# Five Things You Notice When You Quit the News



## RiR0 (Mar 4, 2022)

Five Things You Notice When You Quit the News
					

I grew up believing that following the news makes you a better citizen. Eight years after having quit, that idea now seems ridiculous—that consuming a particularly unimaginative information product on a daily basis somehow makes you thoughtful and informed in a way that benefits society. But I...




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I grew up believing that following the news makes you a better citizen. Eight years after having quit, that idea now seems ridiculous—that consuming a particularly unimaginative information product on a daily basis somehow makes you thoughtful and informed in a way that benefits society.

But I still encounter people who balk at the possibility of a smart, engaged adult quitting the daily news.

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. There’s a big difference between watching a half hour of CNN’s refugee crisis coverage (not that they cover it anymore) versus spending that time reading a 5,000-word article on the same topic.

If you quit, even for just a month or so, the news-watching habit might start to look quite ugly and unnecessary to you, not unlike how a smoker only notices how bad tobacco makes things smell once he stops lighting up.

A few things you might notice, if you take a break: 

1) You feel better

A common symptom of quitting the news is an improvement in mood. News junkies will say it’s because you’ve stuck your head in the sand.

But that assumes the news is the equivalent of having your head out in the fresh, clear air. They don’t realize that what you can glean about the world from the news isn’t even close to a representative sample of what is happening in the world.

The news isn’t interested in creating an accurate sample. They select for what’s 1) unusual, 2) awful, and 3) probably going to be popular. So the idea that you can get a meaningful sense of the “state of the world” by watching the news is absurd.

Their selections exploit our negativity bias. We’ve evolved to pay more attention to what’s scary and infuriating, but that doesn’t mean every instance of fear or anger is useful. Once you’ve quit watching, it becomes obvious that it is a primary aim of news reports—not an incidental side-effect—to agitate and dismay the viewer.

What appears on the news is not “The conscientious person’s portfolio of concerns”. What appears is whatever sells, and what sells is fear, and contempt for other groups of people.

Curate your own portfolio. You can get better information about the world from deeper sources, who took more than a half-day to put it together.

2) You were never actually accomplishing anything by watching the news

If you ask someone what they accomplish by watching the news, you’ll hear vague notions like, “It’s our civic duty to stay informed!” or “I need to know what’s going on in the world,” or “We can’t just ignore these issues,” none of which answer the question.

“Being informed” sounds like an accomplishment, but it implies that any information will do. You can become informed by reading a bus schedule.

A month after you’ve quit the news, it’s hard to name anything useful that’s been lost. It becomes clear that those years of news-watching amounted to virtually nothing in terms of improvement to your quality of life, lasting knowledge, or your ability to help others. And that’s to say nothing of the opportunity cost. Imagine if you spent that time learning a language, or reading books and essays about some of the issues they mention on the news.

You’ll find that your abstinence did not result in any worse cabinet appointments than were already being made, and that disaster relief efforts carried on without your involvement, just as they always do. As it turns out, your hobby of monitoring the “state of the world” did not actually affect the world.

We have inherited from somewhere—maybe from the era when there was only an hour of news available a day—the belief that having a superficial awareness of the day’s most popular issues is somehow helpful to those most affected by them.

3) Most current-events-related conversations are just people talking out of their asses

“Because it helps you participate in everyday conversations!” is a weak but at least meaningful answer to the “What is accomplished” question. But when you quit playing the current events game, and observe others talking about them, you might notice that almost nobody really knows what they’re talking about.

There is an extraordinary gulf between having a functional understanding of an issue, and the cursory glance you get from the news. If you ever come across a water-cooler conversation on a topic you happen to know a lot about, you see right through the emperor’s clothes. It’s kind of hilarious how willing people are to speak boldly on issues they’ve known about for all of three hours.

It feels good to make cutting remarks and take hard stands, even when we’re wrong, and the news gives us perfect fodder for that. The less you know about an issue, the easier it is to make bold proclamations about it, because at newscast-distance it still looks black and white enough that you can feel certain about what needs to happen next.

Maybe the last thing the world needs is another debate on Issue X between two people who learned about it from a newscast—at least if we’re trying to improve relationships between people from different groups.

4) There are much better ways to “be informed”

We all want to live in a well-informed society. The news does inform people, but I don’t think it informs people particularly well.

There are loads of sources of “information”. The back of your shampoo bottle contains information. Today there’s much more of it out there than we can ever absorb, so we have to choose what deserves our time. The news provides information in infinite volume but very limited depth, and it’s clearly meant to agitate us more than educate us.

Every minute spent watching news is a minute you are unavailable for learning about the world in other ways. Americans probably watch a hundred million hours of news coverage every day. That’s a lot of unread books, for one thing.

Read three books on a topic and you know more about it than 99% of the world. Watch news all day for years and you have a distant, water-cooler-level awareness of thousands of stories, at least for the few weeks each is popular.

If we only care about the breadth of information, and not the depth, there’s not much distinction between “staying informed” and staying misinformed.

5) “Being concerned” makes us feel like we’re doing something when we’re not

News is all about injustice and catastrophe, and naturally we feel uncomfortable ignoring stories in which people are being hurt. As superficial as TV newscasts can be, the issues reported in them are (usually) real. Much more real than they can ever seem through a television. People are suffering and dying, all the time, and to ignore a depiction of any of that suffering, even a cynical and manipulative depiction, makes us feel guilty.

The least we can do is not ignore it, we think. So we watch it on TV, with wet eyes and lumps in our throats. But staying at this level of “concerned” isn’t really helping anyone, except maybe to alleviate our own guilt a bit.

And I wonder if there’s a kind of “substitution effect” at work here. The sense of “at least I care” may actually prevent us from doing something concrete to help, because by watching sympathetically we don’t quite have to confront the reality that we’re doing absolutely nothing about it.

Watching disasters unfold, even while we do nothing, at least feels a little more compassionate than switching off. The truth is that the vast majority of us will provide absolutely no help to the victims of almost all of the atrocities that happen in this world, televised or not. And that’s hard to accept. But if we can at least show concern, even to ourselves, we don’t quite have accept that. We can remain uninvolved without feeling uninvolved.

This may be the biggest reason we fear turning off the news. And it might be the best reason to do it.

Have you quit the news? What did you notice?


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## rawdeal (Mar 4, 2022)

WOW.  

As a newsjunkie, I can't  agree more.  Not sure I can kick the habit easily, but at least I recognize it would benefit me to do so.

Who knew?  They don't say this on Fox or CNN ... just here on UG of all places.


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## notsoswoleCPA (Mar 4, 2022)

One of my friends used to be a news junkie.  It was so bad that he let things out of his control impact his life to a degree where he was borderline depressed.  His wife and I finally talked some sense into him.

In fact, my running joke is that the local news can't even get the weather right, so why watch them for anything else?

The MSM has an agenda to keep the population divided and will do so by any means necessary!


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## FlyingPapaya (Mar 4, 2022)

People watch that stuff?


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## The Phoenix (Mar 4, 2022)

I quit watching the news 20 years ago. Still informed; just better informed now. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro


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## NbleSavage (Mar 4, 2022)

Local news is even more rubbish than national news in the US. 

Been stuck on the road in a few places with limited options on telly and wow, me brain hurt just being subjected to that bollocks.

Agree with the points in the article. I made a conscious decision after the brutal period leading up to the 2020 presidential election to engage less in matters of politics in any medium.  Its exactly like the "quitting smoking" analogy - once ye get a bit clear ye quickly notice how futile and toxic those topics are when ye get caught-up in 'em. I prefer to focus more on matters that bring people together rather than those which divide 'em.

Good post @RiR0


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## Crom (Mar 5, 2022)

RiR0 said:


> Five Things You Notice When You Quit the News
> 
> 
> I grew up believing that following the news makes you a better citizen. Eight years after having quit, that idea now seems ridiculous—that consuming a particularly unimaginative information product on a daily basis somehow makes you thoughtful and informed in a way that benefits society. But I...
> ...


After I had my 3rd eye squeegeed clean multiple times on heavy doses of psychedelic's,  I couldn't watch MS NEWS; I felt like I was being mind fucked. Also , the hypocrisy, lack of factual information and legitimate sources. News felt very much like state run propaganda, used to divide rather than educate. A means of manipulation, drumming up an emotional response. 

          I do follow some indie sources these days. I'm more of a populist type / libertarian. 

   The thing that bothered me most when I woke up from the fear porn back in 2005 was no solutions. Never do they have a solution, they only seek to push their narrative. 

  there's a good song by, Nailbomb called 24 hour BS. 24 hour news has done serious damage to our country. 

  After I quit Mainstream news I feel more informed than I was. You learn to become your own fact checker and verify sources. 

 That's a good thing, especially when countries are going to war, and the media and pushing certain narrative that might not be true.


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## Crom (Mar 5, 2022)

The Phoenix said:


> I quit watching the news 20 years ago. Still informed; just better informed now.
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro


Exactly!


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## Imthedaddy (Mar 7, 2022)

RiR0 said:


> Five Things You Notice When You Quit the News
> 
> 
> I grew up believing that following the news makes you a better citizen. Eight years after having quit, that idea now seems ridiculous—that consuming a particularly unimaginative information product on a daily basis somehow makes you thoughtful and informed in a way that benefits society. But I...
> ...


This is an amazing post, thank you. I skim articles in the papers…both local and national, and that is enough to keep me somehow out of the dark completely . I don’t ever watch Tv news. 

If an issue really truly affects my life,  I will dig deeper through reading and maybe long format radio or podcasts. But even that is taken critically…


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## Achilleus (Mar 7, 2022)

I used to get my news and read other articles from the apple news on my iphone. Which didn't seem to bad but noticed an increase of opinion pieces being presented as facts, information being misrepresented and generally just a shift in a hard left/woke direction overall. Seemed like that all picked up after the 2020 election. I stopped reading apple news pretty much from the most part. Saw many things I was very knowledgeable/informed about being twisted or misrepresented. Now I generally get my news/info from different podcasts that try to be honest and took a look at things from both sides.

Its sad seeing my grandmother now. Shes always been pretty wrapped up watching the news on TV. She used to watch nothing but Fox then after she moved in with her daughter (which her and her husband have become hardcore liberals) now she watches anything but Fox. She went from loving Trump to thinking he's the most evil man and can't stop talking about how she dislikes him. Now I hear her talking about whatever news talking points your likely to hear on most MSM.


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## Fvckinashman (Mar 9, 2022)

RiR0 said:


> Five Things You Notice When You Quit the News
> 
> 
> I grew up believing that following the news makes you a better citizen. Eight years after having quit, that idea now seems ridiculous—that consuming a particularly unimaginative information product on a daily basis somehow makes you thoughtful and informed in a way that benefits society. But I...
> ...


this is a fucking good post....


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## AlienAgent (Mar 9, 2022)

Great post!! The network 24hr news, at this point, is Operation Mockingbird all the way. Look into the repeal of the Smith-Mund Act in 2012 under the Obama administration.

We quit news about 12 years ago. Turned off the tv completly, except for dvd and more recently streaming services.

It is now almost impossible to watch the tv when I visit my parents. The level of discussion I see on social media (I'm down to 10 min a day) is like listening to children regurgitate opinions they heard at home. I read a lot on psy op projects and operations, its painful to see it clearly happening IRL.


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## nissan11 (Mar 9, 2022)

If you don't watch the news then how do you stay informed on what is going on? Facebook? Or is your point that people do not need to be informed on what is happening in the world?


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## AlienAgent (Mar 9, 2022)

nissan11 said:


> If you don't watch the news then how do you stay informed on what is going on? Facebook? Or is your point that people do not need to be informed on what is happening in the world?


If a topic is being discussed, I'll hear about it, then start reading different sources of information. Websites, books, declassified gov/military documents.


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## nissan11 (Mar 9, 2022)

AlienAgent said:


> If a topic is being discussed, I'll hear about it, then start reading different sources of information. Websites, books, declassified gov/military documents.



You will hear a topic is being discussed by who? What if those people have different interests than you?


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## AlienAgent (Mar 9, 2022)

nissan11 said:


> You will hear a topic is being discussed by who? What if those people have different interests than you?


By who? People on social media or websites I like to visit. Most people have different interests than me. Thats a given.

I'm 39, so most of my opinions regarding nearly everything are already formed. I also often hold two or more conflicting opinions at the same time equally, until more data sways me. It's a throwback to high school criminal law/mock trial team, when you had to argue both sides, as an exercise.


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## nissan11 (Mar 9, 2022)

AlienAgent said:


> By who? People on social media or websites I like to visit. Most people have different interests than me. Thats a given.
> 
> I'm 39, so most of my opinions regarding nearly everything are already formed. I also often hold two or more conflicting opinions at the same time equally, until more data sways me. It's a throwback to high school criminal law/mock trial team, when you had to argue both sides, as an exercise.


So your preferred method to be informed on a news topic is second hand from someone on the internet, who may have interpreted the event(s) or swayed their presentation of the event(s) based on personal biased? Then, you do your own research to gather more credible data?

How is that different than just watching the news simply to learn about the event(s) then doing the same thing, conducting research to gather data and form your own opinion?


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## AlienAgent (Mar 9, 2022)

nissan11 said:


> So your preferred method to be informed on a news topic is second hand from someone on the internet, who may have interpreted the event(s) or swayed their presentation of the event(s) based on personal biased? Then, you do your own research to gather more credible data?
> 
> How is that different than just watching the news simply to learn about the event(s) then doing the same thing, conducting research to gather data and form your own opinion?


No. If a story is big enough, I'll hear about it. Then I will start diving in if it looks like something that actually matters. Most news events dont matter to me.


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## The Phoenix (Mar 9, 2022)

Why do we have to watch someone give us the news? A good Berean would research the words provided and proof them against the sources to see if the news holds validity. It’s called verification; an important part of investigative journalism. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro


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## RiR0 (Mar 9, 2022)

nissan11 said:


> If you don't watch the news then how do you stay informed on what is going on? Facebook? Or is your point that people do not need to be informed on what is happening in the world?


Did you read the article?


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## nissan11 (Mar 9, 2022)

The Phoenix said:


> Why do we have to watch someone give us the news? A good Berean would research the words provided and proof them against the sources to see if the news holds validity. It’s called verification; an important part of investigative journalism.
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro



Isn't that what I said in my previous posts?


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## nissan11 (Mar 9, 2022)

RiR0 said:


> Did you read the article?



Negative.


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## RiR0 (Mar 9, 2022)

nissan11 said:


> Negative.


Why are you responding about something you didn’t even read? I knew you didn’t by your response


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## nissan11 (Mar 9, 2022)

RiR0 said:


> Why are you responding about something you didn’t even read? I knew you didn’t by your response


I thought reading the article was more of a suggestion than a requirement.


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## Undecanator (Mar 9, 2022)

Ignorance is a bliss and sometimes I’d rather be in bliss


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## GSgator (Mar 9, 2022)

nissan11 said:


> So your preferred method to be informed on a news topic is second hand from someone on the internet, who may have interpreted the event(s) or swayed their presentation of the event(s) based on personal biased? Then, you do your own research to gather more credible data?
> 
> How is that different than just watching the news simply to learn about the event(s) then doing the same thing, conducting research to gather data and form your own opinion?


Your not getting true news on most primetime networks you’re watching practically  what one side wants to tell you. Your local news you know the fucking weather and basic shit like that sure . Once you get into more political type news networks yea man there cutting, clipping editing and giving you one-sided information on the story. Its unfortunate but true journalism done by primetime  networks is extinct  your practically watching activists. This goes for both sides I’m not directing this towards one side or the other .


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## RiR0 (Mar 9, 2022)

GSgator said:


> Your not getting true news on most primetime networks you’re watching practically  what one side wants to tell you. Your local news you know the fucking weather and basic shit like that sure . Once you get into more political type news networks yea man there cutting, clipping editing and giving you one-sided information on the story. Its unfortunate but true journalism done by primetime  networks is extinct  your practically watching activists. This goes for both sides I’m not directing this towards one side or the other .


Even local stories can’t be trusted. 
I was at a diner in the city years ago and some cops came in from the scene of a crime that was on the news live and the cops were laughing talking about how different it was from what news was actually reporting.


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## Methyl mike (Mar 14, 2022)

RiR0 said:


> Five Things You Notice When You Quit the News
> 
> 
> I grew up believing that following the news makes you a better citizen. Eight years after having quit, that idea now seems ridiculous—that consuming a particularly unimaginative information product on a daily basis somehow makes you thoughtful and informed in a way that benefits society. But I...
> ...


I stopped watching TV when I was 14. To this day the only time I spend in front of one is however long I am spending time with someone I care about, since most people seem addicted to the fucking things. I can't find enough hours jn the day to learn new cool useful skills and then get good at them let alone park my ass on a couch for hours HOURS ON A COUCH at a time. 

HOURS 
ON
A
COUCH

My brain just does not compute that shit. 

When I was 14 I tried to hang with my mom who was watching law and order (my moderate autism ensures I can recall with vivid detail pretty much my entire life going back to about 12) and after about ten minutes of utter bullshit I looked over at my mom and her face, her expression, she was so engrossed in all the "drama" and "action" she was nervously biting the inside of her lips and I couldnt help myself "mom, those aren't real cops, they are ACTORS running around with rubber guns. Rubber guns!" I stammered. 

In hindsight I really expected the truth would break the spell and set her free, but Instead she turned on me and to this very day we barely speak. And to this day she sits in front of the idiot box on I would say conservatively 8-10 hours a day. Every day. 

She wakes up and turns on the morning news and the evening news tells her it's bed time. She prefers fiction over fact, strangers to family, when celebrities have something to say some cause or opinion she's on board 100%. An actual marionette with strings on its arms and legs would be envious over the absolute control the tv media and Hollywood have over her. Demonic possession would be considered a reprieve in my estimation, she has no hope. More accurately she chose to abandon hope and went all in, her mind went the other direction. 

 *Sigh* off my soap box, thanks for the thread.


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## Joliver (Mar 21, 2022)

RiR0 said:


> Five Things You Notice When You Quit the News
> 
> 
> I grew up believing that following the news makes you a better citizen. Eight years after having quit, that idea now seems ridiculous—that consuming a particularly unimaginative information product on a daily basis somehow makes you thoughtful and informed in a way that benefits society. But I...
> ...





nissan11 said:


> If you don't watch the news then how do you stay informed on what is going on? Facebook? Or is your point that people do not need to be informed on what is happening in the world?





RiR0 said:


> Did you read the article?





nissan11 said:


> Negative.





RiR0 said:


> Why are you responding about something you didn’t even read? I knew you didn’t by your response





nissan11 said:


> I thought reading the article was more of a suggestion than a requirement.



lol, LMAO

This is about as "on-brand" for Murica as it gets. Holy shit. 

The "TL;DR": 

R: here's an interesting article to reduce the stress of the 24hr news cycle mega Corp. It includes information on, among other things, how do be truly informed. 

N: well, if you don't watch the news, how do you stay informed? 

R: are you serious? Did you hear what I just said? 

N: no, I didn't listen. 

R: Then why did you respond? 

N: I didn't know I had to listen but I wanted to be heard. 


I fuggin' lol'd. 

Thank you. Pure magic. Can't believe this place is free.


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## Intel.imperitive (Mar 23, 2022)

High effort post dude. I literally walked through the whole Corona Virus pandemic like a zombie, and didn't even know it was going on for a few months. It was just such a break mentally. The news is just filled with lots of shit that depresses me.


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## ckofive (Apr 26, 2022)

All I can say is….. amen.


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## Riff_raff (May 5, 2022)

RiR0 said:


> Five Things You Notice When You Quit the News
> 
> 
> I grew up believing that following the news makes you a better citizen. Eight years after having quit, that idea now seems ridiculous—that consuming a particularly unimaginative information product on a daily basis somehow makes you thoughtful and informed in a way that benefits society. But I...
> ...


ive never been big into social media, as in fb, instagram, and stuff like that. but i had a fb account. i deleted my account almost 2 years ago and stopped watching the news about 4 months later. my overall mental health has improved tremendously. ive also reduced my phone data to limit my intake of the internet. i believe the internet has created a society that is based on short attention span and instant results. news is not so much as reported as in the days of yore but "made up" as they go to feed this insatiable need for instant access and entitlement to that access. when they have an attention grabbing headline, they run it. the darker and more jarring the better, to draw in that "car wreck" mentality in ppl, and grabs their attention... true or not, and if its not the correction gets buried on pg 6 that no one sees and the damage is done. remember what ppl said about smartphones? "imagine how smart ppl will be with all that info at their fingertips..." when in my humble opinion the exact opposite has happened. i think we have created a culture that is now based on instant access in which propogates a landscape of mis and dis information... great post and a good read


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## John Ziegler (May 19, 2022)

working short handed because someone gets fired or quits & not being compensated for the extra work load 

its fine for a few days or maybe weeks 

but what happens is the employer will see that the business can still function because you're good at it, so they stop hiring 

rather than give  a raise 

Im now working twice as hard for the same pay 

sure I can quit but there goes my health care benefits and things ive had to learn and got good at 

gotta go get hired & wait for open enrollment 

 learn new shit & get worth more as an employee at the new place 

this & that


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## The Phoenix (May 20, 2022)

John Ziegler said:


> working short handed because someone gets fired or quits & not being compensated for the extra work load
> 
> its fine for a few days or maybe weeks
> 
> ...


Sounds like government service to me t0o.  I get back at them by doing my own thing.  These government hacks get promoted right away, yet do a shitty job managing.  I don't quit the job because in 3 years I get a shit load of student loan debt forgiven and doing my job and letting them know what I want them to know.  I have a side gig and always have had a consulting firm running in the background.  After the last economic downturn, although I had diversified my savings and made out during that time, i was laid off and I decided that I would also diversify my efforts as well.  Now, I give 1/3 of my effort (not time) to my government job, 1/3 of my effort to my business, and 1/3 of my effort to giving back/volunteering on some Governing or Advisory Board.


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## DEADlifter (Jul 14, 2022)

I read this yesterday and agreed with it.

Not 24 hours later here I sit scrolling Google news, getting more and more angry, hating the world I live in.


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## ckofive (Jul 14, 2022)

That’s why they call it “doom scrolling”! 


DEADlifter said:


> I read this yesterday and agreed with it.
> 
> Not 24 hours later here I sit scrolling Google news, getting more and more angry, hating the world I live in.


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## Kraken (Jul 14, 2022)

I find when I take a weeks break from the "news" I mentally feel better, but my social media participation is pretty limited. Practically no Facebook, and Instagram is limited to following sailing teams I like. This board is most of it really.

So, when I was offshore recently for about 4 days I didn't miss any of this. I did call a friend when I hit dry land and asked her what was happening in the world and she replied "not much." That was good enough for me!

UPDATE: I skimmed the original post because, you know, TL;DR. But I caught the bullet points and felt I knew where it was going. Pretty sure I was right ;-)


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## FlyingPapaya (Jul 15, 2022)

I don't watch the news?


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## Rot-Iron66 (Jul 15, 2022)

Most of the news is fake, blown out of proportion for the libturd sheep to get triggered.
I dont have cable TV and no news channels. Libturd J00 propaganda for the brainless...


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## RiR0 (Jul 15, 2022)

Rot-Iron66 said:


> Most of the news is fake, blown out of proportion for the libturd sheep to get triggered.
> I dont have cable TV and no news channels. Libturd J00 propaganda for the brainless...


Yeah you only get your info from reliable non biased sources like David Duke, Alex Jones, and mein kempf weekly. 
Gtfo, you’re one of the biggest sheep on here. Have you ever had a single original or critical thought in your life?
Libturd, fake news, propaganda!!!!! 
Buzz words!!!! Demtards!!!!
Stolen election!!!!


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## Kraken (Jul 15, 2022)

I can also say that when I see "news" articles that concern my area of professional expertise, I can see how uninformed the writers are, and they are almost always wrong, or oversimplifying what's happening. So, I assume they do that in all areas, and usually assume they are clueless.


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## notsoswoleCPA (Jul 15, 2022)

This is my take on the news.  They pick topics that either keep people divided or in a perpetual state of misery.  It makes for a good distraction from other things...


Plus, I don't know how they manage to do it, but I have several acquaintances that love being in that perpetual state of misery.  You know the type, they just complain about the news they are consuming even though it either has little to no impact on their lives.  Even worse, the things that do impact their lives, like higher gas prices and grocery costs, are beyond their individual control with regards to change.


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## Luju (Nov 15, 2022)

This is an interesting, persuasive and powerful opinion piece.

Several months old but it hit me in the guts.

I am also of an opinion that people would rather cry in pity or misery over all they witness from far via media outlets , but given an actual opportunity "to do something about it" they won't. They can only "feel it" but they can't "do it". 

Their fake tears and distant mercy/pity comfort them somehow. That they are still caring and compassionate human beings.

News are full of crap because people want to be lulled to sleep. 

Common gossip , biased news, mass manipulation etc. is viewed as valuable  knowledge for some.


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## chicago311 (Nov 15, 2022)

i use to watch the news and i also use to get so mad at seeing things the way the news would pertray things, it was always ugly stuff to me and to me a lot of lies, so i quit watching about 1 1/2 years ago and NOW i feel better like 100% better, im not out saying i would like to f--ck that person up anymore and ect: it really got me depressed, but my other family members watch the crap and are so freaked out on what is going on, but the funny thing is most of this has been going on for many many years but now they are more intune to the news the more their life has changed for the worst, i try telling them that i feel 100% better but they wont listen. my thought is is that what happens is going to happen, UNLESS millions of americans pull together and protest on key issues that need to be addressed, then the UGLYNESS WILL CONTINUE.   just my 3 cents.


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## chicago311 (Nov 15, 2022)

RiR0 said:


> Even local stories can’t be trusted.
> I was at a diner in the city years ago and some cops came in from the scene of a crime that was on the news live and the cops were laughing talking about how different it was from what news was actually reporting.


i work fire ems and seen a lot of bad stuff, and when i did watch the news and they were talking about a call that i ran and was involved with, it would be not close to the actual crime/ call , hell 95% of the time they dont even give the right area or even cross streets right.


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## TBD (Nov 15, 2022)

That was an *excellent* post, @RiR0, and spot-on in every last respect.

I used to be a news junkie.  Had subscriptions to three local newspapers (the two major dailies--one with a conservative editorial take and the other liberal, and a more local rag), and two news magazines.  Plus I watched local and network TV news nearly daily.

Then I noticed something happening: The stuff being presented as "news" was becoming increasingly inaccurate.  I clearly remember what twigged me to this: An article about guns in one of my news magazines.  This was a subject about which I knew more than a little, shooting being one of my hobbies.  I found the article rife with inaccuracies.  (This would've been sometime around the mid-seventies or so.)

Now my radar was lit.  If they had that so wrong, what else were they getting wrong?  (It hadn't yet occurred to me they might be purposely misleading their readers and watchers.)

I started questioning what I was reading and watching.  I began to notice all kinds of subtle clues that what was being presented as "news" was not quite what the journalists and publishers would have you believe it to be.  Then came an article in one of my newspapers' Sunday supplements entitled "When Good Guys Lie."  It presented a number of examples of things presented as "news" that were subtly, and sometimes not-so-subtly, biased to promote a point-of-view or advance an agenda.  (I also couldn't help but notice the bias almost invariably leaned in the same political direction.)

As time went on I observed this becoming more-and-more prevalent.  It eventually got to the point where, first, the Dominant "News" Media wasn't even being subtle about it anymore, to clearly lying-by-omission, to the point of outright Making Stuff up from whole cloth.

The bottom line, today: The Dominant "News" Media no longer presents *news* and today's "journalists" are more propagandists than journalists.

You're better-off without it.  You won't be any less informed and you'll probably be a damn sight happier.


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## MassiveNightmare (Tuesday at 2:22 AM)

Haven't watched TV for 15 years (YouTube I do watch though). No ShitFlix subscription either. It's all a bunch of mindslop to keep you dumbed down. Protected my kid from the internet, and as a result, has no designs on faggotry or becoming a tranny. We can still be wholesome and values-driven in the degenerate, rainbow, pro-pedo apocalyptic society. For real.


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## chicago311 (Tuesday at 5:12 PM)

shit, i watched 2 commericals yesterday 1 was about being gay and enjoying life, and the 2nd one was 2 guys kissing each other, it was a HIV commercial, wow the shit they allow on tv anymore just blows me away.


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## The Phoenix (Tuesday at 8:38 PM)

MassiveNightmare said:


> Haven't watched TV for 15 years (YouTube I do watch though). No ShitFlix subscription either. It's all a bunch of mindslop to keep you dumbed down. Protected my kid from the internet, and as a result, has no designs on faggotry or becoming a tranny. We can still be wholesome and values-driven in the degenerate, rainbow, pro-pedo apocalyptic society. For real.


you did wot a lot of us gen x'ers did.  I have weaned myself from all this hyped up shiite..


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## buck (Wednesday at 1:59 AM)

I quit watching TV news in the 80's as it was a waste of my time by then. I could read far more newspaper stories in the same time with less slant. Spent years getting a left and right leaning paper everyday for years. Mostly just go to Reuters for the last few years. With the occasional foray into other medias to get different stories of perspectives.


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## PItbull-3K (Wednesday at 10:30 AM)

chicago311 said:


> shit, i watched 2 commericals yesterday 1 was about being gay and enjoying life, and the 2nd one was 2 guys kissing each other, it was a HIV commercial, wow the shit they allow on tv anymore just blows me away.


Liberal media (and movie-making) retards are force feeding "the new norm".


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## Gadawg (Wednesday at 11:48 AM)

The news is a great way to destroy your mental health while actually becoming less “informed”. Nothing but narratives now. Youd have to be braindead to believe any of it.


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## Diesel59 (Wednesday at 12:24 PM)

chicago311 said:


> shit, i watched 2 commericals yesterday 1 was about being gay and enjoying life, and the 2nd one was 2 guys kissing each other, it was a HIV commercial, wow the shit they allow on tv anymore just blows me away.


I keep seeing that HIV commercial every time I watch primetime NFL games. Are there that many gay guys with AIDs watching football?


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## buck (Wednesday at 7:46 PM)

Diesel59 said:


> I keep seeing that HIV commercial every time I watch primetime NFL games. Are there that many gay guys with AIDs watching football?


You don't think gay guys like sports with sweaty guys in tight pants grappling and rubbing on each other?


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## Diesel59 (Wednesday at 8:02 PM)

buck said:


> You don't think gay guys like sports with sweaty guys in tight pants grappling and rubbing on each other?


I guess you're right. And the NFL knows it apparently.


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## MassiveNightmare (Thursday at 10:37 AM)

chicago311 said:


> shit, i watched 2 commericals yesterday 1 was about being gay and enjoying life, and the 2nd one was 2 guys kissing each other, it was a HIV commercial, wow the shit they allow on tv anymore just blows me away.


God damn! For real? They have commercials for HIV now?

Do you feel like you're missing out on life without AIDS? Call 555-BUMS, now to find out how you can go from fruit to vegetable in just a few years.


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## chicago311 (Thursday at 1:52 PM)

Gadawg said:


> The news is a great way to destroy your mental health while actually becoming less “informed”. Nothing but narratives now. Youd have to be braindead to believe any of it.


i try telling my wife and family members the same thing, but they act like i dont know what im talking about.  brain washing is brain washing, and that is what they are trying to do.


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## chicago311 (Thursday at 1:57 PM)

what about these kids now days going to school and dressing up and saying they are cats, and our schools allowing same sex gender books to be passed around, shit back in my school days you NEVER heard of stuff like that. but now days they encourage it. what a sad world we live in.   we need to get someone in office to get our country back in order period.


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## RiR0 (Thursday at 3:00 PM)

chicago311 said:


> what about these kids now days going to school and dressing up and saying they are cats, and our schools allowing same sex gender books to be passed around, shit back in my school days you NEVER heard of stuff like that. but now days they encourage it. what a sad world we live in.   we need to get someone in office to get our country back in order period.


When I was in school the kids knew better than to try that weird shit. They would’ve been dunked in toilets and left in a trash can


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