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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   1153 thread views

Transnational Thursday for September 25, 2025

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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It's disorienting to realise that our media diet is selected and proportioned far more by the availability/prominence/outrageousness of those particular news stories, than any objective importance of the events they describe. News media, like everywhere else, is scrambling to keep broadcasting with squeezed budgets. It's much simpler (and cheaper) to repeat verbatim a report from some NGO than pay an investigative reporter.

Or why not just straight up report whatever some state propaganda organ says?

Why would the Russian/Ukrainian/Isreali MoD ever lie? Or why would Hamas or any of constituting parts for that matter? Surely we can uncritically re report their press releases, often with barely acknowledging where said statements come from and that won't lead these organisations to try to use us to launder propaganda?

Yes, this is the reality as I see it. Economics not adding up anymore for most / all legacy news media organisations, so they have to do one of two things, or both: cut news costs, or sensationalise the news to generate attention and win another round of the advertising money game.

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