Am I missing something at the moment with the sensationalist over reporting of non stories, or am I just becoming a grumpy old man?

Cameron has got in trouble with a judge for saying he quite likes Nigella and her recipes, but not, as far as I can tell, commenting on the court case itself

A check on about 1000 GP surgeries – mostly picked as they were suspected of having problems – has revealed that 8 of the suspected 1000 had a serious problem.

Would the TV news be better if it was only 10 minutes long so they didn’t have to fill it with this bilge?

And yes, I have turned the telly off!

Corporate owned media are doing everything they can to rubbish the NHS. Even though GP’s practices aren’t nothing to do with the NHS I’ve heard them mention them in the same sentence three times today.

Its the equivalent of Orwell`s 2 minutes hate.

Well, that`s my opinion.

Other opinions are available, not all opinions are facts.

For the last 8 months I have not watched/read any news. The only news stories I’ve heard about have even been posted on here (just read the subject) or Facebook (where you can’t really avoid reading what was posted, but i then ‘hide’ the post)

My general mood and mental health has been better for it. Our news is 90% gossip

Edit.

I don’t mean to come across holier than thou or totally anti media, but most of it is bile/opiniated/biased/scaremongering, the only way to deal with it is ignore it

I can understand Houns’ sentiments but not agree with them. Ignorance may well be bliss but do you really want to be unaware that you’re being led to a slaughterhouse until you see the entrance? Ignoring the news won’t make it stop; many people with poorer mental hygine habits than you will still be exposed to it, and the poisonous tabloids. A partial answer is to seek out alternative sources of information: At least you’ll still have a probably better informed view of what is going on.

My point is that this guff isn’t news, it’s misreporting, gossip and innuendo. News would be a good thing!

Agreed.

Thing is every time I have had any first hand experience of a news story, they generally mis-report it.

On that basis i just assume it’s the same for every other story.

the cameron one had a bit of a point if you heard what the judge most of it was that it wasted valuable court time – all morning – to discuss it but a public figure, the PM no less, saying he was a fan of a key witness in a high publicity court case is a fair criticism.
I only list to today and PM tbh.
Read some stuff of interest on other news sources but I dont listen to media.
Its all very much like The day today tbh

MCTD; Al-Jazeera is a reasonable source of world news.

It’s the same with any ‘news’. Always ask yourself what the agenda is of the person or organisation writing, or broadcasting it. As JCL Pointed out, Tory Central office have told their attack dogs in the right wing press that it’s open season on the NHS. Soften up the public to the idea of privatisation.

I don’t read the right wing propaganda sheets, but I’m going to hazard a guess that the Murdoch/Mail/Torygraph axis isn’t shouting about the costs of Goves Free Schools ‘project’ running out of control, or the utter and complete shambles that is IDS’s Universal Credit. We can’t be sullying the evangelical privatising, free-market mantra with anything as inconvenient and uncomfortable as actual evidence

And the BBC is so pathetically cowed nowadays (through its own biblical incompetence presenting open goal after open goal) that it can’t or won’t challenge the media status quo. The days when the news agenda was set by the Today Programme seem an awfully long time ago

Depressing!

A 10 minute daily news programme would suit me fine, I don’t need 24 hours of analysis, thanks!

jam bo – Member
Thing is every time I have had any first hand experience of a news story, they generally mis-report it.

On that basis i just assume it’s the same for every other story.

Agree with this – I regularly see stuff reported in the media which I have direct experience of – it’s fair to say that on most occasions the media reporting is highly distorted if not actually completely incorrect. My experience of this leads me to believe that most stuff in the media most of the time is misleading or just plain wrong.

My experience of this leads me to believe that most stuff in the media most of the time is misleading or just plain wrong.

With rolling, 24hr coverage of everything you very soon run out of things to say.
Hence the need to fill the airtime with ever more dubious witnesses, “experts”, theories, speculation and (God help us all), comments from members of the public.

And by the time you’ve done all that, the facts are so blurred that when you start again from the top, you can just rehash all that went before but present it as “fact” while dragging in more obscure “experts” for their comments and theories.

All the while making sure that whatever angle you’re taking reflects that particular channel’s political leanings.

My theory is to watch the news, absorb the important stuff and filter out the crap. The same goes for pretty much everything you watch/see/read/hear. Critiquing the information you are fed is an important skill to retain IMO.

The filters need cleaning out on a regular basis, but I do think it is important to keep up to date with current affairs all over the world.

Ill be honest- the only news story im follwing atm is the ukraine – seeing if it develops into a coup.

I have some ukrainian friends in kiev who are quite worried atm.

No news these days about Syria. I assume that’s good news and nothing is happening there anymore? All sorted out?

Syria is not as important as Justin Bieber visiting Philippines
Weird priorities