The News Bidness
N.B.: I’m experimenting with writing for output, not originality. Nothing below is original to me, it’s cobbled together as I wander the internet and connect dots.
I didn’t set any sort of intention to write again in 2020, but I’ve been going through a bunch of my old notes and decided to surface some of it on this newsletter for fun.
The technological change that broke the news business was our ability to measure audience reaction to every headline and every variation of every story. Once you can reliably measure the income potential of different approaches to the news, the people who manage the news have to do what works best for profitability or else they are abandoning their responsibilities to shareholders. On top of that, executive compensation is determined by profit performance.
I want to stress that no one in this story is evil. Everyone is acting according to the well-accepted rules of capitalism, trying to maximize the outcomes for shareholders and their own careers. The main thing that changed was our ability to measure what kinds of content worked best. And when you can measure what works, and you are managing a public business, you are highly incentivized to follow profits, so long as doing so is legal, and in this case it is. Ethics is a separate and important issue, but it isn’t predictive in the context of capitalism. If something is legal and profitable, it will happen, a lot.
A more useful way to think of the news is that nearly every major story is exaggerated to the point of falsehood, with the intention of scaring the public. If you think the frightened feeling you are getting from the news is legitimate and appropriate, you probably don’t understand how the business model of the news has changed. Twenty years ago, if the media said something dangerous and scary was heading our way, you had to treat that seriously. Today, the news provides one fright after another, but an understanding of why they do it helps you avoid trusting in their "fair and nuanced discussion".
From that point through today, if the press has a choice of scaring you or telling you everything is fine, one of those paths is more profitable. Fear sells.
In such a world, where truth routinely loses to emotion-based, click-bait versions of reality, you cannot rely on the "good will" of any given journalist. Money drives human behavior in predictable ways, this is why I always focus first on business models, then individuals.
If you read a headline or article and feel anger, outrage, or any other negative emotion—that’s a strong sign that you’ve been manipulated and your opinion assigned to you by another. The other doesn’t have your best interests in mind.
Our brains have been wired to focus on the negatives. This helped with survival. In our Golden age, that instinct has been hijacked. The thoughts you allow into your head are the code that programs your mind and body. If you watch sad movies, you can become sad. If you hear inspirational stories, you can feel inspired. And your mental state has a huge impact on your health.
It is helpful to think of your mind as having limited shelf space. If you fill that space with negative thoughts, it will set your mental filters to negativity and poor health, and there will be no space left for healthy, productive, and uplifting thoughts. You can control your mental shelf space—to a degree—by manipulating your physical surroundings.
Every minute you spend with a positive thought is a minute that you keep negative thoughts at bay. Instead, find the most positive and “sticky” thoughts you can imagine, and focus on them until your mental shelf space is filled.
So, avoid the news. They have their own interests and they are not yours.