I go through phases with my news consumption, do you?
Some weeks I’ll consume everything. All the news all the commentary and all the opinion on the commentary. A whirling gyre of thoughts and impressions that never fully resolves itself. It just gets taken over by the next one.
Other times, I hang back. Part of lockdown was like that. I’d maybe check the BBC headlines once a day and then leave it at that.
Right now, I’m largely switched off from news. Gaza, Israel, Ukraine. It’s all bad. The news that America has voted for, lets face it, fascism, is just enough. It feels as though I need to save my resilience.
Four in ten in the UK avoid the news, research has shown.
Of course, as a former reporter I feel a moral obligation to consume news and as a voter I need to know what’s going on, right?
This passage in an email I’m subscribed to is from ‘Please Scream Inside Your Heart: Breaking News From the Year That Wouldn’t End‘ by Dave Pell chimes with me.
“The notion that you need to know about world events right when they happen is a marketing creation of media brands. And yet, those news stories mingle in the same lock screen with the personal reminders and calls from your mom. The stuff that has something to do with you is now almost impossible to distinguish from the stuff that doesn’t. Trust me, that news alert can wait until later. Like most things on the internet, it can wait until never. You’re not Batman. You’re not going to do anything about the news alerts, so they can wait. As a general rule, you don’t need to be immediately notified of any breaking news that’s happening more than about eighteen feet from where you are right now. At most, your alerts should only cover your locality. Even Bruce Wayne only covers Gotham.”