Stop Watching the News (2019)

It seems like a weird time to post this article to HN. Aren't we all living through an extremely good example of why paying attention to the news pays off? Generally speaking, people I know who read the news prepared for SARS-CoV-2 by mid-February, and those who were disconnected from the news were caught off guard a month later when everything shut down.

One thing I will happily grant is that _watching_ the news is a terrible idea. TV twists everything into being frivolous entertainment, regardless of the topic. Newspapers aren't much better. Too short a time horizon, too much blow-by-blow, meaning no time for context and low signal to noise.

I find that weekly and monthly magazines strike a better balance. Authors have time to write up background and provide context, and little blips and false starts get smoothed over by the passage of time.

There are many similar cases where the outrage was wrong, the facts of the case weren't as originally reported, and the resulting outrage couldn't be rolled back or productively channeled. My heart breaks at the idea of a guy being murdered with no consequences, but that can't mean that we embrace anything and everything which delivers those consequences.

> When was the last time you watched the news and thought, “thank God I saw that. Let me go take action.”?

> I’ll answer for you: probably never.

The article is dated "July 29" so I'll assume 2019.

We have a pretty huge counterexample right now: the pandemic has led to a lot of critical information needing to be conveyed to everyone very rapidly. For example, people need to be aware that they cannot leave home, or that they should wear masks when doing so, etc.

Often, the government doesn't have a reliable way to reach the entire population quickly. For example, in the UK, the government sent a letter to every household outlining coronavirus guidance. This letter takes a few days to reach everyone.

The news can be leveraged by the government to relay important messages to the population without any effort.

Reminds me of this great piece by the late Aaron Schwartz - http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews

News (particularly in the US) is so caught up in Politics that no one ever knows what anyone's policies are any more.

My favourite part of this article is:

There is voting, of course, but to become an informed voter all one needs to do is read a short guide about the candidates and issues before the election. There’s no need to have to suffer through the daily back-and-forth of allegations and counter-allegations, of scurrilous lies and their refutations. Indeed, reading a voter’s guide is much better: there’s no recency bias (where you only remember the crimes reported in the past couple months), you get to hear both sides of the story after the investigation has died down, you can actually think about the issues instead of worrying about the politics.

I actively ignore news because it can just lead to me getting upset at something I can't control, just like the author says. I don't advocate this for everyone, but I like it for myself. I've been told that it's my duty as an American citizen to pay attention to the news, but I disagree. My mindset is that, if something really matters, it will make its way into my view. For example, I didn't actively follow COVID-19 before the week prior to the beginning of America's national emergency, but it made enough of a splash on the platforms I use (Reddit and HN) and the people I talk to (friends, family, and coworkers) that I became aware, realized it was something I needed to pay attention to.

I don't want to focus on the constant back and forth of political rivalries, because it usually doesn't affect me directly, and why would I cause myself discomfort by indulging in stories I have no control over.