Snakes On A Plane.
Now, I know this is a trash news service, but I like it because it reminds me so blatantly about some of the various biases and tricks they use to "engage" the audience.
Now, before comparing the two grabs from the front page of this online news service, note that it is an Australian site, aimed at Australians.
What did you notice?
Look at all of the information contained in what is an irrelevant and useless story from the US - from the sentence time, right down to naming the person (middle name included) and the airline he was flying. Yet, the "breaking news" story of a local earthquake in a state capital, fails to mention which city, the magnitude or whether anyone was injured.
I am guessing Antonio Sherrodd McGarity survived.
This is from "The Australian" which is subscription only, so I can't see more than a headline there, but I assume it is a relatively "well respected" newspaper still.
No surprises with the content of this one - it tells all that is necessary. Well, I can't read the article, but I am assuming I know what it contains inside, aren't I? However, while I will get to the contents of that story in another post probably, my point for this post is that this is actually another bias. Rather than people clicking into it to understand why Google are assholes that don't pay their taxes locally, unlike Australian workers and (some) businesses, we can already spread the message.
For example, it could be (remember I am not a fan of Google or their business model) that due to heavy investment, they were able to write down their tax obligations. But, more likely, they just used the myriad available loopholes that exist for corporations and the wealthy to evade paying their taxes locally and instead, through creative accounting practices, they pay a far smaller amount in another country instead - if they pay any at all.
But, since this is subscription only, I will never know.
See the bias?
Yes, this is a SaaS model, which means that they have to entice readers into paying for the content and the only way to do that, is to make sure that there is enough "free" content that prospective clients think there is value in actually spending the money to read more of their drivel.
Both of these news services are owned by News Corp.
If you want a scroll to see what other media they own: NewsCorp
Everything being done is a manipulation intended to draw more of our attention. If we aren't careful, our attention, the most precious resource we have at our disposal, gets consumed without it doing as it being used as intended.
People think that time is our most valuable personal resource, but without attention, time is just potential with no direction. While every action we do, random or not will get an outcome, it is only when we apply our attention toward a specific thing that we are able to guide our activities toward a result. This is what a resource is, something that can be effectively used to generate something of value.
Are you generating something of value with your attention?
What about with your content?
While we might know that the news is full of trash content, we have to remember that all of us are content creators that generate some output through our behaviors. If we aren't moving with purpose, we aren't likely to get to anywhere we might want to go and instead, the experiences we have are the result of unintended consequences.
Funny, isn't it?
In the social sciences, unintended consequences are outcomes of a purposeful action that are not intended or foreseen.
There are three core types:
Unexpected benefit: A positive unexpected benefit
Unexpected drawback: An unexpected detriment occurring in addition to the desired effect of the policy
Perverse result: A perverse effect contrary to what was originally intended
(Antonio identifies with number 3)
Regardless of the outcome, all of these things have a cause, actions that precede the effect. Not too hard to understand, but when we aren't paying attention to our attention and how we use it, all of our results end up being unintended and as a result, we can very easily feel that we don't have power or control over our lives.
Heard of anyone feeling that way?
And then, once this cycle sets in, we tend to spend our time paying attention to things that draw our attention away from the things that are painful. Rather than tackling or challenges, we are in a cycle of avoidance, which leads us to believe that there is nothing we can do and, it is all someone else's fault.
I could be wrong, but I think we should all spend time thinking about how we use our attention and observe where it goes, what it consumes and where it wanders when we are feeling good and, when we are not. Perhaps then we would end up spending more time creating from what we consume, rather than consuming from what consumes us, for nothing in return.
Antonio Sherrodd McGarity got a more lenient sentence due to his defense. He had recently read an article on the "Top 5 things to do on a plane" and he misread number 4 - Meditate.
That last bit might be fakenews.
Sometimes our time is spent on content that doesn't necessarily produce results, even though if we want to do other work, surely our services at work will be paid for by the company.