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To me this is the money quote:
> Read three books on a topic and you know more about it than 99% of the world.
There is a big opportunity cost to following the news! If you spend those X minutes a day educating yourself instead, you will be a far more informed citizen. You will also start seeing what ignorant garbage much of the news really is.
In light of the current situation in Europe I've thought of a rule of thumb I give people about media they consume. If someone is painted as an enemy, and the information you're given makes their actions or motivations seem irrational, you're likely not being given all relevant information. In the same vein as this article, I've also quit Twitter a year ago and it's been great. Pretty much the same effects also.
Also for the record, given the lies being created, it’s quite obviously rational what they’re doing, but it doesn’t make the lies not lies.
I fully agree with this. Scanning Google News or a couple of the more professional international news services like BBC / Al Jazeera / Reuters I still feel pretty well informed (and confident that there's usually nothing of immediate consequence to me) but it doesn't grow into "expert analysis" or impact my feelings much. Here's another thing I noticed: how manipulated / manipulative it is. And not just news and I do…
Spoiler: He did not actually quit the news, just watching news on TV as opposed to reading articles. > I’m mostly talking about following TV and internet newscasts here. This post isn’t an indictment of journalism as a whole. There’s a big difference between watching a half hour of CNN’s refugee crisis coverage (not that they cover it anymore) versus spending that time reading a 5,000-word article on the same topic.
Yeah enormous difference. It is indeed a good idea to avoid TV news. My suggestion: Go to a news stand instead and grab a copy of The Economist. One who does that will learn much about the world. About countries one rarely hear about in other media outlets. About advances in science and technology. In my opinion, time spent reading The Economist is not wasted. Well that’s my 2¢ anyway ¯\＿(ツ)＿/¯
To play Devil's advocate, why is it useful to spend time learning about these types of things -- world politics, economics, even current scientific developments? Is it mainly because it's interesting (so that it's primarily entertainment)? Or is it to better yourself in some way? I think a lot of people implicitly think that this type of knowledge falls into the "bettering yourself" category, but I wonder if it's mostly for entertainment. Of course, if you are actively involved in international politics, then things look different, but I'm mainly talking about the "everyperson".
I bring this up because I go through phases where I get really into world "happenings" as described above, but then after a while I feel as though I have gained little or nothing, except emotional responses and opinions about these things, which causes no noticeable positive effect in my day-to-day life (and in fact, often affects my mental state negatively, given the amount of fear-mongering in media). Instead, I have the suspicion that all of that time would have been better spent focusing on things local: myself, friendships, family, hobbies.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
About a decade ago I started reading law blogs instead of the news. They're written for other lawyers, so they're well composed, often without excessive hyperbole. The writing is far higher quality than typical journalism. They're actually informational in terms of describing the mechanisms behind power in our society. In terms of focus, if something is truly important there will always be a legal analysis. Celebrity…
Do you have any suggestions for blogs that you like? Would be interested in adding some to my info diet.
- SCOTUSBlog
- Law 360
- Bloomberg Law
- ABA Journal News
- Courthouse News
The primary benefit to using legal sources for your news is that the legal news cycle does not match up with the 24 hour news cycle. For example, right now we're talking about SCOTUS's 2022-2023 case docket, and that doesn't even start until October. Also because lawyers like to cover their butts/believe in getting everything in writing, a lot of their back and forth is available to the public, which lets you get better context for arguments.
A good tip is read 1 week old newspapers. You quickly realize most of it is completely unnecessary for your long term knowledge.
Local news is another matter.
So much to unpack here. For starters, being informed makes for more interesting conversations with others. It means that you get to reflect on what you stand for, and grow as an individual with an opinion. News is also the gateway for deeper information. If you stick to just the news, that's one thing, but if you then go deeper into the topic (what is the relationship between Ukraine and Russia?) then you get invalua…
Election time is when candidates (or some of them) pump out propaganda against their opponents. Negative ads about what some candidate said 15 years ago. Who wins in that race? Often the one who has the most marketing money.
Not just ads though; the propaganda could be part of The News as well if there is a coalition in the media that thinks of the candidate as a threat.
(And it was either CNN or MSNBC (the news as the article in question defines it) that said that they covered Trump so much (free press in his case because he fed off the notoriety) because he was good for ratings.)
I’ve seen perfectly reasonable candidates lose in part because their more corporate-friendly opponents were better funded by private interests.
I’ve begun to think that an intentionally random vote might be better for the venerable “democratic process”.
Being informed does not take a lot of time. But there are many wrong ways of doing it like reading what comes up on your twitter timeline or visiting a clickbaity site like CNN or reading any algorithmically-created newsfeed. Here's what I suggest: subscribe to The Washington Post. Once a day, scan through the homepage and read through any articles that catch your interest. When you hit the bottom of the home page, y…
that implies no bias on the part of WAPO.
> You will get a reasonable overview of the most important topics primarily focused on the US.
and youll most certainly be positively or negatively affected by that news daily. which seems pointless to me? why worry about US and iran going to war if 2 weeks later its no longer relevant? Or about how good spiderman is doing in its first week? or whether tiktok is spying on its users?
these things fade almost immediately from public conscious. Staying "informed" daily seems like a waste of time imo.