Orlando - what you and Todd and so many others feel is totally understandable. And you ask an excellent and really important question.
Here's my response (for what it's worth) - I'm pushing 60 and growing up in the S.F. Bay Area since the early 70s, I've seen and been through some sh*t: the Patty Hearst kidnapping and subsequent Stockholm Syndrome Terrorism; back-to-back - Jonestown AND the Milk/Moscone assassination (and subsequent rightful fury and horror at the Dan White verdict); assassination attempts on Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan; the assassination of John Lennon - and so on, and so on, and so on (I won't bore you any further with the entire list).
Things often seemed equally confusing, infuriating, terrifying, and dark (if not more so - we're far more inured to strange new sh*t these days than back then) . . . the difference is that it also wasn't raining down on you via the internet and/or social media - which is essentially "push" technology - like an information highway mudslide. You could "pull" down the news and information at a rate which worked best for your needs and ability to process the resulting feelings.
So that is how I deal with the current challenging times we continue to find ourselves in. I have sharply throttled back my Facebook; I quit Twitter cold turkey when Bond-villain-in-training, Elon Musk took it over; I eschew TikTok, Snapchat and pretty much all other social media platforms. Even when I am on Facebook - it's really only to catch up with the people in my life whom I already know and care about. I just can't go down the rabbit hole of doomscrolling any more.
BUT - I also am pleased to be a paid online subscriber to the NYT, Washington Post, The Atlantic, New York Magazine, and our local little paper up here in the Sierra foothills . . . because you're EXACTLY correct in that it's not just important, but CRUCIAL that we stay informed - and informed by experts (not by BS heresay and rumor-mongering on the socials).
I just pull down the news/information at a rate which allows me to take it in, process it, then formulate a response (vs. a kneejerk REACTION) and/or action plan. I find that this enables and empowers me to be in some semblance of control over this and not feel like this news onslaught is controlling me - AND I'm still getting vital information.
But, this may not meet everyone's individual needs and ability to absorb/process. IMMV and you gotta find what works for you . . . I just hope that smart, capable, caring people like Todd and yourself are able to at least tiptoe back into the fold of news recipients (if not junkies).
I think sometimes it’s easy to equate “feeling bad” with “doing something.” Reading about all the bad shit that’s happening and being upset about it feels virtuous, in the same way that telling everybody about your big plan to do X makes you feel prematurely accomplished. But if you’re not actually doing anything with that information, it just kind of turns into misery for misery’s sake, with a side helping of guilt that you’re not doing anything or helplessness because you don’t know what to do.
The news is so unrelentingly terrible right now that I think a lot of people have decided to hop off the misery train. It’s hard to know what to do—we can all go to city council meetings, but that’s not going to re-legalize abortion in Texas. I think it’s okay to evaluate your resources (material, emotional, or otherwise) and decide whether you’re able to take some kind of action or not. If you’re not, it’s okay to take a break from everything. Just find a progressive group whose ideals align with yours and follow their voting guide every election.
I similarly don't have capacity to read the national / global news, I can relate to so many of the points you made. Instead, I've been more involved locally in my neighborhood & the city by volunteering at uplifting community events, supporting my local news sources and independent opinions who I value (like yours!). Being around others who are engaged in the community in a positive way has really boosted my attitude and reminded me that it's not all doom & gloom & we can make an impact on our local community.
RE your not interested in dating post - me either, but maybe I'll have a meet cute during a volunteer shift haha ;)
Thank you for writing about this. My next door neighbors are WaPo journalists who were just laid off... the old model is so unworkable in the modern economy that I don’t know how ethical journalism and a truly free press can even exist moving forward. It’s scary.
These days I engage with the news with the sole specific goal of mobilizing myself and my friends/family to call the White House / Congress and go to protests. Every time I start to get tired, I think about my tiredness relative to the suffering of injured/dead children dismembered by American weapons on my newsfeed and I suck it up and call my reps. Again and again, week after week.
This is a big topic and there is a lot that is at play here. But I think at the macro level, capitalism incentives the degradation of our news media. The publications you listed are publicly traded companies (except NPR) meaning they are also primarily driven by revenues. Meaning their primary objective is to drive shareholder growth, not to deliver balanced news coverage. I think that is dangerous to our democracy, and personally it undermines my trust in what is being presented to me on those platforms. I often wonder if there are ulterior motives. I don’t think the issue is our Millennial unwillingness to pay for news, I think there is a growing distrust in traditional media outlets in general. Coinciding with the proliferation of other social media based sources, fake news etc. I agree news is important. I agree it’s in trouble.
Also - there are a lot of small independent journalistic publications (not ad backed, not social media influencers) who are putting out an incredibly high standard of news right now on smaller / different platforms (including this one). I have been listening to and reading those almost exclusively in the last 6 months, and it has been refreshing and informative. It’s hard to know where and how to find those and sort out the good from the bad, and overall they give me hope that there is the possibility for a renaissance of news.
I have the same questions! I pay for multiple news subscriptions (go journalism!!), but I do often find myself reading arts and books coverage in those publications. One way I try to strike the balance of being informed but also trying to limit the doomsday emotional response is to subscribe to several topical newsletters from my trusted news sources, and then read them at my own pace. For example, the WA Post has a Fact Checker newsletter that they send out on Fridays that fact-checks EVERYONE.
tw: mention of 🔫 Just pick one horrendous thing and go with it. Trust that others are taking care of the other horrendous things. Dropping out entirely is what Blackrock, tRump, gun lobbyists and anti Roe people etc are counting on to ruin any democracy that's left. Do what you can when you can. Everybody is going through heartbreak about something don't get me started. It doesn't have to be everyday or that much. Today I commented on someone's ig reel about guns naming a gun lobbying group and the name of who heads it so hopefully in time with more comments and people seeing and repeating the comments they can be household names and hounded forever. I want to donate a small amount of money to a guy who makes websites ridiculing gun manufacturers. Tomorrow I might do nothing who knows? I might pick something else or take the day off. I've learned it's better to go day by day even though at times that's so difficult to do.
Great piece. I have a number of paid news subscriptions because we think it's important to support real journalism but yes, we totally get news fatigue (reading abour real estate prices in Sydney is not good for the soul). I want to be informed but also feel like - what's the point? I can't do anything to stop Putin (or whoever). So some days I just turn up my 2000s dance music playlist and block it all out. So, no answers, but I share your struggle. That NYT article was gold! In other news, while the 3 year renovation of our guest house is done and it's doing well as a short term rental, the bathrooms in the main house have collapsed and we are back in the expensive slog of renovation again. I know you know!
I agree on paying for quality news which is what I am also moving toward. I also think, we weren't necessarily meant to hear and digest ALL the news ALL the time from ALL the world. SO, I try to think about what the important topics to me are, what I need to be informed about to stay safe and a good human and try to block out some of the rest and not feel too bad about it
I also stopped reading the NYT daily a couple of years ago. I started wanting less and less after the 2016 election because every headline was just fucking depressing. A daily reminder that millions of people support a criminal twat to lead our country. A daily reminder that my bodily autonomy was at risk. A daily reminder of hate and division.
I felt guilty about this for quite awhile. I tried to cancel our NYT subscription and my husband wouldn’t hear of it. I often listen to The Daily instead of opening the NYT.
It’s just really hard to balance real life shit then open the news to another mass shooting. It’s hard to stay informed without feeling emotional about the information.
Another great post, thank you for taking the time to put it out there. I agree with all of it, and there are good reasons not to pay attention and absorb what's happening. It is one shock to the system after another. I am not wired for this level of coarseness and bombast. I remember when Trump took the 2016 election every woman I know cried because they knew this was a slippery slope. And when Biden won soooo many of my friends stopped having daily anxiety attacks and tried to return to somewhat normal life, not having to be vigilant witness to a daily barrage of "omg"...but somehow we're back to that. I too was sad to see Alexi Navalny passed; I couldn't believe he made it this far confronting so much malevolence. Brave soul. My chiropractor friend always reminds me that instability is required for change. It's both reassuring and stressful, because we don't always get to choose the change that occurs. There's a great interview of Rachel Maddow about a recent book she wrote on authoritarian movements (and there are many happening now across the world) and her suggestion was to prepare ourselves for the chaos of 2024 and whatever comes next by literally getting out into the community and knowing our neighbors, starting a conversation with our neighbors that doesn't involve politics or current events. She says when you have connections to the people around you, it's much easier for everyone to consider their neighbors in their general response to what happens and to find/give support where we might not otherwise expect it to occur. I suspect you may be too young to remember the 70s when it was considered impolite to bring up politics and religion in mixed company - which may in some part be how we got here, but there is something missing in civic life and clearly we have an opportunity to shift things in a better direction. Without going too much into politics, the GOP is by the numbers a minority (36m voters), Democrats (49m), Independent (35m) and other is 4m, and if you listen to the news regardless of source you'd clearly be getting the idea somehow that there is some equal share or even the opposite number of people who perceive current events through one lens or another, and that is a fiction. The fact-based reality has been replaced by terminal speculation instead of information, and it can make your head spin trying to make sense of what you so aptly call nonsensical. I stopped reading the NYT in college because I found stories of import getting buried on p.43 even then. I think the decimation of public funding both for the arts and PBS is a problem. Everyone used to have equal access to the same set of information, and I think because we don't people are confused and the sorting feels like a big lift on so many days. My answer for that is skimming posts of well informed friends, and I look at Heather Cox Richardson's substack, because she sifts through the news and while some of it is rhetorical or historical, she at least does the pre-sorting and delivers on "this is what actually happened today". It's helped me keep the energy investment down so I don't come unglued, but at least am informed of events of consequence.
I also appreciate the anarchy comment because nobody in public life has really put that flag down, and I think that's what we are seeing, anarchy and confusion. That British saying "keep calm and carry on" comes to mind, and maybe the answer to having crappy news is to make sure that we step out and invest in our relationships to family, friends, neighbors, the local charity/social/etc like you're doing. My friend was out walking recently in the conservative white bread suburb he is staying in for the winter, and came upon a drag night happening, by invitation, at a local pub. He's an old white mid-western guy, but told me about how he got to meet some of the performers and was thrilled to have a chance to talk to them and hear their stories about their art. If ever someone in his circle makes untoward comments he will feel completely comfortable sharing a first hand story and inviting them to have a different view. I think that's all we can do now, take the news with a grain of salt, skim for the facts and try to let go of the rest, and stay the course every day because both joy and anger are contagious, and your choice for joy is surely having a positive impact on everyone around you. :) Much gratitude!
From my point of view there are many answers to your question. I assume you are talking about Occidental people in their 30/40 more or less, and I think this is a spoiled generation.
We (I put myself in) had everything, a lot of toys, a lot of “yes my little princess/prince”, a lot of opportunity and a lot of rights we took for granted, and nothing to really fight for, so we didn’t need to train to fight through information, like our parents and grandparents had to do.
On the other side it is very true that we are not used to pay for what we get from the internet and we sort of grow up with this idea that everything here was for free and it is something difficult to eradicate, especially having a lot of independent intellectual and journalists that share their content for free through podcast, newsletters and especially social media. What is happening in Gaza right now is proofing that at this point, we can’t really trust the newspapers and magazine we have been reading all our life.
In my country (I’m Italian) they just don’t say the truth, they don’t say all the story, a few weeks ago the NYT published an article that turned out to be a big false, without verified sources.
And sorry but I disagree with you when you call it the Israel-Hamas war, because that is not what it is, that is how THEY call it and what THEY want us to think, that is not the truth. The truth is easily accessible on reporters pages on social media and books.
What is unacceptable from an adult generation is this thing of “I don’t want to know and I don’t want to see because is overwhelming”, come on kids, it’s time to grow up. Many news are hard to see and to accept, and we don’t need to know everything, but the world has never been Disneyland, and we have to know what is happening in our country to be able to fight for our rights and for what is important for us! At the same time we have to know what is happening overseas to be able to have an opinion. Really we can’t just SEE what other people is actually experiencing every single day? Till they are alive, of course…
So… there are many reason to decide to avoid paying the subscription to the BIG about information and news, but I’m not sure it is a mistake.
Of course is a big mistake to stop being informed, and even better if we do it through independents journalist and intellectuals, and pay them as they deserve, exactly like what we do here in Substack.
Thank you for starting this conversation! I think so, so many of us feel this way. I too, used to love to listen to NPR as almost like white noise while I bopped around my house. I have had to acknowledge that it has shifted as a comfort to a source of stress. Can you imagine what it is like to be a journalist or reporter these days? The journalist Amanda Ripley was recently on the Slate Political Gabfest talking about a piece she published called How to Survive in 2024: https://amandaripley.substack.com/p/how-to-survive-2024. It's worth reading and also the segment on the Gabfest made me weep but in that optimistic way, if you know what I mean. Here's the Gabfest episode (it's a later segment if you need to fast forward past the horrors): https://slate.com/podcasts/political-gabfest/2023/12/colorado-supreme-court-blocks-donald-trump-from-its-presidential-primary-ballot. I was weeping because we're all here struggling and in a weird way that is good news. Not that we're struggling but that we're all witnessing the horrors together. I trust us to collectively find a way through.
Anyway, it is sacred to witness the horrors. I genuinely believe that. But, I think we need to schedule little pockets of time to witness to protect ourselves so that we have the energy to be present for ourselves and the people around us. Beyond this I just regularly repeat this quote from Teddy Roosevelt to myself: “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are”.
Frankly, I think valuing "keeping up with the news" is more like the appearance of being a good citizen, not something that actually improves anyone's lives. I think people should consistently participate in voting, but you really don't have to ingest content designed to attract your attention (usually by playing to fear or outrage) on a regular basis to be an informed voter. Anything truly important will bubble up in conversation anyway and then you can go seek learning more if needed, or research before casting your vote. Do you remember what the headlines were 1 year ago today? 2 years ago? 5 years ago? Most of what's printed doesn't pass the test of time on any measure of relevance. Most of us mostly remember how we generally feel, and the news overall has a strong incentive to make you feel bad.
Similarly, I think people should know they are their best advocates for their health, even if they don't have an MD. I've read there can be a 15+ year gap between research and practice, and simply identifying and trusting an expert may go poorly if you make a mistake in the expert or they speak confidently about something that's related but they don't actually have direct expertise in. See this cancer patient's experience of how many oncologists have missed things that would really improve his quality of life: https://jakeseliger.com/2024/01/03/who-cares-about-your-healthcare-whats-commonly-overlooked-in-the-health-care-system/
I agree that it's important to value seeking the truth, and knowing things that can be proved consistently, rather than only random feelings. But it doesn't follow that trusting credentials or institutions is the way to go, given how clearly those processes of selection are flawed.
Coincidentally, I listened to Yuval Noah Hariri on the Diary of a CEO podcast right before reading this newsletter. At the end he was asked if he could impose a global law, what would it be and why? Hariri answered that people should consume less information and spend more time digesting what they already know.
There is no informed/uninformed binary. There is constantly more information out there and everyone (whether ad-based or fee-based) is competing for our ears and eyeballs.
I get two newsletters: the 1440 daily digest (pretty dry) and the daily Skimm (think ‘news overview by Elle Woods’). Note that they both have a US perspective, so might not be as interesting to someone living outside the US.
Another good resource is Wikipedia’s Portal:Current events page, which is very condensed and gives an overview of worldwide events.
That Harari episode is worth a listen as is an episode he did on Rich Roll’s podcast a few years ago where he also spoke about our attention and information. Ezra Klein released an episode with Gloria Mark on attention last month too. Klein mentioned “your life is just the sum total of things you’ve paid attention to.”
I can not be more eloquent than the amazing @Emilyinyourphone on Instagram.- see her highlight called "hope" (she is an incredible follow too, super knowledgeable). To me it's all about balance, action and gratitude. Thanks for writing about this!
Orlando - what you and Todd and so many others feel is totally understandable. And you ask an excellent and really important question.
Here's my response (for what it's worth) - I'm pushing 60 and growing up in the S.F. Bay Area since the early 70s, I've seen and been through some sh*t: the Patty Hearst kidnapping and subsequent Stockholm Syndrome Terrorism; back-to-back - Jonestown AND the Milk/Moscone assassination (and subsequent rightful fury and horror at the Dan White verdict); assassination attempts on Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan; the assassination of John Lennon - and so on, and so on, and so on (I won't bore you any further with the entire list).
Things often seemed equally confusing, infuriating, terrifying, and dark (if not more so - we're far more inured to strange new sh*t these days than back then) . . . the difference is that it also wasn't raining down on you via the internet and/or social media - which is essentially "push" technology - like an information highway mudslide. You could "pull" down the news and information at a rate which worked best for your needs and ability to process the resulting feelings.
So that is how I deal with the current challenging times we continue to find ourselves in. I have sharply throttled back my Facebook; I quit Twitter cold turkey when Bond-villain-in-training, Elon Musk took it over; I eschew TikTok, Snapchat and pretty much all other social media platforms. Even when I am on Facebook - it's really only to catch up with the people in my life whom I already know and care about. I just can't go down the rabbit hole of doomscrolling any more.
BUT - I also am pleased to be a paid online subscriber to the NYT, Washington Post, The Atlantic, New York Magazine, and our local little paper up here in the Sierra foothills . . . because you're EXACTLY correct in that it's not just important, but CRUCIAL that we stay informed - and informed by experts (not by BS heresay and rumor-mongering on the socials).
I just pull down the news/information at a rate which allows me to take it in, process it, then formulate a response (vs. a kneejerk REACTION) and/or action plan. I find that this enables and empowers me to be in some semblance of control over this and not feel like this news onslaught is controlling me - AND I'm still getting vital information.
But, this may not meet everyone's individual needs and ability to absorb/process. IMMV and you gotta find what works for you . . . I just hope that smart, capable, caring people like Todd and yourself are able to at least tiptoe back into the fold of news recipients (if not junkies).
I think sometimes it’s easy to equate “feeling bad” with “doing something.” Reading about all the bad shit that’s happening and being upset about it feels virtuous, in the same way that telling everybody about your big plan to do X makes you feel prematurely accomplished. But if you’re not actually doing anything with that information, it just kind of turns into misery for misery’s sake, with a side helping of guilt that you’re not doing anything or helplessness because you don’t know what to do.
The news is so unrelentingly terrible right now that I think a lot of people have decided to hop off the misery train. It’s hard to know what to do—we can all go to city council meetings, but that’s not going to re-legalize abortion in Texas. I think it’s okay to evaluate your resources (material, emotional, or otherwise) and decide whether you’re able to take some kind of action or not. If you’re not, it’s okay to take a break from everything. Just find a progressive group whose ideals align with yours and follow their voting guide every election.
I similarly don't have capacity to read the national / global news, I can relate to so many of the points you made. Instead, I've been more involved locally in my neighborhood & the city by volunteering at uplifting community events, supporting my local news sources and independent opinions who I value (like yours!). Being around others who are engaged in the community in a positive way has really boosted my attitude and reminded me that it's not all doom & gloom & we can make an impact on our local community.
RE your not interested in dating post - me either, but maybe I'll have a meet cute during a volunteer shift haha ;)
Thank you for writing about this. My next door neighbors are WaPo journalists who were just laid off... the old model is so unworkable in the modern economy that I don’t know how ethical journalism and a truly free press can even exist moving forward. It’s scary.
These days I engage with the news with the sole specific goal of mobilizing myself and my friends/family to call the White House / Congress and go to protests. Every time I start to get tired, I think about my tiredness relative to the suffering of injured/dead children dismembered by American weapons on my newsfeed and I suck it up and call my reps. Again and again, week after week.
This is a big topic and there is a lot that is at play here. But I think at the macro level, capitalism incentives the degradation of our news media. The publications you listed are publicly traded companies (except NPR) meaning they are also primarily driven by revenues. Meaning their primary objective is to drive shareholder growth, not to deliver balanced news coverage. I think that is dangerous to our democracy, and personally it undermines my trust in what is being presented to me on those platforms. I often wonder if there are ulterior motives. I don’t think the issue is our Millennial unwillingness to pay for news, I think there is a growing distrust in traditional media outlets in general. Coinciding with the proliferation of other social media based sources, fake news etc. I agree news is important. I agree it’s in trouble.
Also - there are a lot of small independent journalistic publications (not ad backed, not social media influencers) who are putting out an incredibly high standard of news right now on smaller / different platforms (including this one). I have been listening to and reading those almost exclusively in the last 6 months, and it has been refreshing and informative. It’s hard to know where and how to find those and sort out the good from the bad, and overall they give me hope that there is the possibility for a renaissance of news.
I have the same questions! I pay for multiple news subscriptions (go journalism!!), but I do often find myself reading arts and books coverage in those publications. One way I try to strike the balance of being informed but also trying to limit the doomsday emotional response is to subscribe to several topical newsletters from my trusted news sources, and then read them at my own pace. For example, the WA Post has a Fact Checker newsletter that they send out on Fridays that fact-checks EVERYONE.
tw: mention of 🔫 Just pick one horrendous thing and go with it. Trust that others are taking care of the other horrendous things. Dropping out entirely is what Blackrock, tRump, gun lobbyists and anti Roe people etc are counting on to ruin any democracy that's left. Do what you can when you can. Everybody is going through heartbreak about something don't get me started. It doesn't have to be everyday or that much. Today I commented on someone's ig reel about guns naming a gun lobbying group and the name of who heads it so hopefully in time with more comments and people seeing and repeating the comments they can be household names and hounded forever. I want to donate a small amount of money to a guy who makes websites ridiculing gun manufacturers. Tomorrow I might do nothing who knows? I might pick something else or take the day off. I've learned it's better to go day by day even though at times that's so difficult to do.
Great piece. I have a number of paid news subscriptions because we think it's important to support real journalism but yes, we totally get news fatigue (reading abour real estate prices in Sydney is not good for the soul). I want to be informed but also feel like - what's the point? I can't do anything to stop Putin (or whoever). So some days I just turn up my 2000s dance music playlist and block it all out. So, no answers, but I share your struggle. That NYT article was gold! In other news, while the 3 year renovation of our guest house is done and it's doing well as a short term rental, the bathrooms in the main house have collapsed and we are back in the expensive slog of renovation again. I know you know!
I agree on paying for quality news which is what I am also moving toward. I also think, we weren't necessarily meant to hear and digest ALL the news ALL the time from ALL the world. SO, I try to think about what the important topics to me are, what I need to be informed about to stay safe and a good human and try to block out some of the rest and not feel too bad about it
I also stopped reading the NYT daily a couple of years ago. I started wanting less and less after the 2016 election because every headline was just fucking depressing. A daily reminder that millions of people support a criminal twat to lead our country. A daily reminder that my bodily autonomy was at risk. A daily reminder of hate and division.
I felt guilty about this for quite awhile. I tried to cancel our NYT subscription and my husband wouldn’t hear of it. I often listen to The Daily instead of opening the NYT.
It’s just really hard to balance real life shit then open the news to another mass shooting. It’s hard to stay informed without feeling emotional about the information.
Another great post, thank you for taking the time to put it out there. I agree with all of it, and there are good reasons not to pay attention and absorb what's happening. It is one shock to the system after another. I am not wired for this level of coarseness and bombast. I remember when Trump took the 2016 election every woman I know cried because they knew this was a slippery slope. And when Biden won soooo many of my friends stopped having daily anxiety attacks and tried to return to somewhat normal life, not having to be vigilant witness to a daily barrage of "omg"...but somehow we're back to that. I too was sad to see Alexi Navalny passed; I couldn't believe he made it this far confronting so much malevolence. Brave soul. My chiropractor friend always reminds me that instability is required for change. It's both reassuring and stressful, because we don't always get to choose the change that occurs. There's a great interview of Rachel Maddow about a recent book she wrote on authoritarian movements (and there are many happening now across the world) and her suggestion was to prepare ourselves for the chaos of 2024 and whatever comes next by literally getting out into the community and knowing our neighbors, starting a conversation with our neighbors that doesn't involve politics or current events. She says when you have connections to the people around you, it's much easier for everyone to consider their neighbors in their general response to what happens and to find/give support where we might not otherwise expect it to occur. I suspect you may be too young to remember the 70s when it was considered impolite to bring up politics and religion in mixed company - which may in some part be how we got here, but there is something missing in civic life and clearly we have an opportunity to shift things in a better direction. Without going too much into politics, the GOP is by the numbers a minority (36m voters), Democrats (49m), Independent (35m) and other is 4m, and if you listen to the news regardless of source you'd clearly be getting the idea somehow that there is some equal share or even the opposite number of people who perceive current events through one lens or another, and that is a fiction. The fact-based reality has been replaced by terminal speculation instead of information, and it can make your head spin trying to make sense of what you so aptly call nonsensical. I stopped reading the NYT in college because I found stories of import getting buried on p.43 even then. I think the decimation of public funding both for the arts and PBS is a problem. Everyone used to have equal access to the same set of information, and I think because we don't people are confused and the sorting feels like a big lift on so many days. My answer for that is skimming posts of well informed friends, and I look at Heather Cox Richardson's substack, because she sifts through the news and while some of it is rhetorical or historical, she at least does the pre-sorting and delivers on "this is what actually happened today". It's helped me keep the energy investment down so I don't come unglued, but at least am informed of events of consequence.
I also appreciate the anarchy comment because nobody in public life has really put that flag down, and I think that's what we are seeing, anarchy and confusion. That British saying "keep calm and carry on" comes to mind, and maybe the answer to having crappy news is to make sure that we step out and invest in our relationships to family, friends, neighbors, the local charity/social/etc like you're doing. My friend was out walking recently in the conservative white bread suburb he is staying in for the winter, and came upon a drag night happening, by invitation, at a local pub. He's an old white mid-western guy, but told me about how he got to meet some of the performers and was thrilled to have a chance to talk to them and hear their stories about their art. If ever someone in his circle makes untoward comments he will feel completely comfortable sharing a first hand story and inviting them to have a different view. I think that's all we can do now, take the news with a grain of salt, skim for the facts and try to let go of the rest, and stay the course every day because both joy and anger are contagious, and your choice for joy is surely having a positive impact on everyone around you. :) Much gratitude!
From my point of view there are many answers to your question. I assume you are talking about Occidental people in their 30/40 more or less, and I think this is a spoiled generation.
We (I put myself in) had everything, a lot of toys, a lot of “yes my little princess/prince”, a lot of opportunity and a lot of rights we took for granted, and nothing to really fight for, so we didn’t need to train to fight through information, like our parents and grandparents had to do.
On the other side it is very true that we are not used to pay for what we get from the internet and we sort of grow up with this idea that everything here was for free and it is something difficult to eradicate, especially having a lot of independent intellectual and journalists that share their content for free through podcast, newsletters and especially social media. What is happening in Gaza right now is proofing that at this point, we can’t really trust the newspapers and magazine we have been reading all our life.
In my country (I’m Italian) they just don’t say the truth, they don’t say all the story, a few weeks ago the NYT published an article that turned out to be a big false, without verified sources.
And sorry but I disagree with you when you call it the Israel-Hamas war, because that is not what it is, that is how THEY call it and what THEY want us to think, that is not the truth. The truth is easily accessible on reporters pages on social media and books.
What is unacceptable from an adult generation is this thing of “I don’t want to know and I don’t want to see because is overwhelming”, come on kids, it’s time to grow up. Many news are hard to see and to accept, and we don’t need to know everything, but the world has never been Disneyland, and we have to know what is happening in our country to be able to fight for our rights and for what is important for us! At the same time we have to know what is happening overseas to be able to have an opinion. Really we can’t just SEE what other people is actually experiencing every single day? Till they are alive, of course…
So… there are many reason to decide to avoid paying the subscription to the BIG about information and news, but I’m not sure it is a mistake.
Of course is a big mistake to stop being informed, and even better if we do it through independents journalist and intellectuals, and pay them as they deserve, exactly like what we do here in Substack.
This is just my opinion 😊
Thank you for starting this conversation! I think so, so many of us feel this way. I too, used to love to listen to NPR as almost like white noise while I bopped around my house. I have had to acknowledge that it has shifted as a comfort to a source of stress. Can you imagine what it is like to be a journalist or reporter these days? The journalist Amanda Ripley was recently on the Slate Political Gabfest talking about a piece she published called How to Survive in 2024: https://amandaripley.substack.com/p/how-to-survive-2024. It's worth reading and also the segment on the Gabfest made me weep but in that optimistic way, if you know what I mean. Here's the Gabfest episode (it's a later segment if you need to fast forward past the horrors): https://slate.com/podcasts/political-gabfest/2023/12/colorado-supreme-court-blocks-donald-trump-from-its-presidential-primary-ballot. I was weeping because we're all here struggling and in a weird way that is good news. Not that we're struggling but that we're all witnessing the horrors together. I trust us to collectively find a way through.
Anyway, it is sacred to witness the horrors. I genuinely believe that. But, I think we need to schedule little pockets of time to witness to protect ourselves so that we have the energy to be present for ourselves and the people around us. Beyond this I just regularly repeat this quote from Teddy Roosevelt to myself: “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are”.
Frankly, I think valuing "keeping up with the news" is more like the appearance of being a good citizen, not something that actually improves anyone's lives. I think people should consistently participate in voting, but you really don't have to ingest content designed to attract your attention (usually by playing to fear or outrage) on a regular basis to be an informed voter. Anything truly important will bubble up in conversation anyway and then you can go seek learning more if needed, or research before casting your vote. Do you remember what the headlines were 1 year ago today? 2 years ago? 5 years ago? Most of what's printed doesn't pass the test of time on any measure of relevance. Most of us mostly remember how we generally feel, and the news overall has a strong incentive to make you feel bad.
Similarly, I think people should know they are their best advocates for their health, even if they don't have an MD. I've read there can be a 15+ year gap between research and practice, and simply identifying and trusting an expert may go poorly if you make a mistake in the expert or they speak confidently about something that's related but they don't actually have direct expertise in. See this cancer patient's experience of how many oncologists have missed things that would really improve his quality of life: https://jakeseliger.com/2024/01/03/who-cares-about-your-healthcare-whats-commonly-overlooked-in-the-health-care-system/
I agree that it's important to value seeking the truth, and knowing things that can be proved consistently, rather than only random feelings. But it doesn't follow that trusting credentials or institutions is the way to go, given how clearly those processes of selection are flawed.
Coincidentally, I listened to Yuval Noah Hariri on the Diary of a CEO podcast right before reading this newsletter. At the end he was asked if he could impose a global law, what would it be and why? Hariri answered that people should consume less information and spend more time digesting what they already know.
There is no informed/uninformed binary. There is constantly more information out there and everyone (whether ad-based or fee-based) is competing for our ears and eyeballs.
I get two newsletters: the 1440 daily digest (pretty dry) and the daily Skimm (think ‘news overview by Elle Woods’). Note that they both have a US perspective, so might not be as interesting to someone living outside the US.
Another good resource is Wikipedia’s Portal:Current events page, which is very condensed and gives an overview of worldwide events.
That Harari episode is worth a listen as is an episode he did on Rich Roll’s podcast a few years ago where he also spoke about our attention and information. Ezra Klein released an episode with Gloria Mark on attention last month too. Klein mentioned “your life is just the sum total of things you’ve paid attention to.”
I can not be more eloquent than the amazing @Emilyinyourphone on Instagram.- see her highlight called "hope" (she is an incredible follow too, super knowledgeable). To me it's all about balance, action and gratitude. Thanks for writing about this!