STOP reading the news

“The man who reads nothing at all is better educated that the man who reads nothing but newspapers.” Thomas Jefferson.

As it’s Saturday morning, it’s likely you’ve got a newspaper in your hands right now. Either an old fashioned one made of actual paper or an iPad with today’s electronic version.

You were scrolling through Apple News, The Telegraph, The FT, The Times or (God forbid) The Guardian when this email pinged into your inbox and interrupted you.

(Some of you may even have been glancing at The Mail Online, but just for the comments section you understand…)

People today seem to have an unprecedented obsession with the news. Rather than waiting for the daily paper or the six o’clock TV news as we all used to, you can now get up-to-the-minute reports, 24 hours a day, pushed into our pocket computers. Refreshed every second.

But whilst the way we consume the news has changed, our preoccupation with it is nothing new.

Here’s Mitchell Stephens from his book A History of the News:

“It might be surprising to learn that more than 275 years ago the English—though they had no radio, television, satellites or computers, and though men obtained much of their news at the coffeehouse—thought their era was characterised by an obsession with news… . Nor were the English the only people before us who thirsted after news. In the middle of the fourth century b.c., for example, Demosthenes portrayed his fellow Athenians as preoccupied with the exchange of news…”

Why is this??? Why the obsession?

Now you may think that our ancestors before us (and you and I today) have noble reasons for reading the news: you want to keep up with the important issues of the day and be able to converse with fellow travellers on this planet.

But you’d be wrong.

People in the olden days (by which I mean any time longer than 10 years ago), have admitted that they’re actually looking for information on movies, share prices and the weather. Or, more likely, to follow the latest scandal involving those people who we ‘know’ through those very pages we’re reading: the ‘rich and the famous’.

But nowadays, we can get all that from a quick Google search. And yet, the obsession with the news is stronger than ever. If anything, now that we have social media, we read more news than ever before.

Despite what we tell ourselves, there are signs we’re not using the news to be model citizens. For example, voters don’t seem too bothered about the nitty-gritty details most useful for voting, like specific policies, the pros and cons, and where each politician stands on these issues. Instead, we tend to treat elections like a horse race, cheering for or against different candidates rather than really digging into who should win. This is especially relevant in the UK today as we’re heading into a general election where you’ll see a remarkable amount of coverage about Rishi vs Keir rather than their respective policies. And if you don’t believe me, here is an article in The Telegraph about what they’re wearing and how that will win them the election.

We also don’t seem too concerned about how accurate our news sources are. A major media firm in the US had a team working for months on a project to grade prominent political pundits on how accurate their predictions were. But, funnily enough, the project got canned as soon as the results came back showing just how wrong most pundits are. As long as our ‘experts’ have a veneer of confidence and are engaging and articulate, we don’t really care whether what they’re actually saying has any value or not.

News is no longer about the news

Newspapers today and the professional journalists who work for them are competing against thousands of amateurs writing on Twitter (X) or Facebook or writing blogs and sharing links. These amateurs aren’t getting paid but they are getting our attention.

And that's the goal.

The news is designed to get your attention. To outrage you. To anger you. To get a reaction.

If a newspaper can get your emotions up, then they have your attention (for a minute or two at least). And in today’s crowded market, attention is what matters.

News outlets are businesses and they exist to make money. Not to inform you. The way they make money is to grab your attention and show you some ads. That’s it. That’s why news headlines are very often pure click-bait and why the headlines are becoming more and more outrageous.

A balanced reporting of actual world events is boring. Nobody wants to read that. So different outlets take the facts and twist them to appeal to a segment of the market. To polarise opinion.

Here are some examples:

• "Labour’s Lead Narrows to Only 12 Points Over Tories, Reveals New Poll" (The Independent); or
• "Labour Set for Landslide Victory as Polls Show Massive Lead Over Tories" (The Independent)

• "Farage Declares Conservative Vote a Waste of Time" (The Independent); or
• "Farage Urges Tactical Voting to Prevent Labour Majority" (Express)

• "Starmer Promises Closer Ties with EU, Highlights Brexit Mistakes" (New Statesman); or
• "Starmer Backs Brexit, Says No Return to EU" (Sky News)

So what to do?

Scrolling through the news is no different to scrolling through TikTok. The goal of the news provider or the social media platform is to get your attention. Even if you’re an experienced reader of the news, the chances are that you’ll be swayed more by the emotional impact of the headlines than the content. This knee-jerk reaction is impossible for you to prevent. It’s what your brain is programmed to do. And it’s what the news provider is counting on.

Unfortunately the consequences are serious. It results in a spread of misinformation and a superficial understanding of news events.

My solution is that I don’t read the news any more and I haven’t for years. If something really important happens, then one of my much smarter friends will let me know what’s going on and explain the consequences of it to me. I've become immune to their initial cries of “How have you not heard about ...?”.

And my kids keep me up to date with the world of music/fashion/TV as much as I ever want to be up to date with that world.

The result is that I have much more time to research what I want to read. On which note, this article on the emotional content of music from 2013 is an absolute belter, but I realise I might be the only one who thinks so...

And that’s fine.

Jon

P.S. If you'd like to see more of my pretty face, then check out my YouTube channel where you'll learn more about this kind of stuff.

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