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This story might be helpful to those tearing their hair out about the news lately:
I grew up believing that following the news makes you a better citizen. Eight years after having quit, that idea now seems ridiculous—that consuming a particularly unimaginative information product on a daily basis somehow makes you thoughtful and informed in a way that benefits society.
But I still encounter people who balk at the possibility of a smart, engaged adult quitting the daily news.
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A few things you might notice, if you take a break:1) You feel better
A common symptom of quitting the news is an improvement in mood. News junkies will say it's because you've stuck your head in the sand.
But that assumes the news is the equivalent of having your head out in the fresh, clear air. They don't realize that what you can glean about the world from the news isn't even close to a representative sample of what is happening in the world.
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2) You were never actually accomplishing anything by watching the newsIf you ask someone what they accomplish by watching the news, you'll hear vague notions like, "It's our civic duty to stay informed!" or "I need to know what's going on in the world," or "We can't just ignore these issues," none of which answer the question.
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A month after you've quit the news, it's hard to name anything useful that's been lost. It becomes clear that those years of news-watching amounted to virtually nothing in terms of improvement to your quality of life, lasting knowledge, or your ability to help others. And that's to say nothing of the opportunity cost. Imagine if you spent that time learning a language, or reading books and essays about some of the issues they mention on the news.
Read on for the rest of the list.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday December 14 2016, @02:14AM
The few times I had some inside knowledge about a local news story, it was a little frightening how much the local reporting distorted the facts. Their bias was towards drama. A few broken windows gets magnified into Crime Spree Has City On Edge, Packs of Vandals Roaming the Streets at Night or some such. You can't take those papers at their word for anything.
The major newspaper in our metropolitan area has been messing with their subscription model. They no longer offer any subscription that does NOT include automatic renewal, at, of course, the sky high list price. When I inquired, they tried to tell me that canceling was a simple as making one quick phone call, as if that was some kind of improvement in service and hadn't always been that way. So I canceled it. Seemed a desperation ploy anyway. Didn't miss it much, and as the years went by, missed it less and less.
PBS News Hour is better than average, but still not worth watching. One story they botched badly was on copyright. They do a lot of debate style stories, in which they invite two experts, one from each side of an issue. On their copyright story, both experts were on the same side, differing only in how extreme copyright should be.