Information Overload

Gambling with the News?

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Article in Slashdot by BeauHD, 1/21/26

Headline:  “America Is Slow-Walking Into a Polymarket Disaster’

“In an opinion piece for The Atlantic, senior editor Saahil Desai argues that media outlets are increasingly treating prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi as legitimate signals of reality. The risk, as Desai warns, is a future where news coverage amplifies manipulable betting odds and turns politics, geopolitics, and even tragedy into speculative gambling theater. . .”

“The problem is that prediction markets are ushering in a world in which news becomes as much about gambling as about the event itself. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/01/22/006212/america-is-slow-walking-into-a-polymarket-disaster

Negative vs. Biased News

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Article in Daily Kos by Trenz Pruca, 1/20/26

Headline:  “Media Bias, Negative News, and a Persistent Myth”

Subhead:  “You must be a Republican if you believe that: Fox News, MAGA influencers, and professional outrage merchants tell the truth; scientists, judges, journalists, and civil servants are the deep state.”

“Is the media biased? — the Patterson Study. (2018). . .”

“. . .What the study does examine is the long-term trend toward negative news coverage in broadcast media, a shift that began in the early 1960s as television news expanded in length and became increasingly image-driven. Negative events—conflict, scandal, disaster—are simply easier to visualize. This is why automobile accidents receive more coverage than random acts of kindness. The accident happened. Reporting it is neither fake nor biased; it is merely well suited to the medium.

“Patterson explicitly warns against conflating negative news with biased news. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/1/20/2364428/-Media-Bias-Negative-News-and-a-Persistent-Myth?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

Greenland Not Enough?

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Arti9cle in Raw Story by Matthew Chapman, 1/20/26

Headline: “Fox News host claims Trump can seize Bermuda too ‘if we need’ it”

“Fox News anchor Jesse Watters casually suggested on Tuesday night that not only could the United States annex Greenland at will, but they could also seize control of the island of Bermuda.

“Watters, a firebrand who has been accused of dropping casual racism and sexual harassment, laughed at the horror from European leaders at President Donald Trump’s escalating threats to seize control of Greenland from Denmark, a critical NATO ally of the United States. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.rawstory.com/jesse-watters-2674914697/

Unlimited Coverage?

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Article in AP by Bill L Barrow, 12/19/25

Headline:  “Trump gave an unusually partisan White House address. Should networks have given him the TV time?”

“ATLANTA (AP) — When Donald Trump delivered the first White House address of his second presidency Wednesday night, all major U.S. networks beamed his image and voice onto their airwaves, cable feeds and online platforms.

Americans ended up watching the Republican president stand in the Diplomatic Reception Room and deliver 18 minutes of aggressive, politically motivated arguments that misstated facts, blamed the nation’s ills on his predecessor, exaggerated the results of his nearly 11 months in office and amplified his characteristically gargantuan, immeasurable promises about what’s to come. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-address-tv-networks-c9704130f09f607f82f9e0054dfc3c02

CBS’s Bari Weiss – Waking-up?

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Article in Status by Natalie Korach, 12/17/25

Headline:  “Weiss’ Wake-Up Call”

Subhead: “As her first major CBS News town hall draws underwhelming ratings, Bari Weiss gets a public crash course in the metrics of television success. Now, Status has learned she’s delayed a planned address to staffers about the network’s future.”

“In the days leading up to the holidays, Bari Weiss had planned to address CBS News staffers with a broader vision of where she sees the network heading under her new leadership. But by Tuesday, as early Nielsen numbers for her high-profile Erika Kirk town hall circulated—and headlines began using words like “flop”—those plans quietly changed. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.status.news/p/bari-weiss-cbs-news-erika-kirk-town-hall-ratings

Where Are Media Mergers Heading?

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Article in Electronic Frontier Foundation by Katherine Trendacosta, 12/10/25

Headline: “The Best Big Media Merger Is No Merger at All”

“. . .It’s important to recognize this as we see more and more media mergers. These mergers are not about quality, they’re about control. . .”

“. . .Media companies keep announcing mergers and acquisitions. They’ve been doing it for a long time, but it’s really ramped up in the last few years. And these mergers are bad for all the obvious reasons. There are the speech and censorship reasons that came to a head in, of all places, late night television. There are the labor issues. There are the concentration of power issues. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/12/best-big-media-merger-no-merger-all

Civility Not Fashionable Anymore?

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Article in AlterNet by Robert Reich, 12/2/25

Headline:  “Oxford’s ‘word of the year’ explains all you need to know about Trump — and the media”

“The publisher of the Oxford English Dictionary has named ‘rage bait’ its phrase of the year.

“Call it the monetization of rage. Rage has become a valuable commodity. (Always follow the money.)

“A growing number of online creators are making rage bait. Their goal is to record videos, produce memes, and write posts that make other users furious: conspiracy theories, lies, combustible AI-generated video clips — whatever it takes. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.alternet.org/oxford-word-of-the-year/

Our Algorithm Editors

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Article in Mediaite by Colby Hall, 11/25/25

Headline:  “You’re Not Being Manipulated by Algorithms. You’re Obeying Them”

“Last week, I wrote about Olivia Nuzzi’s remarkably swift media rehabilitation, and the response surprised me. That column argued that modern media rewards spectacle over substance, but it also hinted at something more profound: the performance isn’t just happening inside newsrooms. It’s happening inside us. . .”

“This dynamic is everywhere—including inside newsrooms. After the Nuzzi column ran, several journalists reached out with examples of what I’d call pre-censorship—not editors spiking stories, but writers and editors making quiet decisions based on fear of how an algorithm might respond. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.mediaite.com/opinion/youre-not-being-manipulated-by-algorithms-youre-obeying-them/

Media History Disappearing?

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Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Liam Scott, 10/28/25

Headline:  “Who’s Going to Save Local Newspaper Archives?”

Subhead:  “Archivists worry in particular about photographs that have never been digitized.”

“The Smokehouse Creek Fire burned through the Texas Panhandle in 2024. . .”

“As it consumed the rolling hills around Canadian [Texas], Brown, whose family has owned the paper since the 1940s, was overcome by a different fear: that the fire would destroy the [Canadian] Record’s archive. “I would have been devastated,” she said. “It’s not just the history of this community. It’s the history of my family. It’s who we are. It’s what we’ve done. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.cjr.org/analysis/digitize-save-local-news-archives-prevent-lost-history.php

Hiding From Cameras?

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Article in Huff Post by Corey Townsend, 10/3/25

Headline:  “Maggie Haberman Says Why She Thinks Trump Has Avoided Cameras During The Shutdown”

“On Wednesday, the federal government shut down after Democrats and Republicans failed to reach a consensus on health care.line ”

“Maggie Haberman offered a theory on CNN Thursday as to why President Donald Trump has been relatively elusive during the government shutdown.

“During the segment, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins asked the New York Times journalist why she believed Trump “has not been in front of the cameras. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-avoid-cameras-why-haberman_n_68dff2e0e4b0dbcd325f3c16?origin=home-latest-news-unit