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Yahoo Newsroom — The news, curated by people 📰
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This product scares me, to be honest.
Personalized story feeds (twitter, facebook, yahoo, huffpo, Brietbart, etc) perpetuate bias and divide people further. If all stories in the feed represent a singular ideology, people gravitate to niche groups that that begin clashing with one another.
What we're seeing in the world is akin to people falling into high school cliques: the jocks, the nerds, and the theater people are now the tea party, the progressives, the startup community, etc. As a result we can no longer have civil discussions on real issues that matter; many people simply don't understand the perspective of the other side.
This is not to say that one group has a more valid case than another. Media platforms (not contributors) should aim to inform the public of every opinion, and personalized feeds inherently begin to leave out the other side.
@jackbwheeler I agree, that is a major issue. But how would you propose to solve it? What we are looking at is people's free will, using free speech and mediums available to everyone. Taking away mediums like this isn't going to fix the problem, and also brings up human rights issues.
@lukedeannif Definitely a thorny issue, and there isn't a cookie-cutter solution. Ultimately the need to be informed rests on the reader.
Bias will always exist and I believe it's healthy. It's up to the reader to read/recognize bias.
To start, Journalists should incorporate the other side in their articles, especially when making an argument, but also in general reporting. Bloggers are also journalists. Introducing the other side also makes you a better writer :)
But - media companies should also try to inform their readers. It's a responsible thing to do, but it can't be mandated, nor will all readers examine it. There should be a clear line between reporting and editorial content (see: newspapers in 20th century) and blogs/conjecture, tweets, etc.
This is going on to something in the realms of what I'd previously built, although in my own bias opinion their aim to solve the issue of public involvement with news is off mark and work work. It simply provides controversy and conflict. Not the biggest fan of this.
More importantly though, the media is an Industry that definitely needs a tool for more transparent and objective views on news topics for the general public to actively involve themselves in.
Just not in this way here.
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