Anyone else NOT watch the news?

[GenXguy]

I can’t imagine not watching and/or reading the news and being ignorant of what is happening. I watch a variety of stations to get a more balanced view. However, I don’t overload either because that’s unhealthy. Personally I feel that if you don’t either read or watch the news there’s no way you can be an educated voter.

Yeah, it's good to not rely on just one source so that you can get the full story instead of one perspective. Seems too many people don't keep up on the news or only get one sided views and bias or make up excuses not to watch the news.

I only watch an average about 20 minutes of national news and 15 minutes of local news per day and skip commercials or news stories I'm not interested in.

But I keep up with the news through multiple online sources as well, which varies a lot rather than a set schedule.

 

[street]

Just our local news. Nothing national interests me but still bits and pieces so not totally out of the loop.

 

[Gremlin]

The amount of spin put on something, the amount of selective editing, the amount of rearranging of timelines to suit the view the particular news outlet was advancing was astounding. I mean sometimes the EXACT OPPOSITE of what occurred was portrayed.

Truly, an eye-opening experience for me. Sometime in the mid 90's is when I quit watching TV news.

As you say, it's just too much work to get at the actual news.

I discovered this the same way around 2010. Man, I wish I could get all that wasted news-watching time back. I was such a news junky in the 90’s.

About five years ago my then 80 year old mom called me to rant about something on the news that had made her mad. I listened for about twenty minutes and then tossed out a distracted “that’s why I don’t watch the news anymore.” And oops! Boy did that make her even madder. Five years later she finally decided she’d had enough of the outrage and stopped watching.

 

[frayne]

I keep up with mainstream media like CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, FOX Business, FOX News, and News Nation, and I also read "The Economist" to maintain a balanced perspective on current events. However, I try to maintain a healthy perspective, recognizing that worrying about things beyond my control is fruitless. Ultimately, the world's been a bit of a screwed up mess since the beginning, and that's unlikely to change anytime soon.

 

[Yipper]

I don't ignore the news, but I don't watch TV news. I find TV news is very politically skewed (either direction) and an incredibly inefficient way to get info, unless there is something big and late-breaking going on like a natural disaster, terrorist attack, etc. I try to read multiple sources in hopes of extrapolating the unbiased truth, which is hard to come by these days.

Completely agree with you and have taken the same approach as you.

I almost never watch news on TV from any source and seek out what I hope is "less" biased news from several well-established, reputable news sources.

 

[easysurfer]

Aside from recording the morning news and watching with my finger on the fast forward button to zoom past commercials and the news that I don't want to see, I don't seek out watching news.

I figure we are bombarded in so many different ways with "Breaking News!" that ends out not really breaking, I'll watch at my own pace.

Sometimes, I'd find myself saying "I saw such and such news at a headline, but didn't read in detail" .

 

[Gumby]

I don't watch TV, news or otherwise (and we don't have cable). I listen to Sirius XM in the car and CDs or vinyl in the house, so I don't listen to the news either. I do scan the headlines of the NYT online every day, but I only read an article or two that might catch my interest, then move on to the Wordle, Spelling Bee and Crossword.

In general, I prefer to receive information in written form. I can read far more rapidly than anyone can talk. I also prefer actively obtaining information in which I am interested, versus just passively receiving information that someone else has chosen to provide.

 

[MichaelB]

Right now I’m struggling with a news situation. My mum wants a daily newspaper delivered, and has 2 options here in South Florida, I’ve tried both for her. Their business practices are, to be polite, unethical. The journalism isn’t bad and they do provide a fair amount of coverage of local news, society, culture and happenings, but their poor businesses practices make them an undesirable provider.

 

[pacergal]

We watch local news or public broadcast channel news most evenings , and I have online local newspaper, BBC, Apple News, and Good News Network on my phone.
Don't check or read them all every day though.

 

[GrayHare]

I don't know that I tuned off the news as much as the news turned off me, mostly due to the style. Filling 24 hours each day makes for too much blather. Now I'll watch a bit of economic news because it tends to filter out all but the essential non-strictly-economic topics. I'd watch a '50s or '60s style half hour broadcast but that no longer exists.

 

[marko]

My late FI uncle was the most blissfully uninformed person I ever met. He had no clue about anything going on in the world.

Unless it impacted him directly, he just didn't know--and didn't care to know-- about it. "What's it got to do with me?" was his favorite line.

Who's the president, the price of gas, tomorrow's weather, war, murders, celebrities....absolutely no idea. He could afford to be so out of touch and sometimes it was quite entertaining and comical but he just had no interest.

"Do you know what that Jaguar of yours gets for gas mileage unk?
No.
How often do you fill the tank?
Twice a week.
Actually you're only getting 11 miles to the gallon ...and you don't drive anywhere.
Is that bad?
It's not good
Oh, I just thought it had a small tank!"

 

[Ronstar]

My DW is a Fox News junkie - has it on the tv most of the time at home and almost all the time while we're driving. So I'm inundated with news when DW is around. But I hardly ever catch any news when I'm by myself.

 

[jldavid47]

I have not watched the news in years. I read the news every day off my Apple News feed.

 

[TheWizard]

I watch MSNBC, CNN and even Fox News from time to time.
There are certain commentators I find I like better than others.
At some point, those sources can get repetitive, so I turn them off for a while.

I also get news alerts on my smartphone, which is how I initially found out about the Boston Marathon bombing way back in 2013, for example.

I'm less inclined to watch CBS or NBC nightly 6:30 newscasts anymore because by then, they are rehashing stuff that happened way earlier and has already been covered by the sources I mentioned above...

 

[Going camping]

Before I retired I spent my last year working with a group of guys who would collectively watch the news in the break room each morning. They would get all kinds of spun up with the outrage of the day being broadcast. Then they would rehash the affront at lunch. I was sad to see so much of their life energy being drained over things that will never affect them.

I'm with OP in that I never "watch" news but I do read in-depth analysis from publications I trust regarding areas that concern or interest me.

I have no idea what is going on in Gaza, Israel, Iran, or Ukraine beyond unmissable headlines. I keep track of my local city council and their decisions, because those are the decisions that affect my daily life. I'm much happier without the national media noise.

 

[tulak]

It’s been a long time since I watched news. I will listen to news occasionally, but I find that I turn it off or listen to something else more and more.

I mostly read news, using Apple News (news aggregator), but usually only skim the headlines. When I read an article, it’s something of interest to me (science, finance, etc), instead of current events.

I used to pay more attention to the news, but as I get older, I find that it’s mostly the same stuff in a different form. That gets old after a while, kinda like reading about the pros and cons of paying off your mortgage.

 

[Amethyst]

I haven't watched news since my husband died and I got rid of the cable TV subscription. I read three newspapers online, so I can stay ahead of the headlines, and enjoy the NYT's weekly news quiz. And my secret guilty pleasure has always been advice columns, which I've been reading since the days of Ann Landers.

Along these lines, I consider the Yahoo/MSN/etc. clickbait posing as "news" to be a pernicious waste of one's precious remaining life. There is no useful info; it is aimed at making readers feel emotion, mainly that of being superior to the poor feckless souls in the clickbait items.

 

[PatrickA5]

I get most of my news from DW. She'll tell me if anything important happens and most of what she tells me is not important (to me). I think my mental health has improved greatly since I got of the news wagon a couple of years ago. If I'm ignorant because I don't know what's happening halfway around the world, then so be it.

 

[ERD50]

Years ago, when I was more politically active I found something very interesting. I would watch CSPAN for the raw footage of press conferences, congressional committee meetings, floor speeches, and various other government functions. CSPAN would put a camera in the room and let it roll. Then I would watch the national evening news on TV and/or the cable news channels coverage of the very same thing I just witnessed, untampered, with my own eyes.

The amount of spin put on something, the amount of selective editing, the amount of rearranging of timelines to suit the view the particular news outlet was advancing was astounding. I mean sometimes the EXACT OPPOSITE of what occurred was portrayed.

Truly, an eye-opening experience for me. Sometime in the mid 90's is when I quit watching TV news.

As you say, it's just too much work to get at the actual news.

Yep, it's not uncommon. I need to hear/see what was actually said, not what the news tells me was said.

I actually am at the point that I tell people, if you aren't going to make the effort to dig in and find the actual source info and decide for yourselves, you should just ignore what the news said about it, or it's probably pretty safe to assume the opposite is closer to the truth. It really is about that bad.

-ERD50

 

[Aerides]

Watching the News != Being well informed

There are many ways one can stay current on world and local events, without "watching the news" - as I'm sure many of us do.

I also prefer reading, and receive a few daily newsletters that I scan most mornings. I follow several journalists on twitter, such as it is these days. I listen to the POTUS channel on Sirius, mostly for Julie Mason who is absolutely terrific at enraging partisans on "both sides" as she presents a very well balanced afternoon program including guests from across the political spectrum.

 

[FREE866]

on radio I'll listen to 1010 WINS to get overview


TV I like PBS on Friday nights they do a ten minute recap of the news of the week with David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart. I like them both.



Like others have said I find the news/social media very toxic


I do watch CNBC while I eat lunch at noon ; its apolitical and talks about the stock market which I'm a bit obsessed with.

 

[Al18]

I live near a large city with many professional sports teams. Doesn’t matter what station I watch, sports always consumes 50% of the time, crime is 25%, weather is 20% and feel good is 5%. Since I have zero interest is sports, I just fast forward thru that segment.

I had a 2 week vacation in Hawaii earlier this year and noticed their 1 hour local news is completely different and was enjoyable to watch, covering all the islands.

 

[gauss]

I haven't watched very much TV since the "digital transition" in the US (aka change in the broadcast standard).

As such I have not really watched any TV news since then.

I do however listen to the radio and catch news stories there.

I did stop this for a while when I thought the radio news coverage would be too upsetting for me.

As the child of a parent with lifelong clinical anxiety, I have developed a bit of mantra to handle this. I ask myself a couple of questions:
#1) What is the worse possible outcome that could occur?
#2) How likely is this to actually happen?

If I need additional reassurance I recall the quote attributed to Mark Twain:

"I have lived through some terrible things in my life..... A few of them actually happened". (think about it for a second)

-gauss

 

[audreyh1]

I don’t watch the news. I don’t like being spoon fed news at the pace and discretion of the producer. I prefer to read news (online) and delve into (i.e. go to the source) what I find interesting as desired. I would probably watch more if we had a lot of investigative journalism but that seems to have gone by the wayside and news presentation is really shallow.

That said I really stay away from news in general these days. I have better things to do with my time.

Watching the News != Being well informed

Exactly!

As has been said, "You can ignore the news and be uninformed, or follow the news and be misinformed." I believe that to be a sad truth.

-ERD50

Agree completely!

If it’s a topic of interest I have to dig into it myself.

 

[audreyh1]

I would find it hard to avoid.. the news is everywhere.

I find it quite easy to avoid. No TV, no radio. Streaming music no ads, streaming series, no ads, no broadcast TV, specific topic podcasts on occasion.

You can take a hard look at your environment and what is forcing “news” on you.