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It seems like that still runs into the issues that are outlined in the blog post, however (not accomplishing anything, shallow conversations about current events, better ways to stay informed, and feeling like you're doing something when you're not). In general it's hard to overcome these issues as long as you're still reading something considered news.

I think a good exercise is to spend a few weeks using archive.org to read the news from a few years back (or old back issues of The Economist, if you like). It's useful to see how many things people were obsessed over are now forgotten, and how many predictions ended up failing to materialize.

We should also probably be honest with ourselves and admit that reading the news is mostly done for entertainment, and it very well might not be any better than people who spend their time reading celebrity gossip rags.




The article leads with drawing a distinction between pop news and more traditional journalism:

"To be clear, I’m mostly talking about following TV and internet newscasts here. This post isn’t an indictment of journalism as a whole."

Good print journalism does go into depth, it does give useful background, and it does teach you about the proximate causes of events. It is not full of pundits trying to score internet points or stoke outrage/fear for views/clicks.

I think there's still value in having an informed population. If you don't have a good understanding of the state of the world it's going to be very difficult to change it in a deliberative and positive way. If you're informed you can make rational decisions on things like giving and voting. I don't know how you can do that otherwise.

I'm not convinced there's a better way of getting an understanding of what's going on in the world than reading a well-curated digest of what's going on in the world. You can certainly go deeper on a subset of the topics via specialized outlets, or long-form books and articles, but good journalism should give you more than the superficial understanding of the issue.

That said, I don't dispute that well-crafted journalism can be stimulating intellectual entertainment. If I didn't enjoy it, I probably wouldn't read it.


> The article leads with drawing a distinction between pop news and more traditional journalism:

Sure, but I don't think it goes on to justify why that distinction is there. Particularly points 2 to 5 seem to work just as well as criticism of written media as TV.

> If you're informed you can make rational decisions on things like giving and voting...I'm not convinced there's a better way of getting an understanding of what's going on in the world than reading a well-curated digest of what's going on in the world.

I used to work a lot on politics at the local level and can't say that's been my experience. Much of the time, the things people's votes have the most impact on are barely covered in the media, or in many cases not covered at all. Including fairly important things, such as when our state party leadership suspended elections for two years and staying on past their terms. Almost zero news coverage.

If you want to be informed and involved in ways that actually impact those around you, I'd say involvement in community organizations is important, reading the news not so much. As his fifth point says, it's easy to pretend you're being an informed citizen by indulging in a media habit when you're doing nothing of the sort.

Another issue is that everyone can see how new organizations they don't like can leave people misinformed, but never consider that news organizations they like can do the same. Again, from what I've seen, misinformation is fairly common. It's not even necessarily done for nefarious purposes. A busy reporter might just have time to look at a press release, while local organizations will have people that often go into much more depth and look at the actual meeting minutes or the exact wording of particular pieces of legislation.

People should think of concrete things they're trying to accomplish, not just vague notions of "being informed." I bet that someone who ignores the news and spends an hour looking at Vote411 and reading about candidates on the web before they fill out a ballot is going to make more informed voting decisions than a news junkie who follows national and international news 24/7, already knows who they're going to vote for at the national level, and completely ignores downballot races (a surprisingly large portion of voters fit this description).


Also, focusing on people/orgs who must try to accomplish something in the face of significant news is a good non-inflammatory way to get the real story on any current event. Visit professional organization websites, professional trade rags, actual financial newsletters. You may not be able to sort out real signal from the noise of Mainstream media, but manufacturers, military, diplomats, maritime, etc. can’t themselves afford to be confused nor do politicians want them confused. Those “essentials” will get the real facts and report what they can through their professional organizations and trade publications. Read them, listen to them, and watch what they do. They don’t get flustered and don’t make their money by inflaming or distorting.

And remember, there is no such thing as “The News”, only “some news”.




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