Online News formats

[ChrisGreaves]

I rely on online news sites for news, especially world and national news. The Australian ABC news took a huge step backwards a month or so ago when it revamped its format and layout so that "news" now consists of acres of images, large images, that occupy my laptop screen and convey little actual data.

Hurricane Helene triggered CNN News to include a reference to CNN-lite which will, I hope, bring in enough extra revenue that they can send a boy out to purchase a dictionary of the English language. Or at least subscribe to Rob Words.

Background Note: I spent the first ten years of my life in England, a country/nation that seventy years ago knew how to spell. I have heard that "A picture is worth a thousand words", but no-one yet is game to say what those words might be. A thousand words of drivel is worth more than a million pixels of a bosomy "popular" star.

I would be pleased to inspect any other online news sources that devote their energies to news, in words, rather than click-bait images to tempt the young and immature illiterates.
Thanks
Chris

[RonH]

Maybe https://theconversation.com/au Chris which zones the news.

Like you, I dislike the new ABCNews format but this seems to be the modern style that many are adopting

[GeoffW]

I still get the old format ABC News, with the option to view the new format. It appears to have the same news (based on a cursory view) despite the much changed look and feel.

I find it useful to check a News site for bias and factual checking using mediabiasfactcheck.com - The Conversation (suggested by Ron) rates it as more accurate and centre of the spectrum than ABC News Australia - which still rates as quite accurate and moderately left of centre. Though ABC News is in the middle of a scandal about a doctored news story, a story which may not have been covered by ABC News. Bearing in mind that paid news websites hate that the ABC, being government supported, is free.

Of course, Mediabiasfactcheck.com itself may have a bias.

Other news sites which you may consider are The Guardian and AP News (both a little more left, and not quite as accurate) . In favour of The Guardian there are versions which cover news from different countries, mostly US, UK and Australia. The Guardian, despite carrying advertising, has, instead of a paywall, a nagfence.

[ChrisGreaves]

Maybe https://theconversation.com/au Chris which zones the news. Like you, I dislike the new ABCNews format but this seems to be the modern style that many are adopting

Thanks for this link, Ron. I have inserted it into my News menu ("Open all in tabs") and have begun seeing what it does for me.

News_01.jpg

News_02.jpg

News3A.jpg

These three screenshots (from yesterday) indicate that this source suffers from the same image bloat as the ABC site; arguably not quite as bad, but still way too much text space lost to images.

I am here concerned with data (Shannon "information"?) rather than the bias of the text.

I hunger for text because I can read words, and can get more words per screen than an image conveys, especially when it comes to news.

That translates to less hand/wrist/arm activity - a very slow way of scanning compared to the eye/brain.
Cheers, Chris

[ChrisGreaves]

I still get the old format ABC News, with the option to view the new format. It appears to have the same news (based on a cursory view) despite the much changed look and feel.

Thanks for all of this, Geoff.
I am curious: How do you obtain the old format of ABC? I found the format up until August too be image-bloated. Do you have access to an even older format?

Daily I read Australian, UK(BBC and BBC World) and CNN. I have Google searches for Bonavista, SA and WA, complete with filters ("-dailymail -msn -yahoo") which work well enough for me to browse.

I find it useful to check a News site for bias and factual checking using mediabiasfactcheck.com - The Conversation (suggested by Ron) rates it as more accurate and centre of the spectrum than ABC News Australia - which still rates as quite accurate and moderately left of centre.

Bias is as Bias does, I guess. I do not know whether I am "left" or "right". Pulling back a bit I like to read the first two paragraphs and then decide whether they seem to know what they are talking about, or whether it is click-bait.

In this matter I am more concerned about how much raw data I can feed into the hopper (my mind) rather than the quality; I'll let my mind filter out the dross.

Other news sites which you may consider are The Guardian and AP News (both a little more left, and not quite as accurate) . In favour of The Guardian there are versions which cover news from different countries, mostly US, UK and Australia. The Guardian, despite carrying advertising, has, instead of a paywall, a nagfence.

I have added APNews to my menu, but it too has more images than I care for now that I have seen CNN-LITE.

I can clarify now. On a news "splash"or introductory page I'd like pure-text summary. By all means give me an image on the linked pages of detail, but I want to make a text-based decision before reading the specific article. In a sense the headlines are important to me before I have an interest in the details.

Thanks again, Chris

[ChrisGreaves]

Hurricane Helene triggered CNN News to include a reference to CNN-lite which will, I hope ...

A bit more about CNN.
I hated CNN because on my smartphone the videos took about five minutes to load; then I realized I didn't like/want/need the videos anyway.

I got the reference to CNNLite from a CNN story about conserving phone battery energy when power was cut off by Helene. A "tips for survival" item
I liked the all-text headlines.

News_05.jpg

Above you see an example of CNN-Lite's all-text headlines; their splash page (or front page, I suppose). Real Newspapers often had on the front page a box with "Inside: " and a summary of important sections or news deeper into the news print.

News_06.jpg

I don't follow American football, but this article demonstrates that even here there are no images of footballers, USA, Canadian, Aussie or other, Just the facts, ma'am

CNN-Lite has become my new benchmark for news formats!
Cheers, Chris

[GeoffW]

Chris - try this: https://www.abc.net.au/news/beta/join

I'm not sure how long however until the new format becomes permanent.

[ChrisGreaves]

Chris - try this: https://www.abc.net.au/news/beta/join

Thank you Geoff.
I appeared to be locked into the new format, but - d/l CCleaner, delete all cookies (I live dangerously!), reload Firefox and your link. There was a flurry of activity and then I clicked on "News" in the dark-gray panel at the foot of the page and received this:-

News_07.jpg

This (above) is what I remember of the pre-August format, and it is, to my mind, better than the new-format with its screen-size images.

That said, having tried Lite (as in CNN-Lite) I am now hungry for all-text versions of news sites.

I'm not sure how long however until the new format becomes permanent.

Oh I can tell you that right now. The event will take place mere seconds after I click on "Submit"
Thanks again, Chris

[GeoffW]

I had to click Return to Original View - but then, before i started, I had the old format by default anyway, and had to click an option to get the new format.

Check this for some text only news sites similar to CNN Lite:
https://greycoder.com/a-list-of-text-only-new-sites/

[stuck]

NB that list includes a link to Nitter, which was a light weight way of viewing Twitter. It is now dead so I suspect the link to it might be suspect.

Ken

[Graeme]

Most of the British papers are a waste of paper but I find this one to be quite an independent source of news:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/h ... 20847.html

[BobH]

I think OMG wants his news sources to provide précis with links to allow him to drill down.

In a former life I worked for a company that had several employees whose jobs required them to search printed publications (pre-Internet) for relevant articles on a variety of subjects. The purpose was to inform our execs to keep the company as competitive as possible. This was an in-house clipping service. Those 'readers' were required to write a précis of the articles they read. Their manager - a former English and journalism teacher - was then required to organize them from most to least important then send the group of précis to each exec who read them daily (or were supposed to and were sometimes quizzed about them by the CEO). When an exec wanted more detail, he simply asked the 'readers' to send the whole article over for review. Execs could even add topics of special interest to the list, recommend removing topic, and suggest periodicals to be scanned. The list of topics was reviewed quarterly by the exec committee. This was quite effective in keeping execs informed while making efficient use of their time.

[ChrisGreaves]

Most of the British papers are a waste of paper but I find this one to be quite an independent source of news:

I have inserted this into my news feed menu (Open all in tabs).

News_10.jpg

At (today's) first glance the layout and image-bloat seems to be as bad as the pre-August abc.net news, a format that I am gradually rejecting having seen what text-based news can do for me.
I will read The Independent for a week.

A further note on "bias" and so on.
When I read a (say, UK) news item about some mini-tragedy in England(Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Northern Ireland, ...) I do not have a background history of local feeling, so it is difficult for me to judge the importance of that news item.
You-all would probably be just as ignorant about a news item about "the hospital in Bonavista" or what seems like a minor inconvenience (which is all it is to me) of "branch of bank closes in Bonavista".
The Horizon scandal caught my eye largely because of multi-day coverage across pretty well all my news feeds, and :True Confession: just now I had to search "post office scandal UK" because I had forgotten the name.

The suicides, broken marriages, job-losses and so on remain in my mind. The reports on the Horizon Scandal were worthy of study.
Cheers, Chris

[ChrisGreaves]

I think OMG wants his news sources to provide précis with links to allow him to drill down.

Exactly so!
I want the front page (splash page) to fill my eyes/brain with text that I can judge by level of importance to me.
A counter-example is a Canadian news-source item about some form of criminal wrong-doing which has, at its head, a large image of part of an RCMP patrol car.

News_11.jpg

Homework Exercise: prove that this image isn't part of Frank Sloup's patrol car.

[reminisce]
Twenty years ago I used primitive (Word2003/VBA) technology to capture text from a source called "Canada News Wire". This web site, daily, carried press releases of about 150 words, outlining a new product or service somewhere in Canada. I could filter (rules-based table) by city, business type etc and extract four or five businesses in Toronto/Mississauga (I lived right on the boundary) in Financial, Pharmaceutical or Legal areas AND the direct line to the President or CEO. The direct line to the President allows one to pose a question in one breath "Who should I speak to in your organization aboput <new service or product>?", which then allowed me to phone that person and announce "I just got off the phone with your president and he suggested I call you regarding ..."
A scam, yes, but a scam of value to me.

I can see a future in a similar scam scheme with text-based news that allows me, rules-based, to filter OUT any item that contains boring words, such as "trump" or "msn" or "daily mail" or "weather" and so on.

There is hope ...
[/reminisce]

Cheers, Chris

[ChrisGreaves]

I think OMG wants his news sources to provide précis with links to allow him to drill down.

Once I have settled my pure-text news-feeds, what are we going to do about a pure-text form of YouTube?
IMHO there is far too much imagery and video on YouTube.
Cheers, Chris

[BobH]

I think OMG wants his news sources to provide précis with links to allow him to drill down.

Once I have settled my pure-text news-feeds, what are we going to do about a pure-text form of YouTube?
IMHO there is far too much imagery and video on YouTube.
Cheers, Chris

Why does the name Don Quixote come to mind as I read this?

[ChrisGreaves]

Why does the name Don Quixote come to mind as I read this?

Cheers, Chris

[John Gray]

Olde but relevant joake:
Q: "What is the name of my small Spanish domestic horse-like animal?"
A: "Donkey Hôté!"

[ChrisGreaves]

Olde but relevant joake: Q: "What is the name of my small Spanish domestic horse-like animal?" A: "Donkey Hôté!"

You expect me to laugh myself horse on that assinine joke?
Cheers, Chris

[John Gray]

You expect me to laugh myself horse on that assinine joke?
Cheers, Chris

No, I would have expected you to laugh yourself silly!
[Oh - too late...!]