While many of the points made by this article are valid, it fails to address important questions like: how can we remain informed and how do we decide what is important enough to be informed about?
I stopped reading the news on a regular basis many years ago. There were a few reasons for that. One is that most of the news is about topics that we have no control over, another is that news is highly repetitive in nature (few significant events are isolated to a particular day or week).
Yet the biggest reason is that much of what is presented as news is actually opinion. While the author suggest separating fact from opinion, that is usually only possible to achieve by reading the news. News outlets may denote a handful of prominent sources as opinion or analysis, but they aren't going to do that for a puffed up piece where the facts alone would barely fill a paragraph.
Is my life better for ignoring the news? Probably, but I will also admit that I miss out on many things that I should be informed about.
I stopped reading the news on a regular basis many years ago. There were a few reasons for that. One is that most of the news is about topics that we have no control over, another is that news is highly repetitive in nature (few significant events are isolated to a particular day or week).
Yet the biggest reason is that much of what is presented as news is actually opinion. While the author suggest separating fact from opinion, that is usually only possible to achieve by reading the news. News outlets may denote a handful of prominent sources as opinion or analysis, but they aren't going to do that for a puffed up piece where the facts alone would barely fill a paragraph.
Is my life better for ignoring the news? Probably, but I will also admit that I miss out on many things that I should be informed about.