I hate the news

I feel like your point was already covered in his essay though I could be missing something.

> Others say that sure, most of the stuff in the news isn’t of use, but occasionally you’ll come across some story that will lead you to actually change what you’ve been working on. But really, how plausible is this? Most people’s major life changes don’t come from reading an article in the newspaper; they come from reading longer-form essays or thoughtful books, which are much more convincing and detailed.

Most people I know who I would class as common, though I do not mean this in a demeaning or derogatory way, watch the unfiltered mass news daily or at least weekly—like Aaron described. They'll get home from work and turn on the 5PM news or have the radio going. Yet these people are common in that they work a 9-5 job they often complain about, they seek to buy a bigger TV and have a family holiday once a year or two.

They know a hell of a lot more than others about current events but effect little change, it seems, in their own lives or those around them. If the majority of people watch the news regularly, why isn't there more change? If the TV was off, perhaps people would be outside a little bit more? Maybe us Westerners would know more about our local area than we do about popular topic x in foreign country y.

Others who have agreed with you also seemed to have had their own comments already answered by Aaron and here have had others quote those parts back to them.

Relevant: http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-gel...

> Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.

Journalists are people who know little of anything writing about everything.

Also The Economist is frequently not totally clueless about computer technology.

Completely agree. There are many great journalists out there. How easy it is to cherry pick or dismiss journalism based on examples of how bad it can be.

fwiw, I couldn't agree less with this article. In fact, it scares me that an educated person could think this way.

RS

    Let us look at the front page of today’s New
    York Times....there is a story about
    Republicans feuding among themselves.... a
    photo of soldiers in Iraq. A stock exchange
    chief must return $100M... a concern about
    some doctors over-selling a nerve testing
    system... a threat from China against North
    Korea... a report that violence in Iraq is
    rising. And there is concern about virtual
    science classes replacing real ones.

    None of these stories have relevance to my
    life. Reading them may be enjoyable, but it’s
    an enjoyable waste of time. They will have no
    impact on my actions one way or another.
	

Considering the defining cause of Aaron's life, and apparently the straw that pushed him to end, turned out to be information liberation, including freeing access to legal and science documents, the latter strongly tied to "virtual science classes", I'd say Aaron misjudged the relevance of news to his life.

I absolutely agree that most news is immaterial. That said, having lived over twice Aaron's age when he wrote this essay, what I've found is that sometimes the news does affect me, occasionally directly. Not terribly often, but I've had bosses nominated to government office by presidents, companies I work for turn up in major fraud investigations, former colleagues sentenced to Federal prison, acquaintances convicted of murder. Understanding economic patterns can help guide decisions and actions. Even weather and traffic can be useful at times.

This doesn't mean that Fox News blaring in the corner is the best way to assimilate this information. Even selecting more fair and balanced (to say nothing of appropriate and informative) sources, I find myself switching from voice to music (increasingly classical) simply to avoid driving myself to distraction.

But a brief, well-curated, reliable news source can be both broadening and useful. Key is to let it serve, not drive you. It need not be a daily habit (though it often is).

I've also had numerous inspirations from "softer" programming via NPR and similar outlets -- culture, arts, and science programming can re-frame or contextualize problems I'm working on, and remind me that there are worlds outside my own experience (check your biases, always a first source of errors).