
Ignore the news - jongold
https://medium.com/i-m-h-o/297e47e6f78b
======
danso
As a former newspaper person, I'm inclined to say "But oh, knowing current
events is our civic duty"...and it _is_....but consuming journalism isn't the
same as consuming news, and reading a lengthy in depth story about an event
that happened last month or last year or even the last decade is likely more
helpful than staying abreast of the 24 hour news cycle.

This has been said before, but I'd also argue that the constant news cycle is
just harmful, period. The most recent manifestation of this for me was the
Boston Bombings...it was a terrible event, but not being in Boston, there was
literally no benefit I could gain from listening to the minute by minute
coverage. But I did it anyway, even checking it late in the night and early in
the morning. When that situation was resolved...all those accumulated hours of
listening didn't mean a thing. News shouldn't be consumed like a TV series, in
which the point _is_ the journey, rather than the conclusion.

I think it's better to think of the breaking news phenomenon in psychological
terms, rather than content. It's not that you're necessarily obsessed with
shootings, bombings, and celeb drug rehab, but that the constant stream of
dilemma and reward (when a new turn unfolds) must have a similar effect to
other endorphin-releasing habits.

And while I'm just throwing pop psychology out there...it is indisputable that
the news covers the novel and unlikely, that's why it is "news". Consuming too
much of it will distort your reality and perception of what's "normal". After
doing cops reporting, I couldn't help but feel extra paranoid when walking
certain streets when off the job..."This is where people get shot" is an
entirely irrational way to judge a neighborhood, but it won't seem irrational
if that's your primary or first acquaintance with the area.

~~~
regal
"all those accumulated hours of listening didn't mean a thing."

This is exactly it.

I had an 8-hour a day office job with about 10 minutes of actual work a day
for a couple of years (so a whole heck of a lot of time to kill), and
frequently spent hours every day reading the news. One day I asked myself,
"What have I learned?"

I couldn't come up with anything.

After that, I quit reading the news and started reading classics like "The
Prince" and "The Brothers Grimm" and "The Grapes of Wrath." Much better use of
free time than reading the same rehashed stories of shootings and stabbings
and rapes and murders and robberies and earthquakes and bombings and shark
attacks over and over again with only slightly different details.

~~~
throwmeaway141
_I had an 8-hour a day office job with about 10 minutes of actual work a day
for a couple of years_

I know this isn't really relevant to the main topic under discussion, but
_thank you so much_ for posting this. I thought I was the only one in the
world. I work eight hours a day and I have between 10-30 minutes of real work
to do each day, mainly fairly dull administrative stuff and answering the
occasional email.

I'm not underperforming, I do everything that's asked of me and plenty more
besides, but there's just not enough for me to do. I can't even surf job sites
or anything, to find something a bit more stimulating, because my screen is
overlooked by colleagues. The workplace is poorly organised and unstructured -
there are no performance reviews, no targets, nothing.

I end up spending most of the day reading HN in my browser (because it's a
'safe' text based site that I can read without it being eye-catching to
colleagues/the boss) and other sites in elinks in a terminal (to prevent
images, huge fonts, etc). I also listen to a lot of speech radio, because
that's invisible and still stimulating.

I don't know why I really wrote this comment, but I just wanted to say how
appreciative I am that I know I'm not the only one. It's been 18 months now...

(Throwaway because my real account is under my real name.)

~~~
venus
You know what, I had a job like that for a while. It's called being a sysadmin
at a medium size company, because after a while, if you're competent, you
basically automate yourself out of any regular work. Every now and again would
be something irregular - an urgent update, hardware failure, X or Y, but the
vast majority of the time there was nothing to do at all.

For the first year or two it seems cool to be paid to do nothing but after a
while I realised I was literally idling away my life, so I switched to
actually building things instead.

~~~
throwmeaway141
This could also be my story - when I started here, things were set up so
inefficiently that it was a full time job. Now, I've scripted and automated
most stuff so it just happens, and all I have to do is check that it's
happened, and fix it if it hasn't.

Sometimes I consider breaking things, just so I've got something to do to fix
them...

------
rlpb
"I tell people that if it's in the news, don't worry about it. The very
definition of "news" is "something that hardly ever happens." It's when
something isn't in the news, when it's so common that it's no longer news --
car crashes, domestic violence -- that you should start worrying." --Bruce
Schneier [<http://www.schneier.com/essay-171.html>]

------
jacquesm
I'll settle for an 'ignore medium.com' button.

~~~
stfu
What's the deal with all the medium.com spam recently? I sometimes feel like
they are thinking each morning "with what made up bs headline can we bait HN
users today".

~~~
millerm
Exactly! What is this? The front page is loaded with medium.com.

------
jgrahamc
_There are lots of new ways of filtering and understanding the news emerging
so that you don’t have to suffer the constant barrage, and yet still be
informed enough to be able to understand._

You don't need technology to do that.

You can just stay informed by buying a high quality newspaper or news magazine
and read that. For example, (personal choices ahead), you could read The
Economist once per week. Or, since he appears to be in the UK, you could have
a quality daily paper (e.g. Daily Telegraph weekdays and the Observer on
Sundays).

~~~
corin_
On the subject of your personal choices: why the Telegraph/Observer
combination, when both papers have more similar sister publications to cover
the other days? I would imagine than Daily Telegraph + Sunday Telegraph or
Guardian + Observer are much more common combinations.

~~~
jgrahamc
It brings some semblance of balance given the different politics of the papers
and I prefer the Observer's 'weekend' coverage (e.g. things like their
coverage of arts, travel, ...)

The Telegraph is pretty conservative and the Observer fairly liberal. The two
views are interesting. I don't think I could take The Guardian every day. And
given that I also have Le Monde as well that's plenty of centre-left stuff.

~~~
corin_
Fair enough - I just don't think I've previously come across breaking down
like that over the week, most people I know who want multiple points of view
do so on a daily basis.

Do you read Le Monde because of its language or would you still read it if it
were in English?

~~~
jgrahamc
I speak French and one of the ways I learnt the language was to read Le Monde.
When I moved to France I got a subscription and read at least part of it every
day. I still read some of it regularly, but I don't get it every day any more.
The downside of Le Monde is that it reports pretty deeply about French
politics (which is either your thing or it isn't).

One other thing about the Telegraph on a daily basis that's important to some
people: the crossword.

------
DanielBMarkham
I like all of this except for "Watch satirical shows that poke fun at the
news, and get the gist about what’s going on in the process."

Absolutely not. All you're doing is trading one form of emotional manipulation
for another.

I understand what's going on by 1) scanning written commentary. Oddly enough,
when the emotional manipulation is out in the open, it has much less effect,
and 2) watching CNN's "Reliable Sources", a somewhat unreliable account of the
business of news reporting. The meta story -- what editors and reporters
decide to cover and why -- gives me the big news stories _and_ the way they
were slanted on different outlets.

Don't substitute comedy for this 24-hour-news mishmash. Bad. Idea. Comedy is
always about biting satire and conformity, many times directed at large groups
of people. All you're going to learn is how to fit in with some kind of group
the comedian is a member of, and we need a lot less of us vs. them in the
world.

------
mathattack
Quoting Taleb (<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Nassim_Nicholas_Taleb>)

"To be completely cured of newspapers, spend a year reading the previous
week’s newspapers."

Of course this assumes that you're not in the business of knowing what other
people know. If it's important being in the zeitgeist than you have to keep
track of the drivel. This is one downside of working in Sales. :-)

------
pyvek
Aaron's words on the same topic - <http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews>

------
juskrey
I think we will have this kind of epiphany on a front page every time someone
turns 30.

------
fallingbadgers
I remember laughing at the story about the judge who asked "Who are the
Beatles?". Now I find them a very wise person indeed :)

~~~
mgkimsal
link? If he'd said this in 1964, yeah, it might make sense. Otherwise,
probably not so much.

Ahh: [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1340891/Judge-
James-...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1340891/Judge-James-
Pickles-said-didnt-know-The-Beatles-dies-aged-85.html)

Doesn't say when he said it though.

~~~
corin_
One journalist in 2007 wrote _"'Who are the Beatles?' is the most famous such
question. I'm sure it was never asked. I have spent an inordinate proportion
of my journalistic life trying to trace it. I've searched newspaper archives
and, over the years, asked literally hundreds of lawyers active during the 60s
if they could point to a judge who said those words."_
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/may/21/uk.law>

It seems that if James Pickles did ask that question, it was probably later
than that, since he was a judge from 1975 to 1991 (and that Daily Mail obit.
says "From the mid-1980s onwards, he became a household name for his colourful
opinions and remarks").

Interesting side-notes that his sister was the actress playing the mother of
Ross and Monica on Friends, and he seemed to have a rather modern view on
drugs: _"Cannabis never killed anybody and it's use is widespread. You can’t
stop it. The law defeats itself because all the efforts to stop drugs coming
in only drives up the prices and then gangsters move in to push the drugs. If
they legalised there wouldn't be gangsters and huge profits..."_

------
slacka
Growing up the muppets came on at the same time as evening news. The muppets
always lost. After the news, my parents would answer our questions and then
start debating some some relevant topic. As I got older, I'd participate more
in this process. As a result, I have an intellectual curiosity for world news
and strong critical thinking skills. Something kids today could use more of
not less.

Also, by choosing to get his news from Twitter over let's say NPR, this idiot
is choosing to be misinformed. Of all the hoax or inaccurate stories that I've
come across this year, Twitter take the crown followed by news aggregators and
email. The only false NPR story I can think of was the TAL retraction of the
story on work conditions in Apple factories. According to my twitter last week
"NASA disproved global warming"

~~~
icebraining
_I have an intellectual curiosity for world news and strong critical thinking
skills._

And apparently, a penchant for throwing around insults.

 _choosing to get his news from Twitter over let's say NPR_

<https://twitter.com/nprnews>

 _Of all the hoax or inaccurate stories that I've come across this year,
Twitter take the crown followed by news aggregators and email._

Twitter is just an aggregation technology. If you get inaccurate stories, it's
due to your own choices of sources.

~~~
slacka
Cute, except the article stated he was getting them from "people" NOT news
outlets.

Sorry if my insults offended you, but this article was link bait trash
designed to make the misinformed, filter-bubbled, over-protective moms feel
better about themselves. I call it how I see it.

~~~
icebraining
_Cute, except the article stated he was getting them from "people" NOT news
outlets._

"People" (usually) don't create news, they filter them from other sources,
such as news outlets. Some republish crap, others distort those news when
tweeting them, others mostly just filter the irrelevant and republish the
useful.

Getting crap is a consequence of your own choices, not of the underlying
technology.

 _Sorry if my insults offended you, but this article was link bait trash
designed to make the misinformed, filter-bubbled, over-protective moms feel
better about themselves. I call it how I see it._

<http://xkcd.com/386/>

------
johnpowell
Well, ignoring the news seems like a bad idea since it makes you totally
uninformed. For me I just started reading the news instead of hearing or
watching it. CNN spends 72 hours on a tornado when I can learn all I really
need in a few hundred words.

~~~
Evgeny
How exactly does being informed about the tornado improve your life, unless
you live in the area which may be affected?

------
lovskogen
I've been doing this for a long while. I don't see any value in the typical
"daily news". Instead I read books, or articles from a selection of sites. And
of course HN. Daily news is a waste of time.

~~~
kmfrk
Hacker News doesn't fall under "daily news"?

~~~
lovskogen
Well, some might be daily. But I separate between daily mainstream news and
job professional articles. I only read the latter.

------
nos4A2
I completely agree with the sentiment, and I further extended it to
aggregators (reddit and HN). However my solution to the problem was quantizing
the content into regular planned intervals. For example I use LeechBlock for
reddit and HN, which allow me to access it for 1 hour a day, and I read 2-3
good weekly periodicals to keep in touch with non-tech news (economist). This
broke my "refresh every 5 minutes to find something new" habit and greatly
enhanced self contemplation over what I consume.

------
conanbatt
I also dislike reading the news. I picked up this habit 2 months ago and i
feel it wastes so much time.

However its not 100% waste. At least here in Argentina, what I read on the
newspaper have direct consequences on economic decisions in the every-day
life. Literally, from going to the super market, to spending with your credit-
card to buying illegal currency.

On the other hand, Argentina is going through the middle of a political-
economical crisis so the news become a very relevant termometer.

------
buster
Sounds like a good plan. People nowadays are far too exposed to media
everywhere. News is 99% indoctrination or just flat out crap filling the hole
between new horror-stories. Social media has even lower quality except for a
few select sources. But the signal-to-noise ratio in social networks is low
enough that it's only a waste of time (just like TV).

Now, that doesn't mean i did what the author did. Respect for that, i'm a
little envious of him.

------
pinaceae
and this is how you build the perfect bubble around you.

ignore the news is the new oh we don't own a tv. or oh i don't listen to
"popular" music.

~~~
figbucket
Everyone already has a bubble around them. The difference is whether you
consciously choose to let information/ideas/people/news in or not.

Making the conscious choice to filter to your preferrences is important and
liberating because it enables you more control over the kind of life you want
to live.

~~~
pinaceae
i question the placement of the filter.

by filtering at the source, you will never be exposed to something outside
your bubble. the NYT front page (as an example) is great as it covers such a
wide array of topics, just browsing over them gives you the chance to learn
something new.

if your current interests and beliefs act as filters, then how will you ever
develop new ones?

or, coming down to the core topic of this site, how will you know how your
audience/target group/customers tick if you never see the world through their
eyes? look at all the nerd-startups solving nerd problems (asana?...) - and
how frustrated they all get by the success of tumblr, instagram, etc.

good retail CEOs watch fox news and read the ny post (or equivalents) to get a
feel for their customers world.

~~~
figbucket
You're right however part of the freedom comes from choosing where your bubble
ends. Consciously choosing where you filter what you allow into your bubble be
it NYT front page or fox news etcetera.

>if your current interests and beliefs act as filters, then how will you ever
develop new ones?

This partly comes down to being another personal choice and also consider that
many things are linked in a way that enables you to develop new interests and
beliefs.

One example of this is Wikipedia. Starting from pretty much any point of
interest, you can find a great depth of chain linked resources to information
you can choose to read and allow influence your interests and beliefs

>or, coming down to the core topic of this site, how will you know your
audience... ?

Best to start by building what you know however I realise that's unrealistic.
After that you just accept that you can't filter everything because somethings
you want in your bubble have baggage. "Every rose has its thorne" as the
saying goes.

------
bpatrianakos
I hope we all start to move past this phase. Is it really worth the energy of
starting and maintaining a "news diet" when you already know what's wrong with
news? I went through a phase where I thought no news would be good for me.
Then I grew out of it. I realized that if a person understands what's wrong
with news they're really not the ones who need to abstain. It's everyone who
hasn't realized it yet.

I read a lot about this "no news/news is bad for you" meme going around the
past few years and I have to admit it's getting a little lame. How about just
taking the news for what it is and take in what you want and leave the rest.
Am I odd in that I don't have any emotional reaction when I hear of a rape,
murder, or most other tragedies on the news? I was in Europe during the
Oklahoma tornadoes and when I heard about it on the news when I came back I
thought "hmm, so this is the new big story for the next week" before falling
asleep. It's not that I don't care, but I also kind of don't care.

------
contingencies
Never had the habit in the first place.

~~~
joosters
What's worse? Wasting your time by consuming the news, or posting pointless
comments on it?

~~~
contingencies
Sometimes, as a minority, it's important to affirm your presence.

