Ask HN: Do you read news daily?

I get a newspaper delivered every day (weekend edition on Saturday). I have found it far healthier than consuming news online (although I do come here for tech tidbits). I also subscribe to a few magazines on different subjects, which I probably find more impactful. Moving back to physical objects for these things has been a real joy. It makes reading news a deliberate act, not a temptation, and also removes the ability to fall too far down rabbit holes. There's also no need to engage too much decision making about content, jumping around, queuing up tabs, deciding what's most important. Just read front to back and skip if you're bored. I also find solving a cryptic crossword on paper with a pencil to be one of the highlights of my day - something for me, by me, where I don't feel I'm in competition with the whole world (which I do if I'm solving chess puzzles online or during the period Wordle was a thing etc).

The most important change for me, however I choose to consume news, is quitting social media. Not being exposed to the Twitter issue of the day, the hysterical overreaction and the hysterical counter-reaction, means that I no longer feel the need to be angry about something all the time. I'll still grumble about particular developments, but I don't feel the need to have a take. I'll contextualise things and move on, unless I think it'd be interesting to my wife or kids.

Absolutely not, it’s dangerous to my mental health in a way few other things are. People will call me selfish for not being engaged, but the cost of engagement is too high for me.

If I hear news it’s a five minute hourly update on Radio 1. Tech news is another beast, I quite enjoy things like HN.

My problem is the source selection algorithm.

Take a big list of possibilities, perhaps a Google search, whatever.

Cross off the corporate "video news release" basically its a TV commercial sources.

Cross off the government controlled / funded propaganda outlets. If I wanted the carefully censored and filtered opinion of the party in power, I'd read their website. "We're going to kiss up to everything our .gov says" is not "reporting" that's mere propaganda not worthy of viewing.

Cross off the attempts to violate election spending rules by producing an "independent" channels that coincidentally precisely mirrors and revolving door employs a political party. I don't want or need someone elses echo chamber, or even worse, my own echo chamber.

Cross off the gasping exclamation point clickbait sites.

Cross off anything participating in "celebrity news" (someone famous-ish in area A said something edgy about area B now post it for the rageclicks). Especially cross off sources focused on people who are famous for being famous but never did anything other than hire a PR firm, or people who have not been relevant in 10, 20, 30 years but are still in the news.

Cross off anything pandering to generational topics. I'm too young to be interested in major league baseball where the average fan is now over 70, and I don't want to be pandered to about video games or whatever "they" tell us "our" generation is supposed to be interested in.

What's left in 2022 after all that crossing out unacceptable sources? Nothing, I'm sad to say. Literally nothing left.

WRT better understanding the world you're probably better off reading history books.

No, if something is important enough it finds its way to me anyways, either through word of mouth or by skimming HN/Twitter/Reddit. I subscribe to a daily news thing that drops in my email and by just reading what the title of the email is I get a sense if anything Really important is going on, and then I just delete it.

I do read news daily but certainly substantially less than a few years ago. I try to consume a "balanced" diet from both left and right news sources and listen in and try to listen in an impartial way. I have a few key observations from all this:

  News is, on balance, very negative. Its designed to stoke your fears and worries. There is no benefit or money in feel-good news, which is why its typically relegated to the end of a news program on TV and almost never on the front page above the fold. 

  A lot of news masquerades as entertainment. Its fine to watch, just be aware its the junk food of content. 

  Omission of supporting facts and context in news is almost as bad as selectively picking facts that spin the story your way. This is probably the most insidious journalistic tactic as it typically helps reinforce outrage without providing the full picture. 

The Economist used to be one of my favorite news sources to counter the trends mentioned above. But I soon realized that they took too many editorial stances on issues were they were quickly proven wrong in days or weeks later.

The right balance to strike with the news is longer-form articles that deep dive into world topics and foster debate within the pages. I think Foreign Affairs serves some of that purpose. But also reading a variety of blogs helps: Astral Codex Ten, Marginal Revolution, etc... Granted, many of the popular ones tend to be left-leaning with progressive agendas. Just be aware.