[stu]

What do people think of bloggers who report on news?

Is this sort of reporting reliable or is it just a waste of time?

I tend to find myself ignoring blogs that try and report on events. It is good to get an eyewitness account of events but I personally feel that there is too much out there that could easily be misleading or unreliable.

There's nothing wrong with reading peoples thoughts and opinions but I think they should leave the reporting to the reporters.

[Wildwell]

All Bloggers are pushing is an opinion, which may be right or wrong. But then again, all newspapers do that to a greater or less extent. Some UK newspapers are extremely biased in all sorts of areas, and very little fact can be found in some of them on some subjects. I don’t see much difference between newspapers and Bloggers TBH. You could turn to scientific works, but most scientists agree on just a few core principals. Arguably mathematics is the purest of science, everything else requires more theory or fuzzy logic. Some sciences are based on huge strands of fuzzy logic, economics arguably being one of them.

I think Bloggs are just as valid as any newspaper. They aren’t academic, so cannot be relied on as much as science, but even science must be regarded with some scepticism.

Personally I have pretty much abandoned newspapers as a media source. This has one big caveat; some of the information on the web must be regarded as extremely distorting. I’ve seen a lot of stuff which people argue are facts, are in fact just skewed opinions. I’m always suspicious of things that say ‘Myth v fact’, or talk about ‘common sense’ or ‘truth’.

[entropyfails]

Dan Rather thought that too.

*grin*

If you want news that comes from a large professional organization that follows the mainstream thought patterns, then the professional reporters will server you fine. If you want information that you feel that these sorts of organizations will not pick up on, then what?

Everyone can get classified as a reporter if they follow a few simple rules of fact checking and multiple sourcing. Some blogs do this and would count as “reportersâ€

[Wildwell]

Yep, read and listen as widely as possible. Mainstream media tends to be full of 'real people' just as any other walk of life is, and a lot of what they push is their opinion. Some of it is referenced, but, shall we say, they have their favourite references!

I'll admit to changing my mind from time to time on quite big subjects, just as the result of new information. But is something looks outlandish; I'll tend to look into it more. One reason why I'm interested in paranormal subjects is not because I believe them, just because there's so much of a 'big question'.

Each media is different countries has its own market, Aunt Sally subjects (Things it likes to knock), and things is likes to push. I’ve compiled a list of publications below, feel free to disagree:

Aunt Sally subjects: Politicians when they aren’t singing from the hymnbook of that paper, Celebs when there is a scandal (Tabloid papers), The environment, making money (left wing papers), wasting money (right wing papers), the weather and its effects, railways, Drug companies, the Police service, health scares.

Lovvie subjects: Safety at any cost, The NHS, money v people (left ring and right wing, but with different slants), Some celebs, Public services, The so-called ‘war on the motorist’.

It’s all about selling copy at the end of the day, and newspapers know the ‘formulas’.

Newspapers:

The Sun. Red top centre right tabloid newspaper aimed people who have more interest in ‘chattering class’ subjects such as celebs, sex. Some news analysis and scoops, but is not very in depth.

The Mirror. Red top centre left tabloid newspaper, similar to the Sun, but tends to be very consumer issue orientated and focuses on Left wing ‘Lovvie’ subjects like NHS scandals etc

The Daily Mail. Tends to be one of the more controversial papers these days because some of its vocal views. It’s essentially a powerful right wing paper, with a heavy female readership. It leads on things like anti-environment subjects, pro-motoring, tough on crime, big on subjects that it sees as a waste of money. It’s the one paper in the UK that does not accept climate change arguments and is against nanotechnology, which it says will turn the world ‘grey’. It’s probably the most powerful paper after the Sun in the UK, some would argue more powerful because of the papers’ influence of politics along with its sister paper ‘The London Evening Standard’.

The Express. This paper is much like the Daily mail, but with (statistically) less of a female readership. Some argue the Express is more right wing than the Daily mail.

The Guardian. Centre Left broadsheet, cited by many as the home of the politically correct. It is said to be read by BBC employees and Labour paper people in Camden Coffee shops. Always been a big seller in Local government and the Teaching profession, for which is carries supplements. Tends to be pro environment, pro public services.

The Daily telegraph: Is a right wing broadsheet. It has taken over from ‘The Times’ as the businessman’s paper. It’s essentially a more in-depth Daily mail, albeit more subtle with the papers’ ‘shock stories’. Some would argue that along with the Times it is essentially read by Conservative people at golf clubs and social meetings.

The Times. Much like the Daily telegraph, it does have some subtle differences and has tried to re-invent it self for young right wing students and business people.

The Independent. Is a serious newspaper, some would argue is dry compared to the other broadsheets because of its ‘central’ political stance. Left wing people tend to say it’s a right wing paper, and vice versa!

TV & Radio

The BBC: Tries to be ‘fair, but is actually just as biased in some areas as other media outlets. Some say the BBC is centre left and ‘politically correct’. I’d argue the Beeb is PC, anything else is open for debate because it can have some ‘skewed views’ either way depending on the journalist. The BBC is essentially a reflection of middle England.

ITV (ITN). It tends to be a watered down BBC with a more commercial outlook.

Channel Four. Pretty much like a serious ITV. It has been alleged that Blair likes to use channel four as an outlet - especially on ‘channel four news’.

TV is Britain tends to be quite fair on the whole, but it does have its ‘knocking subjects’.

Radio

Most BBC radio reflects general BBC outlook, there are few commercial National stations with heavy news output other than the wireless group’s ‘Talk Sport’, which is by and large a right wing station or extreme right wing station but more by the virtue of it’s presenters outlook. Uses the Daily mail heavily for its output ideas.

[Riddick]

I will take the Blogs over Rupert Murdoch's personal agenda and his legion of whores like O'Reilly, Hannity, and Coulter spewing their bullshit propoganda any day.

The rest of the networks ignore the real news anyway. Here's a perfect example: Martha Stewart's release has been the top story for almost three days now.

Who gives a rat's ass?

And guess who wants to censor bloggers? Nothing like trying to keep the population dumb and un-questioning.

[Trab]

Blogs are just like any other form of media. You need to read all of it with a critical eye and look for the bias. Some bloggers are just more open about their bias than 'Mainstream Media' types.

I read things from all over the political spectrum. If you're careful at reading, you can often connect the dots much more accurately that way.

[AdamB]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')Winter on Lake Huron
In the last post in this series I talked about the next financial crash and how it may well be serious enough to spread into the non-financial sectors of the economy and effect supply chains and critical systems in ways that we did not see in the Global Financial Crisis of 2007-08. Systems that most of us depend on for the necessities of life may fail and many kollapsniks see this leading immediately and inevitably to a hard, fast and permanent crash of industrial civilization.

[Tanada]

Yup, 'Kollapsnicks' will cling to any news item that supports their world view and completely disregard all others. They are not alone in this behavior but they are a highly visible presence on this web site because of the subject matter.

[Outcast_Searcher]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Trab', 'B')logs are just like any other form of media. You need to read all of it with a critical eye and look for the bias. Some bloggers are just more open about their bias than 'Mainstream Media' types.

I read things from all over the political spectrum. If you're careful at reading, you can often connect the dots much more accurately that way.

[AdamB]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ' ')

What the Frack? a short term, toxic bubble fracking is a toxic, desperate effort to maintain natural gas and petroleum supplies. Conventional oil peaked in the USA in 1970 and conventional natural gas peaked in 1973. Fracking has not raised domestic oil production above this level, although the conventional natural gas peak has been surpassed, temporarily. fracking cannot provide "100 years" of natural gas for the US, even if environmental and public health concerns are ignored. Fracked wells deplete faster than conventional wells and take more technical expertise, money and energy to drill. the consequence for banning fracking would be an immediate reduction or end of burning natural gas for electricity and the start of gasoline rationing. This is why environmental objections to fracking have not been successful. The toxic impacts of hydraulic fracturing for oil and gas have been subject to

[AdamB]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ' ')
The end of economic growth: the recession that will not end in our lifetime We are past limits to growth, this is not a cyclical recession Some of the media, government elites, and the financial world knew the 2008 financial crash was imminent but feigned surprise in public while planning their exit strategies and wargaming how to manage and manipulate the crisis to protect their power (not just more profits). The financial meltdown is not a cyclical recession, it is a permanent economic shift. The End of Growth transcends ideologies and partisan politics. Now that we are at Peak Everything we need to move beyond Peak Denial and Peak Blame to equitably share the shrinking economic pie. Even if transnational corporations were converted into democratic, locally owned cooperatives, we have still overshot Earth's carrying capacity. Steady state economics for an ecological society The dominant paradigm teaches

[AdamB]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ' ')
Bamboo in Winter This time I'm going to look at some of the changes that will happen along the bumpy road down and the forces and trends that will lead to them. If you followed what I was saying in my last post, you'll have realized that the bumpy road will be a matter of repeatedly getting slapped down as a result of going into overshoot—exceeding our limits, crashing, then recovering, only to get slapped again as we go into overshoot yet again. Along the way, where people have a choice, they will choose to do a range of different things (some beneficial, others not so much), according to their circumstances and inclinations. Inertia is also an important factor—people resist change. And politicians are adept at "kicking the can down the road"—patching together the current system to keep it working for little

[asg70]

This forum is pretty much the personification of the ills of the modern internet as far as constructing your own tailor-made reality via cherry-picking and not exercising the right form of skepticism.

https://www.amazon.com/Death-Expertise- ... 0190469412

Someone should actually record the source of links cited here over the course of a month or two. I think you'll find a pie-chart that contains Zerohedge and Ugo Bardi and little else. The cherry-picking is real.

[AdamB]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')While U.S. oil production reached a new peak of 10.25 million barrels per day, the higher it goes, the more breathtaking will be the inevitable collapse. Thus, as the mainstream media touts the glorious new record in U.S. production that has both surpassed its previous peak in 1970 and Saudi Arabia’s current oil production, it’s a bittersweet victory. Why? There are two critical reasons the current record level of U.S. oil production won’t last and is also, a house of cards. First of all, oil production profiles tend to be somewhat symmetrical. They rise and fall in the same manner. While this doesn’t happen in every country or every oil field, we do see similar patterns. For example, this similar trend is taking place in both Argentina and Norway: Oil Production Here we can see that oil production increased, peaked and declined in

[AdamB]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')Central bankers seem to think that adjusting interest rates is a nice little tool that they can easily handle. The problem is that higher interest rates affect the economy in many ways simultaneously. The lessons that seem to have been learned from past rate hikes may not be applicable today. Furthermore, there can be quite a long time lag involved. Thus, by the time a central banker starts seeing an effect, it may be clear that the amount of the interest rate change is far too large. A recent Zerohedge article seems to suggest that problems can arise with 10-year Treasury interest rates of less of than 3%. We may be facing a period of declining acceptable interest rates. Figure 1. Chart from The Scariest Chart in the Market. Let’s look at a few of the issues involved: [1] The standard reason for raising interest rates

[Outcast_Searcher]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AdamB', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')Central bankers seem to think that adjusting interest rates is a nice little tool that they can easily handle. The problem is that higher interest rates affect the economy in many ways simultaneously. The lessons that seem to have been learned from past rate hikes may not be applicable today. Furthermore, there can be quite a long time lag involved. Thus, by the time a central banker starts seeing an effect, it may be clear that the amount of the interest rate change is far too large. A recent Zerohedge article seems to suggest that problems can arise with 10-year Treasury interest rates of less of than 3%. We may be facing a period of declining acceptable interest rates. Figure 1. Chart from The Scariest Chart in the Market. Let’s look at a few of the issues involved: [1] The standard reason for raising interest rates

[AdamB]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')Sometimes, a good rant is needed. Here is one by Geoffrey Chia by Geoffrey Chia, February 2018 Language warning: Many may find the following article offensive, such as: Technocornucopians - eg geoengineering and carbon drawdown fantasists, blinkered university academics and engineers, TZM, Elon Musk etc People who think reducing population and/or consumption are sacred cows which should never be mentioned People who are shocked by and reject the idea that billions will die this century Economists - who know the price of everything but the value of nothing The Pope (who jumped on the bandwagon too late, but nice dress though) Christians and other religious types Global warming deniers Economists Creationists Politicians Most Americans (they are mad) Kim Jong Un (slightly less mad) NBL fanatics (not referring to the basketball league here) Economists If you take umbrage at this article please consider .

[AdamB]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ' ')
Writing from Berlin, where the presentation of "The Seneca Effect" is going to start in a few hours. And here is another review by Ronny Wagner, in German, which I translated the best I could with the help of Google. The Seneca effect by Ronny Wagner | 3 Jan, 2018 | "It would be a comfort to our weak souls and our works, if all things would pass away as they arise; but as it is, growth is progressing slowly, while the road to ruin is fast. "Lucius Anneau's Seneca" The "Seneca Effect" describes many phenomena that grow slowly and quickly decline. As it turns out, collapses can occur in many different forms and everywhere. They have many different causes and develop in different ways. However, all breakdowns have certain consistent characteristics. They are