

It's too much. That doesn't mean we go apathetic over things, it means we focus on what we can change around us, which surprise, surprise, is our locality. Imagine if everyone tended to their own corner of the world like so many want to about saving the entire thing?