Why I’m Building discursus
The discursus open source project has been running for a few months now and I’ve been asked in various ways the same question: why are you building this?
Well first off, I’m no academic, so this isn’t about publishing in scientific journals. I’m somewhat of an entrepreneur, but really, not trying to build a unicorn startup. And I’m not a member of any intelligence community, so not going for that information edge in that big global game of chess.
I’m just curious enough to want to go deeper in the the news. I did study political science in my undergrad years, but really I just want better news sources than what is at my immediate reach.
Because let’s face it, our traditional news feed is somewhat broken. Let’s start with 2 observations:
- All news source artifacts that you consume are biased. There’s no such thing as objective reporting. So regardless of your preferred source of news, it’s most probably gonna taint your own point of view.
- We all live in an echo chamber that is determined by many factors (where you live, your family / friends / co-workers, etc.). So even when socially harvesting your news, chances are that you will just get more of the same, which reinforces your bias.
That means that the news you are getting is a distortion of what the actual truth is.
I’ve been subscribed to the same newspaper for the past 25 years now (yup, I still get a paper version of the news every morning, and I love it!). Even though I consider them to be one of the most professional journalistic team in Québec, there is still an editorial line being followed.
It’s not a far-fetched assumption to say that my world view is greatly influenced by that newspaper’s editorial line.
I’ve grown to recognise that through those 25 years, especially whenever divisive issues have been happening in Québec. We can then clearly see the confrontational lines between news sources. And you get to recognise that the truth (by that I mean the facts of events being covered) is hidden away behind a thick layer of opinions and biased (editorial) reporting.
You would think that by expanding your sources of news with alternative medias would provide a more balanced picture, but algorithms are tuned to capture your attention and usually that means suggesting content that reinforces your beliefs. Whenever I turn to social medias or just have conversations with friends / family members about current affairs — I rarely am confronted with opinions that greatly diverge from mine.
Bottom line is that I’m being fed a very narrow perspective on political phenomenons. And so I ask myself: how can I have a more accurate picture of what’s really happening?
Could we make sense of all the noise that surrounds those phenomenons? Would it be possible to mine all their artifacts / signals, extract structure out of them, and get a more exact representation of the “truth”?
My hunch is that I really think so. I’m sure there’s a way to fix our news feed. I’m convinced that we can be exposed to different point of views and that will help us expand our understanding of each other. That by building a better news feed, we can develop empathy and have healthier conversations, as well as healthier democracies.
And that’s why I’m building discursus.
I want it to be my main source of information. I want to follow / subscribe to specific events and get a rich feed that would include a wide variety of sources that covers that event. As well as an automated aggregation of those sources that would provide the full story of the event, with their actors, narratives, dynamics and timeline.
If that’s an ambition that speaks to you as well, reach out and let’s discuss over a coffee.
