Then maybe we're thinking about different versions of what the news is. Telling people to shut off the news is destructive because the news is not all indoctrination and entertainment. I'm not an idiot. I know what the news is in that sense. But when you put out a broad call to shut it all off that means shutting out the good stuff too. The better solution I'm talking about is knowing how to tell the difference. If you can do that and be informed with the news that's worth consuming that infinitely better than tuning out completely which is what Joel calls for. Maybe he didn't mean it like that but when you have an audience that large you have to assume most of the audience will take it as its written which, if they do, will lead them down an ignorant anti-intellectual path. We don't need anymore anti-intellectuals in this world (especially in the US where it's recently become cool to be an idiot and somehow being elite is a bad thing).
Your concerns seem well-intentioned but they miss the point of the post. The knuckle-draggers you worry about aren't searching out blog posts looking for reasons to stop participating. The fact of the matter is that it has been shown that people who watch TV news know less (or more false things) than those who do.
