Why You Should Stop Reading News | Farnam Street Media →

I’ve been thinking about what’s wrong with the news lately, particularly after reading this post from Farnam Street about how to sift through the noise and find the signal::

• "First, the speed of news delivery has increased.
• Second, the cost of producing news has dropped significantly.
• Third, like other purveyors of drugs, producers of news want you to consume more of it.
• Fourth, the incentives are misaligned. When the news is free, you still need to pay people.
• Fifth, most journalists are not interested in the search for truth.

[and]

• Most of what you read online today is pointless.
• Like a drug, the news is addictive.
• News is a perspective, not truth.
• News doesnt make you more informed; it just makes you more confident the information you have is all there is.
• News reinforces what we already believe.
• News substitutes the thinking of others for thinking.
• People in the news worry about what the news says about them.
• When all you consume is noise, you dont realize there is a signal.
• The problems with news are likely to get worse, not better.
• Stepping back from the news is hard."

I’ve always tried to stay informed, reading two papers each morning before heading to work, though I barely make it through the depressing state of the local news most days. On weekends, I’ll try to read the Saturday edition of The Globe and Mail—though I sometimes enjoy it.

For as much as I want to get more out of it, the process is frustrating:

• The relentless focus on the bad.
• The lack of good perspective.
• The ugly opinion pieces. If I wanted someone’s opinion, I’d ask them for it. I don’t read the paper for that.

Honestly, aside from keeping up with local news, there’s not much holding me to reading it at all, except this nagging feeling that if we all stop, the news industry might fall apart even more than it already has.

But maybe that’s what needs to happen? I think about the reporting CANADALAND does on the traditional newspaper industry, and I can’t help but feel a reset is overdue.