Of course it’s not an explicit expectation, but the news cycle is dominated by a mix of 24/7 news and daily summaries. It’s rare that I see weekly, bi-weekly, monthly summaries. I’m thinking, is there really that much that can happen in a day and that warrants our attention? Most news are clickbait focused on the negative, making us feel depressed and feeds our negative emotions. I wouldn’t be surprised if the news actively contributes to the mental health crisis.
At the same time I think it can be of importance to have some understanding on what’s going on in one’s local area, one’s country and in the world. For me I think a weekly summary would be good balance, but those are weirdly hard to find. What are your thoughts?
No, just ignore the news. Maybe skim though the headlines if you are really curious.
Only thing you have to worry about is if the headline say stuff like:
“Hurricane/Tsunami (or other disasters) is imminent”
“Our country is being invaded”
“Martial law has been invoked”
Stuff like “Leader says stupid thing” is not worth your attention, don’t bother reading such articles.
Not that you’re looking for recommendations, but Delayed Gratification magazine may be close to what you’re looking for!
https://www.slow-journalism.com/This looks really great. How’s the quality of the journalism? And what political leaning do they have?
Most of it doesn’t matter, so summaries aren’t of much use. You do occasionally get the year in review compilations.
Very important stuff is going to stay relevant, in the new cycle, in your community social circle, for a long period of time. So you’ll be kept abreast of it that way
I definitely don’t. Better for my mental health.
Most aren’t expected to, unless it’s your job like Kimmel, SNL, Stewart, Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, etc
It’s just easier to find new content reading material than today’s market in fiction which is disappointingly awful of late.
You are 100% correct, negative news has a greater impact on people than positive: https://assets.csom.umn.edu/assets/71516.pdf
Media sites know this, and use it to drive engagement:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-023-01538-4
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/social-media-facebook-twitter-politics-b1870628.html
And so, negative headlines are getting worse: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0276367
But negative news is addictive and psychologically damaging: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/why-we-worry/202009/the-psychological-impact-negative-news
So it’s important to try and stay positive:
https://www.goodgoodgood.co/articles/benefits-of-good-news
If you want a break from the constant negativity, here are some sites that report specifically on positive news:
Remember, realistic optimism is important and, unlike what some might have you believe, is not the same as blissful ignorance or ‘burying your head in the sand’: https://www.learning-mind.com/realistic-optimism-blind-positivity/
https://www.centreforoptimism.com/realisticoptimism
And doesn’t mean you must stay uninformed on current affairs: https://www.goodgoodgood.co/articles/how-to-stop-doom-scrolling
https://goodable.co/blog/tips-for-balancing-positive-and-negative-news/
Some world news summaries can be found here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-37067259
https://www.economist.com/the-world-this-week
Good comment, saving the good news sources
For the entire time I’ve been alive, we have been a supply-side economics country. Which means that rather than companies creating products based upon the needs of the people and selling them, much or perhaps most of the economy is oriented toward making you want (largely) unnecessary things that companies have created.
The news media serves this economic structure in a few different ways:
- It notifies you of new products – essentially acting as the marketing arm of the companies – to keep the economy humming along and people consuming things.
- It wants you to consume its main, likely unnecessary product (i.e. 24/7, up-to-the-second news) in order to both assist the above goal of having you consume that marketing, and because it itself is a supply-side economic product.
- It relays at every possible opportunity the message that not keeping up with the news will result in you missing out on important things, or might result in potential disaster.
It is often the news organizations themselves – and the people who act as boosters for them either unintentionally or intentionally – that pretend that you have some personal responsibility to consume every bit of news about every flatulent (be it government, celebrity, or corporate) that opened their mouth today.
You have identified a gap in the news information market. Be the change you want to see instead of asking random people on the internet if they agree with you, lest they steal your initiative.
Whose expectations? Who says we have to pay them any mind?Unless their name is on the deed, or they pay me wages, I don’t much care what they expect.
I know someone who only learned Biden had dropped out upon seeing his name was not on the (mail-in) ballot. I was a little jealous.
I follow current events, but I strive to filter out politics beyond the very top level headlines.
We’re social creatures. We need things to talk about so we seek out info on shared interests. “The news” has the added benefit of feeding into a self belief about being civic minded person.
I think it’s ok to have an area of study be a hobby, but if you want to be an activist find something you can actually engage in. If you can’t create real value on the thing. Swing a hammer, shovel, paint, move goods, create program, or one degree away helping coordinate people actually doing that, don’t worry about it. It’s a time suck, and we all have better things to actually do.
The news is full of time sucks like that. Just worrying things you have no responsibility or possible action to deal with. It’s worth occasionally glances to see if there is an interesting hobby you want to pick up or if there a cause you want to engage in, but if your good there I wouldn’t bother.
Personally I read the news daily because it’s one of a few things that keeps updating in real time, with a story line tying it together. Like, the events each day relate to yesterday, and it keeps developing in real time so there’s that discount aspect to checking it. That’s the need that it fulfills to me. I’d like to get off the News but I haven’t found anything else like this yet. Reddit/Lemmy doesn’t do
I don’t think we are. I mean in the old times, newspapers used to be published once a day. And you’d have the evening news on TV. And it kind of aligns with daily rituals. You can read it with your morning ciffee, or grab it on your way to work…
These days you can read news whenever you want. And they’re there almost immediately. Plus a lot of people use social media to share news articles. So it doesn’t really follow any cycle.
Speaking more generally, people like to stay in the loop. Things are most interesting when they just happened, not 20 days later… And attention works in a strange way in the age if the internet anyways… You’re always available, or someplace else. Notifications pop up all day. And we check our phone like 200 times a day to check on arbitrary things.
I’d say read a magazine, if you want bi-weekly or monthly updates. The articles in there are more nuanced and interesting anyways. And magazines are a thing and kind of made for that.
I think you’re just describing market forces. Good recaps are harder to write. You’re describing cheap news. If we want proper news, we need to subsidize it.
That’s one of the reasons I’m subscribed to a weekly magazine.
Which one?
A small French protestant weekly called Réforme. I doubt the title in itself is relevant for you, but the periodicity is just right to have fresh news but with hindsight.
I get my news from people on TikTok that do it every week as a round up instead of the shitty corporate owned 24/7 kind.
Mostly seeing what laws are/will take away my ability to exist as a person and all rights associated with it.
Don’t want to be sent to slavery, err they call it prison now right?
Basically getting the upper hand in case I’m not allowed to go to certain places or exist in certain spaces.
More of a survival thing then anything else really.
You think TikTok is better than mainstream media for news?
From experience it is, mainstream Media always is about media and attention and money and control.
TikTok have people who are just people who are reporting what there finding for news to inform others, not for money, not fo views, but because they genuinely want to inform people.
It’s hard to do that on American platforms because anything they don’t like they censored heavily. Yes TikTok does too but not that extent
