News filters, a necessary evil. Thought shaping, not so much.
I was reading a Time magazine article (May 10, 2021) by Edward Felsenthal, Time's editor-in-chief. He was talking about the strategic direction of the magazine towards a more proactive approach to shape the world to be a better place. That sounds great, don't you think? How could one argue with that? Here's what he said at the end of the article [emphasis mine]: "Our aspiration is tor TIME, in our company and in our coverage, to be among the ranks of businesses that drive positive action. When I started at TIME in 2013 , our mission was often described as “ explaining the world .” Today , we see it somewhat differently—it’s about telling stories about the people and ideas that shape the world, in hopes of doing our part to improve it . " But look closely and you'll see two levels of news filtering. Filter #1: In 2013, Time was filtering all the hundreds of thousands or million of events happening in the world to find the few topics of most interest to the...