I originally thought TC was like a tabloid. Now, after thinking about it, I've come to a conclusion that there's a better analogy: it's like cable news.
The things you see on cable news (e.g., CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, etc.) are, most of the time, not really "news". They're trumped-up soundbyte stories which are "broken" at times calculated to keep eyeballs on the screen. The information reported is often wrong and corrections are rarely made. Sensationalism and reporting any controversy one can find, no matter how minor, is the order of the day. Popular stories/subjects, when discovered, are turned into repeating segments to milk them for all they're worth.
And, of course, people who rely on cable news outlets for actual news will come away fairly poorly informed on the state of the world.
But all of the above apply equally well to TC. It's just another big American infotainment outlet, working to make money off something-that-maybe-kinda-looks-like-news.
Which is why I don't read TC, and feel frustration with people who (as on this site) obsess about it and constantly link to it. Mentally, I class such people with folks in real life who want to tell me all about the latest thing they heard on Fox News.
Well said. As an example, their latest headline is complaining that the one of the Pre development wikis that was about tethering the Pre was forced to shut down. They are trashing the dev's for not getting involved in a big, ugly legal battle which they will eventually lose.
This has been a standard cat-and-mouse game in the industry for many years. Apple shuts down sites that deal with hackintoshes, MSFT shuts down sites that talk about modding the 360. Nobody likes that kind of crippling of hardware, but its not news. Usually, that development happens anyway, its just moved underground somewhere.
Anyway, the TC folks see some sort of value in reporting that the devs are weak in some way for caving in to big, expensive lawyers. It seems like when its anything involving the Pre, they trash it and the people around it like Hannity does to Obama.
Comments
I originally thought TC was like a tabloid. Now, after thinking about it, I've come to a conclusion that there's a better analogy: it's like cable news.
The things you see on cable news (e.g., CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, etc.) are, most of the time, not really "news". They're trumped-up soundbyte stories which are "broken" at times calculated to keep eyeballs on the screen. The information reported is often wrong and corrections are rarely made. Sensationalism and reporting any controversy one can find, no matter how minor, is the order of the day. Popular stories/subjects, when discovered, are turned into repeating segments to milk them for all they're worth.
And, of course, people who rely on cable news outlets for actual news will come away fairly poorly informed on the state of the world.
But all of the above apply equally well to TC. It's just another big American infotainment outlet, working to make money off something-that-maybe-kinda-looks-like-news.
Which is why I don't read TC, and feel frustration with people who (as on this site) obsess about it and constantly link to it. Mentally, I class such people with folks in real life who want to tell me all about the latest thing they heard on Fox News.
Well said. As an example, their latest headline is complaining that the one of the Pre development wikis that was about tethering the Pre was forced to shut down. They are trashing the dev's for not getting involved in a big, ugly legal battle which they will eventually lose.
This has been a standard cat-and-mouse game in the industry for many years. Apple shuts down sites that deal with hackintoshes, MSFT shuts down sites that talk about modding the 360. Nobody likes that kind of crippling of hardware, but its not news. Usually, that development happens anyway, its just moved underground somewhere.
Anyway, the TC folks see some sort of value in reporting that the devs are weak in some way for caving in to big, expensive lawyers. It seems like when its anything involving the Pre, they trash it and the people around it like Hannity does to Obama.