I’m a news junkie.
Every day I survey at least 50 different current affairs information websites and feeds, including:
General interest news outlets, like the Associated Press, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times
State and local news outlets, including local newspapers in three states where I have family and local Peoria TV stations
A variety of news and opinion magazines and digital media outlets from across the political spectrum
A couple of foreign news outlets focused on Asia
Polling and data websites like Gallup, YouGov, and Visual Capitalist
Social media feeds, including X (formerly Twitter) and Substack
In addition, I listen to at least ten podcasts consistently - mostly about public affairs and culture - and about ten more occasionally, depending on how the episode content strikes me. I sometimes read a book, too. I never watch television news, except for excerpts that hit social media. (Although I do enjoy the occasional science- or history-related YouTube video.)
Like I said, a news junkie.
Note that I used the word “survey” to describe how I follow all of those sources. I know that there is absolutely no way I can read, listen to, or watch everything that I scan. L
ike any junkie, it seems that I would be better off with less. And like any junkie, I have reasons for why I wouldn’t be. Restricting my media diet would compromise some personal goals:
I like having a broad idea of the contours of the current political/economic/social conversation. You can’t get that from just one or a handful of sources. As has been noted for a while now, the days of one newspaper or TV news broadcast telling us “that's the way it is" are long gone. And I definitely don’t like being caught up in information silos or bubbles.
I’m interested in a hell of a lot of things. I wish I had narrow interests. My intellectual life would be easier.
I now teach journalism, and I feel that I should at least sample a large portion of the news and information media sphere if I’m going to be able to prepare students for life in it.
Even with these “noble” intentions, I constantly look for ways to cut back. I also imagine that I’m likely in step with the media habits of many journalists and journalism-adjacent people. (Good research study idea there.)
For certain, though, I’m positive that I’m out of step with normal, non-newsy people. Most people might know roughly what’s going on in the world, but scratch the surface and even that knowledge is fairly limited.
And you know what? Maybe that actually makes them a lot smarter than I am.
After all, why bother to follow the news?
There’s a simple case to be made that you need to know what’s going on in order to protect yourself or make your life easier. If there’s a tornado on the way, you probably want to know that. If there’s a car wreck on the freeway, it’s good to know that to avoid that area.
But our democratic culture guilts us into feeling like we should all be deeply informed on many parts of public life. How realistic is that our time-starved and hectic lives? Normal people are not paid to be informed. Most people are paid to spend most of their lives doing, you know, their jobs. They are paid to spend their hours showing up to their workplaces and maybe even getting good at their tasks. Being informed is a side project, at best. And that’s even before people set about taking care of family, seeing friends, and just enjoying personal pastimes.
And even if you are to become deeply informed, what’s the point? Practically none of us have the power to do anything with the information we receive. Most of us are, in fact, powerless - especially on public issues. We do occasionally vote. We buy products and services throughout the day. But neither of these activities does very much to influence the day-to-day operations of governments or businesses. Would more opportunities for democratic activity help? We’re already time-starved. Are we going to cram in more meetings?
And finally, let’s face a fact about most news - it’s all so negative. There are solid, journalistic reasons for this. The news is about the unusual, the out-of-the-ordinary. After all, few people are likely to care about a news story that says 99.99% of people made it back home from work and school safely today. News does help us be knowledgeable of threats and dangers. But it can all go too far. It’s not hard to imagine that many people would be better off psychologically if they avoided the negativity of the news - especially if we recall that most of us are largely powerless. You can’t fix most things, so why know about them?
By the way, following this train of thought would damage the business model of news. Again, news is valuable to society, theoretically - heck, the First Amendment goes out of its way to protect it, right? - but if fewer people consume it, then we’ll see less of it. More news businesses will fail. This is hardly something I want to advocate for.
It’s a conundrum - for society and for those of us in journalism. Already I feel myself preparing to write a rebuttal to my own post.
But one thing know for sure, already: I’ll get up tomorrow morning and scan all of those sources yet again. After all, a junkie is gonna junk.