
I hate the news - paupino_masano
http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews
======
pscsbs
I completely disagree with Aaron, but I respect his opinion. Reading the news
is incredibly important, and it shapes your understanding of culture and
circumstances outside your social bubble, which in turn affects your future
social interactions.

~~~
kaliblack
Does the news actually do that though? Does regularly and generally consuming
the news do more than provide new topics for water cooler chat? I can
understand the argument for being informed through selective reading/viewing
(which the article makes), but not so much for being generally informed.

~~~
andrewfelix
I think it does do more. It ads another degree of accountability to people
with power. It might not be much, but it's something. One small anecdote; a
development in a local suburb is hitting a brick wall because the media has
revealed a relationship between the developer and the council. That
development was going up on public land without proper oversight or tender.

Couple of bigger anecdotes;

\- Watergate. A president's criminal behaviour was dug up by a newspaper,
forcing him to resign.

\- Vietnam war coverage forced the US to reconsider their attitudes to weapons
with high collateral damage, conscription and large scale land wars in
general.

------
jrogers65
Relevant: [http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-
gel...](http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-gell-mann-
amnesia-effect-is-as-follows-you)

> 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.

~~~
thisishugo
Depends on the journalist and publication. I at least like to think I
understood the topics I wrote about when I was writing stories a couple of
years ago. But I wrote for a niche publication, not a general news site, so I
wasn't required to write about "everything," just the subset I was familiar
with.

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

~~~
randomsearch
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

------
tinym
Thoreau: "We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine
to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to
communicate. Either is in such a predicament as the man who was earnest to be
introduced to a distinguished deaf woman, but when he was presented, and one
end of her ear trumpet was put into his hand, had nothing to say. As if the
main object were to talk fast and not to talk sensibly. We are eager to tunnel
under the Atlantic and bring the Old World some weeks nearer to the New; but
perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad, flapping
American ear will be that the Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough."

~~~
zecho
Another Thoreau quote, also from Walden: "And I am sure that I never read any
memorable news in a newspaper. If we read of one man robbed, or murdered, or
killed by accident, or one house burned, or one vessel wrecked, or one
steamboat blown up, or one cow run over on the Western Railroad, or one mad
dog killed, or one lot of grasshoppers in the winter -- we never need read of
another. One is enough. If you are acquainted with the principle, what do you
care for a myriad instances and applications? To a philosopher all news, as it
is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their
tea."

------
FrojoS
"I think following the news is a waste of time."

I'm sure this plaid a role in him being so productive.

But I do think its my obligation to read the news. Even if it makes me less
productive. Without the news I would have never learned about Aarons hack and
his trial. Of course, just knowing the news is not enough. One has to act. In
the case of Aaron, we didn't act.

~~~
pdonis
_Without the news I would have never learned about Aarons hack and his trial._

Maybe it depends on how you define "news". Everything I know about Aaron
Swartz, I know from following links I encountered here. True, this is a "news"
site, but it's _filtered_ news; I think that's an important point. The problem
with "mainstream" news media is not just that they're bad at reporting;
they're also bad at filtering, because their filter criterion is what will
sell papers/get more viewers, rather than what information is genuinely of
value to the most readers.

~~~
ersii
I don't read "the news" (meaning mainstream media, if you may) all that often,
but when I do - I do like that they're "bad at filtering", or rather, their
sheer broadness of topics. It reminds me that there is people with other views
of life and that there's more topics out there - than what my more like minded
sphere care to interest themselfs with.

------
jrockway
I think it's funny that the article about the news being irrelevant ends with
the cliched tagline: "You should follow me on Twitter."

Because _that_ would be relevant.

~~~
rationalbeats
This post is from October 20, 2006

Twitter did not exist then, so I think it is obvious to the people who read
this website how a tag like that would be there now.

------
ericclemmons
I've found myself feeling the same way since 2008 about the news. After 9/11,
I was consumed by talk radio, talking heads, blogs of varying opinions, but
ultimately found that I wasn't being more useful and informed...I was becoming
angry, quick to judge, and worst of all, less intelligent and analytical with
my decisions.

Being in the tech field, we're trained daily to evaluate competing, languages,
and technologies not only on their own merits, but how closely they relate to
our way of thinking. Most importantly, we tend to be _willing_ to accept this
change.

Since no longer being immersed in news, I spend time reading thins of value
that either make me feel good, or something that I can apply for the
betterment of myself or others. When elections come about, I do my research,
cast a vote, and perhaps contact the office of the elected when news trickles
down to me about a bill I want input on.

------
lmm
I've avoided newspapers for a couple of years, for much the same reasons
described here. I still read a monthly news magazine, sometimes a weekly one.
I find reading an international edition helps a lot (whether of a foreign or
domestic news source) - less of the ins and outs of day-to-day politics and
crime, which really don't enhance my life.

What's left are two kinds of stories - actual "news", by which I mean events
that are more unusual and important; the kind of content that will be history
in the future. This... feels like it affects me; I would prefer to read the
history books about it, but they're not written yet, and I want to know now
while there's still time to do something about it. If I'm going to change the
world, even at the very limited level of making a product that makes some
people's lives easier, that will probably be made possible because of some new
piece of information; waiting until it's accepted wisdom is too late.

The other kind is features that are "still true", that aren't particularly
time-sensitive. Things I could just as well read a book about, indeed. But my
experience is that short essays are much better than books, to the extent that
many of my favourite "books" are nothing more than collections of essays or
newspaper columns. Likewise in fiction (and one thing that drives my choice of
magazine is that it includes fiction), short stories are often more compelling
and impactful than long ones.

------
miles
Similar sentiments from a brother several thousand years ago:

"...I start up out of dreams and am disturbed, trembling at every message,
with my own peace of mind depending upon letters not my own. Someone has
arrived from Rome. 'If only there is no bad news!' But how can anything bad
for _you_ happen in a place, if you are not there? Someone arrives from
Greece. 'If only there is no bad news!' In this way for _you_ every place can
cause misfortune. Isn't it enough for you to be miserable where you are? Must
you needs be miserable even beyond the seas, and by letter?"

~~~
205guy
I like this quote, only slightly newer, by Paul the hermit:

"Tell me, I pray, how fares the human race: if new roofs be risen in the
ancient cities, whose empire it is that now holds sway in the world, if any
still survive, snared in the error of demons."[1]

It epitomizes the futility of "news:" even if you live in a cave for many
years (decades), as long as you know a bit about human nature and history, you
know the news--just not the names. Like the OP, I find news pointless and go
long periods without it.

[1] <http://www.hermitary.com/articles/paul.html>

------
patdennis
A large part of my day to day job involves summarizing political careers from
thousands of pages of news articles.

As a general rule, I find that for every thousand pages of news copy, one can
usually distill about thirty pages of useful facts (the rest being redundant,
speculative, filler, or otherwise unimportant).

------
frozenport
Besides always having something to talk about when meeting with people,
reading the news is an exercise in critical thinking and analysis. Distilling
a narrative from various sources about remote subjects is a skill that is
applicable to yourself. If you can understand the narratives you hear on you
may gain the skills to understand your immediate circumstances.

tl;dr Critical thinking is good for you!

~~~
thorum
Reading the news is an exercise in critical thinking, but is it a better one
than reading books? If you want to practice distilling a narrative from
various sources, why not read several different books about history or science
or philosophy instead?

~~~
frozenport
This is a hard question and in my initial post I wanted to write a paragraph
rant about it.

I think there is a case for the similarity between the slow stream of aleatory
snippets that characterize the websites like the New York Times and the way we
receive information concerning our everyday lives. The way we get information
in our lives is certainly granular, contains much noise, and is primarily
observation. Novels are not granular with little noise. Philosophy is
explanation and we may miss out on the initial gather steps. Although it would
be fun to phrase this a testable hypothesis.

I think its a different kind of critical thinking.

------
Vivtek
"Not about me." Richly ironic, that.

But he was right. I feel much better about life when I don't read the news -
and I'm typically far more productive during those periods when I manage to
abstain.

------
rdl
I think it's important to look at some events as they unfold, vs. in
retrospect, even if only to train yourself.

Pick a historical event (say, the assassination which kicked off WW1). Read
news in chronological order, as it came out. See how different things seem at
any point in time vs. how they look retrospectively a century later.

------
JacksonGariety
Wow, great find. Thank you for sharing. This is why I love Hacker News, one of
the best things on the front page right now! Something that takes me outside
my comfort zone and makes me think. These past two days have been some of
Hacker News' best.

~~~
Centigonal
Are you being satirical?

~~~
reinhardt
Most likely, and I share the sentiment. I wouldn't mind having, say, the first
thread on this story pinned for a week as the top post to let everyone grieve,
protest, vent, ramble and whatnot. Filling up the HN front page for two days
in a row though is just too much though and may lead to desensitization.

------
ilanco
I live in Israel, where if you start your day by reading the news, you will
fall into a depression that, if lucky, will last until you fall asleep.

~~~
alan_cx
I live in the UK and feel the same way, except now I feel a bit guilty about
it...

------
louwrentius
I haven't watched television for like 10 years now and I only spend time on
news sites. But recently I realised how much time I just waste on the news
instead and how little I gain.

I could have learned more about python or read a good book about an important
subject. News is like junkfood for the mind. Very short topics that are not
relevant to my life.

Sometimes I read articles about rape or other injustice and those topics just
infuriate me, but I'm totally powerless. News exhaust me.

It has no value for me whatsoever. I can't recall that I ever made any
important decision based on it.

This article is so true. When journalist write about a topic you know a lot
about, there are often so many errors, that you wonder how many errors there
are in topics you don't know about.

If you read the news as a hobby, sure, be my guest. But that's something else.

------
dredmorbius

        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).

------
HSO
related, possibly of interest:

[1] R. Dobelli. Avoid News. Aug 2010. --> [http://dobelli.com/wp-
content/uploads/2010/08/Avoid_News_Par...](http://dobelli.com/wp-
content/uploads/2010/08/Avoid_News_Part1_TEXT.pdf)

[2] C. A. Johnson. The Information Diet: A Case for Conscious Consumption.
O’Reilly, 2012.

i myself am conflicted about the news. i agree with most of the negative
points both by OP and the above; but i also feel i actually do learn something
from the news, esp. as i have a relatively organized note-taking system, file
and reference articles above a certain threshold of interest in bibdesk, etc.

i think the reason i learn something is that i take the 5 secs to take a
screenshot or copy-paste the relevant snippets of information in my system.
over time, you can see interesting patterns. sometimes, i run across a
reference to some other, deeper source of information (presumably the
background material the high-level news article was based on), and file a to-
do to check it out in my task manager. usually i wouldn't have thought of this
source or reference if i hadn't seen it cited in the news. last but not least,
just scanning the headlines and summaries can give you a sense of what the
hivemind of "the market" (or "the public") is preoccupied with at the moment.

so, at least to me, it's not all bad and yet i agree that it often feels like
a waste of time and mental energy. i haven't figured out a solution yet but
completely quitting the news is not going to cut it for me.

~~~
dorian-graph
You're different though to the majority of people. It seems as if Aaron was
making a case more so for the bland, mass news spewed out through the TV about
wild stories and dirty things.

------
chernevik
"There is voting, of course, but to become an informed voter all one needs to
do is read a short guide about the candidates and issues before the election."

For one thing this places enormous trust in the guide-writers. For another it
enormously oversimplifies the topics on which the guides would touch.

~~~
waqf
And yet what alternative is there? If you follow the news you're placing the
same trust in journalists.

To become a _truly_ informed voter, not relying on others' summary
explanations, would be more than a full-time career.

~~~
pyre
How about people that are like-minded band together and dedicate one person to
research all of the issues and present them, or an issue per person (or
something else)?

~~~
dagw
_people that are like-minded band together and dedicate one person to research
all of the issues and present them_

That sounds a lot like what FOX News does actually.

~~~
pyre
I'm talking about smaller groups of people that you know you can trust to
present the issues with little bias / in a fair way. The scale of FOX News is
obviously beyond that. I'm literally talking about groups of maybe 10-20
people. It allows you to all be more informed as a group, while sharing the
workload of doing all the information gathering/compilation.

------
schneitj
I found this paper by Rolf Dobelli to be very insightful. It was a TED talk a
long time ago, back when that meant a little more.

[http://dobelli.com/wp-
content/uploads/2010/08/Avoid_News_Par...](http://dobelli.com/wp-
content/uploads/2010/08/Avoid_News_Part1_TEXT.pdf)

------
chill1
"[The news'] obsession with the criminal and the deviant makes us less
trusting people. Its obsession with the hurry of the day-to-day makes us less
reflective thinkers. Its obsession with surfaces makes us shallow."

------
mark-r
A little OT, but seeing his posts end with "You should follow me on twitter
here" makes me very sad. It's a constant reminder of what we'll miss.

------
billboebel
I gave up main stream news 4 years ago and I pretty much only read tech news.
However, I find that important news still bubble up to me quickly through
other channels such as word of mouth and through the tech news feeds. And I
find that none of my time is wasted by worthless news, such as partison
bickering, the latest traffic accident on I-35 or celebrity gossip. You should
try it.

------
askimto
Felt the same way this morning when I caught a few minutes of This Week,
covering the next "fiscal cliff", the lack of women in Obama's cabinet, and so
on. What a waste of time.

------
propercoil
I don't read news anymore (two years now), only watch tech shows in my
"niche".

But some say perception is reality, so maybe it's smart to be in the know from
time to time.

------
DennisP
Years ago I saw Ray Bradbury give a talk at our city library, and he spent
some of his time saying the same thing.

------
cinbun8
It is ironic that 'news' of his death has attracted attention to this article.

~~~
contingencies
I wonder if Aaron would still agree that, in spending time reading coverage of
this, we have not really changed our opinions or learned anything relevant to
our lives? He sounds like a pragmatist, and I think he would.

Personally, as devil's advocate, reading the reports of yet another
intelligent young person being pressured and victimized by the sickly allied
commercial/government capitalist establishment (of _their own country_ ), it
redoubles my stance that current era government lacks any honest sense of
democracy; we desperately need to claw back the power of nations (and
business) against the individual. (Assange is in some senses leading the
charge here, and doing a good job!)

My point though is that sometimes news helps contribute to general impressions
like this. I think that can be as valuable as the concrete relevant new life-
actionable information that Aaron points out correctly is usually missing from
news.

In short I agree with Aaron, but there are counter-points. (I haven't
watched/read news regularly since pretty much ever... but consider myself
reasonably informed on the issues behind the issues, ie. structure of
government, general state of society in different parts of the world, methods
of oppression. But that knowledge comes from the hacking community and travel
(eg. Tunisia during revolution, many years living in China, some time in
US&UK, Europe, most of Asia, etc.) not from mainstream news.)

Does anyone here still read news on a daily basis? If so, why?

------
edwardunknown
The problem with this theory is that when a person who follows the news hears
a few minutes of Rush Limbaugh or reads something from naturalnews.com they
realize pretty quickly that it's bullshit.

The people who fall for that stuff always seem to be uninformed about current
events or get it only from warped sources. You can extrapolate that to nazis
or communism or wherever but the bottom line is an uninformed populace is easy
pickings for ambitious bad guys.

~~~
VigUi7vv8G2
The problem, though, is that Fox news actually backs up the kind of stuff
Limbaugh says. So people can "watch the news" and still see their worldview
validated.

