It's not black and white. You don't have to turn off all news to avoid the junk. There are still people who serve meaningful news; you just have to know where to look.
People mean very different things when they say news, I've found. Most of what people think of as "news" is human interest story garbage churned out as quickly as possible to get the most number of eyeballs. This category includes even a lot of supposedly reputable newspapers, unfortunately. This is great if you are looking for lunchtime gossip or just something to distract or entertain yourself with. Not so good if you want to learn something or expand your world view.
The way I see it, good news
- gives historical context,
- dives deeply,
- covers the entire globe,
- discusses incremental changes and not only big events,
- reflects on multiple perspectives,
- doesn't overemphasise human interest stories, and
- provides you with actual data.
Good news, ironically, ages well.
There are still some people that work with real news. There was a recent Ask HN about favourite magazines and journals[1], where some of the comments mentioned The Economist[2] (a long-time favourite of mine) and Delayed Gratification[3] (which I can't personally vouch for but I admire their goal.)
The Economist comes up often as a shining beacon in these discussions but everytime I read it I'm hit by a wall of aggressive neoliberalism. It may mesh better with your personal world view but it's also a propaganda over facts publication. By that I don't mean they aren't factual but rather that they are very selective in which facts to surface in order to craft a narrative that will hopefully sway the reader into thinking a certain way.
Their news reporting isn't that bad, but what is bad is the mixing of a large number of editorial pieces that do still wave a neoliberalist flag. I encourage having a look at https://www.adfontesmedia.com/interactive-media-bias-chart-2... for a decent appraisal of various sources.
People mean very different things when they say news, I've found. Most of what people think of as "news" is human interest story garbage churned out as quickly as possible to get the most number of eyeballs. This category includes even a lot of supposedly reputable newspapers, unfortunately. This is great if you are looking for lunchtime gossip or just something to distract or entertain yourself with. Not so good if you want to learn something or expand your world view.
The way I see it, good news
- gives historical context,
- dives deeply,
- covers the entire globe,
- discusses incremental changes and not only big events,
- reflects on multiple perspectives,
- doesn't overemphasise human interest stories, and
- provides you with actual data.
Good news, ironically, ages well.
There are still some people that work with real news. There was a recent Ask HN about favourite magazines and journals[1], where some of the comments mentioned The Economist[2] (a long-time favourite of mine) and Delayed Gratification[3] (which I can't personally vouch for but I admire their goal.)
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25159931
[2]: https://www.economist.com/
[3]: https://www.slow-journalism.com/