I am often frustrated by news and think much of it is worth ignoring, but many of the points are not very well-supported.
"News has no explanatory power": I'm not going to argue that most mainstream news is even that good, but to suggest that "the accumulation of facts" is inconsistent with forming deeper knowledge is too sweeping. Readers of news can observe patterns, which hopefully they will check against more in-depth research.
Much of news' task to not the "how?" but the "what?" and on that measure, it does a decent, if inconsistent job: http://publicmind.fdu.edu/2011/knowless/.
"News is toxic to your body": The author cites a case study involving the limbic system that doesn't mention media or news at all. It may well be that "Panicky stories spur the release of cascades of glucocorticoid" but do they do so at noticeable or unhealthy levels? I'm not convinced.
"News increases cognitive errors": News is not an ideal way of challenging biases, but it seems much better than not reading news and getting information about filtered through friends with similar biases to you. (Reading carefully filtered news and books is probably best of all.)
"News inhibits thinking": This section only applies if you read news intermittently and let notifications interrupt you. Concentrating on a newspaper (or news site) for 30 minutes would not have the same effect. But continually leaving work for chatting co-workers would.
"News works like a drug": This section is one of the most plausible, but once again, it doesn't cite any evidence. Cal Newport has a similar line of reasoning, but he actually has research to back it up: http://calnewport.com/blog/2010/06/10/is-allowing-your-child.... (It's about Facebook, but the same principle of distracting activities ruining focus applies.)
"News wastes time": This is all about habits and boundaries. Like "News inhibits thinking," this problem could emerge with any activity engaged in on a whim during working hours.
"News kills creativity": The theory that younger mathematicians are more productive is actually unfounded. See http://www.slate.com/articles/life/do_the_math/2003/05/is_ma... or http://privacyink.org/pdf/myth.pdf. And this last part is pure argument by anecdote:
"I don't know a single truly creative mind who is a news junkie – not a writer, not a composer, mathematician, physician, scientist, musician, designer, architect or painter. On the other hand, I know a bunch of viciously uncreative minds who consume news like drugs."
The points about most news being irrelevant to day-to-day life and story bias are worth pondering, but otherwise this article overreaches. It is a series of interesting conjectures about the effect of news, but often presumes a certain way of reading or watching news. The evidence for each point is slim. I'm forced to conclude his warnings of "panicky" news with "no explanatory power" are hypocritical.