The power of ignoring mainstream news

A year or two ago I read Tim Ferriss' The 4-Hour Work Week. Most of the advice in the book did not pertain to me, but one tidbit of knowledge that I gain is that you can save time by simply ignoring the news. Most of us are not in the position to change anything, and much of the news does not pertain directly to us. The benefit from being informed often not great than the cost of losing the time needed to read/watch the news.

I tried to find some quotes from the book, but the best I could find was only this article: http://www.evomend.net/en/tim-ferriss-4-hour-workweek-3-5-le...

There are by and large two types of stories in newspapers. Stories that appeal to emotion and stories that relate to data.

From my experience in newsrooms, stories that are primarily emotional are dealt with by Journalists nearly exclusively, they require strong story telling and usually invasive interviewing and exposure.

Stories from data tend to be collected by outside interests and presented to newspapers. Journalists can then spin stories from the data, or if they are writing for a financial publication typically highlight the most salient points for consumption. Occasionally, and far more infrequently than in the past, the media institution will collect a survey themselves or crunch the numbers, and this is almost always pseudo-scientific.

Ultimately journalists rarely improve this data other than to make it more gossip worthy. There is a huge amount of data presented every day, from pr firms, from foundations and from public bodies, and all of it wants to be read.

Warren Buffet might prefer to read it in the New York Times, but with a strong and deep twitter feed almost anyone can now be as informed as the average news room (there are exceptions to this, on the other hand, reading those same newspapers cover to cover is also a good way to fill your head with soporific twaddle)

While I don't agree with the original article, as I think many publications offer some well reasoned analysis and challenging opinions, social media is more than enough to stay as well informed as anyone, though it remains more difficult to navigate.

On the other hand, imagine if Warren Buffet were only allowed to get his information from cable news. That would be frightening.

Interesting comment. PR may see social media as a threat, for exactly the reason you've mentioned. "Well-informed" is relative I think to what you're doing. For example, someone doing hard science research in a lab may only need access to scientific journals. She needs to keep pace with what is published in her area of research only; she could be oblivious to what's happening in the world and still be effective in her job. But from what I know of Buffet, I think he needs access to what journalists are saying. Again, it matter what you're trying to do.

The critical error in your logic is to believe that "the news" is news.

It just isn't. By and large, it's noise, which you either have time for in your life, or you do not.

I understand your worry about ignorance, and it's valid, but I believe that tuning into the noise makes people stupid.

Ignorance can be resolved much more quickly and on-demand than stupidity can.

"Not following the news is what causes harm." - I totally agree with Joel here, and disagree with you. I've spent the last 5 years pretty much a news junkie. I spent 2-3 hours a day, equally split between the NYT, WSJ, Economist, and weekends spent listening to NPR.

What I've realized is that, in general, I'm not better informed about the world, but I am more indoctrinated into the Left Wing (NYT), Right Wing (WSJ) and Intellectual-conservative-laissez-faire-right (Economist) world views.

I guess for a more complete picture of the opposing world view philosophies, I could add BBC, al jazeera and CSMonitor to my mix - but these outlets don't inform, they promote their world views and, more importantly, pander to the desires of their audience. Suggesting the news is a way of getting unbiased knowledge of the world is like saying the Supreme Court of the United States makes judgements based on law.

You want to get an unbiased view of the world? Go out, and see it with your own two eyes, smell it with your nose, touch it with your hands.

I don't believe, after spending the last years comparing and contrasting the WSJs/NYTs takes on stories (often comedic in their different perspectives) that I'm any better informed about the world than if I had just watched the Daily Show, or even, god forbid, tuned into CNN/Fox News.

The one exception, that I've found, is Nate Silver's column - http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/. I'm not sure what worldview he is promoting, other than "Math is cool" - and I do tend to trust it with regards to what's happening in term of Polling data regarding the US election.

Other than that, though, I appreciated and agree with pretty much everything Joel wrote in his post.