
You Don't Need News - Icyphox
https://icyphox.sh/blog/dont-news/
======
latexr
> As an example, to readers living outside of the US, news regarding police
> brutality & the Black Lives Matter movement are unactionable.

This is a spectacularly wrong example. Dozens of countries in every continent
but Antarctica[1] are holding support protests of their own.

While I agree with the larger point that the way most people consume news—and
the way they are fed to us—is problematic, the author’s tone felt almost
insulting. I recommend Aaron Swartz’s take on the subject instead.[2]

[1]: [https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/map-george-floyd-
protests...](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/map-george-floyd-protests-
countries-worldwide-n1228391)

[2]:
[http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews](http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews)

------
ajsharp
> News today is literally just this: “<big name person> did/said <dumb
> thing>!”, “<group> protests against <bad thing>!”, and so on.

> News is entertainment. Quick gratification that lasts a day, at max.

I would say an important qualifier here is that _most_ news is entertainment,
but the very long-tail of what we might call news -- actual high-quality
journalism (investigative or not) -- is critically important.

I agree here that the majority of news media is infotainment. But there is an
important place for high-quality long-form journalism, which effectively
exists in society to do hard thinking and investigating that's basically
impossible without the resources, infrastructure and support of a news
organization.

Yes, "news" is trash, and some "journalism" is too, but the very long-tail,
the 1% of the really high-quality stuff, is critically important, and a free
and open society probably collapses without it.

------
GaryNumanVevo
News is designed to make you fatigued. OP is suggesting that we succumb to the
fatigue and stop reading it. The SNR on good news is very small, but massively
important. Even if the news is “non-actionable” it’s important to inform
oneself.

