The Hex Update: Issue 031

the hex update
media
Bad news and your brain; Fox’s purchase of Roku; AI, humans, and the newsroom; how U.S. adults spend their time; and some other cool things I came across this week
Author

Collin K. Berke, Ph.D.

Published

June 30, 2026

Let’s catch up

Greetings once again to the people of the internet. Welcome to Issue 031.

I just got back from some travel and spending time with family. It’s always good to go home.

Here’s a picture from my travels:

Now I’m back for another week of sharing some articles, thoughts, and some cool things I recently bumped into.

So… Let’s get started.

Three topics recently caught my attention:

For a bit of fun, I share an article that visualizes how U.S. adults spend their time.

You’ll also find some additional links to other items I found cool this week.

Three things

Here’s what caught my attention this week:

Your brain was never designed for this much bad news (article)

This article provides an overview of the mechanisms of news fatigue. According to the article:

It’s [news fatigue] the predictable response of a human brain meeting an environment it was never designed to navigate.

Negativity bias was one factor discussed, where the human brain places more weight on negative information than positive information. As a result, the brain pays faster attention to and has better memory of negative information. The article cites one study that found with every additional negative word added to a headline, click-through rates increased. The opposite was the case for each addition of positive words. The article also mentions physiological responses to negative news, where the body responds to negative information even before the brain can assess whether it’s relevant or not. Additionally, the impact of proximity of news was also discussed. In the information age, the brain has a wider area to scan for negative information.

Why does this matter?

Thoughtful design and care should be a consideration when it comes publishing negative information, especially if news is to meet its intended purpose. Clicks are certainly a goal (i.e., you can’t have readers if they don’t navigate to your story), but engagement–aimed at informing audiences–is also critical. News fatigue isn’t just a concious choice by readers. It’s an innate function of how humans process information. Some more consideration in creating ‘brain friendly’ media is a path forward. Dr. Paul Boll’s work is a great place to start. Otherwise, news fatigue will continue to grow.

Fox’s Roku Deal Signals The Next Phase Of Television (article) and Fox is buying streaming platform Roku for $22 billion (article)

These two articles report on the $22B purchase of Roku by Fox. Although the particulars of the deal are interesting, what I keyed in on while reading these articles is what this purchase signals about the current state of television. I thought this quote summed it up well:

The deal is a reminder that the next phase of television will be defined by who controls the viewer relationship.

Moreover, these articles highlight success in this space will be a function of several factors: distribution, audience access, and data and platform control. As one analyst stated, the first thing audiences now do when turning on a television is navigate to an app, rather than turn on a cable box. It’s about providing different formats to meet current and future audience consumption patterns. This includes expanded streaming and on-demand offerings. However, having control of the homescreen between audiences and the content they want to watch is a big advantage. Data is also currency here, as it will enhance ad targeting and improve audience’s viewing experience.

Why does this matter?

The viewer relationship is what’s important here. Advantages are present from ownership of the initial interface audience’s access content, but they also come from owning other means for managing this relationship. An improved ad experience is one benefit, but it’s also an advantage to better connect people with content they are more likely to enjoy and engage with. Even more beneficial is if this content is made available by the platform owner, like streaming sports and news, which Fox produces. If you own the interface or experience, you can better manage this audience relationship.

Are human journalists truly irreplaceable? How to safeguard public interest journalism in the age of AI (article) and “Many newsrooms are not optimised for what humans do best” (but we have an opportunity to change that) (blog)

This article and subsequent blog post explores two topics: the integration of AI into newsrooms and how journalism can continue to reach people in the future. As part of this discussion, the article seeks to further define AI integration, and it further applies a critical lens to the topic. To do this, the article refines the definition of hybridisation, the sociotechnical entanglement of humans and machines. The article then goes a level deeper by explicating first- and second-order hybridisation and machine-centric and human-centric hybridisation. The blog expands on this definition by linking to the idea of reverse centaurs. With terms defined, the article posits many AI integrations are focused on machine-centric hybridisation, where human workflows are being organized around the output of a machine rather than the machine being organized around human outputs. Such organization has consequences, as it’s not only about enhancing workflow, but the impacts this will have on the judgements made in journalism: what’s worth noticing, what is meaningful, what is fair, what is true and relevant. To be clear, though, the article isn’t advocating for going back to human-only workflows. There’s issues with this approach as well (e.g., access to artisan news information). The article also made some interesting points about human in the loop arguments, which is complicated both conceptually and practically. As the article puts it:

Oversight does not scale with system complexity, and it can’t be applied to dynamic, personalized content experiences.

Why does this matter?

Reviewing these definitions made me realize the depth involved when characterizing the concept of hybridisation. It’s also critical to recognize the effects different approaches to hybridisation may have on journalistic activities. The criticism of human-in-the-loop approaches was also a key point worth further consideration. The integration of AI into workflows will only increase the complexity of systems, and oversight will not scale with increased complexity in environments where resources are already being stretched. Oversight over dynamic, personalized experiences will be challenging as well, and as a result, there’s little direction on viable accountability structures for such oversight.

Check out the links above for the full story in each item, not just my brief summary and analysis.

What I found interesting this week

Spent some more time figuring out Rapp this week. I figured out my $PATH issue, which I mentioned in my last update. I found out launchers in an R package are a better approach, though. But hey, if you want to use a package’s exec directory directly, you have options. I’m happy to have figured out how to be able to call these CLI tools by just using its name, rather than having to use long form ways of envoking a tool. As a result of learning this new package, I’ve been developing some small utilities to enhance my workflows, mostly. I’m hoping to get a blog post out about how to do this here soon. Keep an eye out for it.

Cool things I recently bumped into

A collection of links to things I’ve found cool recently (or was reminded are cool).

That’s it for this update.

Here’s to a great start to your week. I hope it’s a good one.

Cheers 🎉!

Let’s connect

If you found this content useful, please share. If you find these topics interesting and want to discuss further, let’s connect: