I mean, physically ill? It definitely makes me ill if I watch it too much, so I decided to do something about it – I stopped watching all American news. The minute you turn on any American news, even stalwarts like CNN or MSNBC, it’s nothing but scare tactics or fluff stories – there really isn’t any actual news on these stations anymore. Being bombarded with stories like this day in and day out take a toll on one’s body and mind, leaving us stressed out, panicky, worried sick or disgusted with the state of the world. The local news is useless, filled with overarching stories that are irrelevant to you, and the national news is just hype over which Republican or Democrat had the latest affair. This is not news – it’s entertainment. Being in constant state of paralysis created by the “news” can make you sick, so I suggest you stop watching it. For good.
There are plenty of avenues for you to still know what’s really going on in the world without resorting to the standard American diet of “news”. If I am watching TV and want to know about the news, I turn on BBC News. Important stories about riots in Jamaica and Thailand, economy issues in Spain, and children being jailed in Turkey have all been on BBC News today – but not on any US news. Instead we get stories about American Idol, an actresses husband found dead, and Sarah Palin telling some random group that Obama is on heroin. This is NOT news, it is NOISE. And it is time to free yourself from it. Check out the BBC on TV or online. Check out Al Jazeera news. Check out independent media not dependent on the ratings that come from covering scandals and hoopla. Hey, watch Comedy Central at night and at least be told up front that the news is entertainment! If you are going to ingest news, which most of us do, at least make it actual news and not scary stories that serve no purpose in your life.
The most important thing? Get your news and move on with your day.
I know people who have their TV’s on all day, so they hear the same b.s. stories morning, noon, and night…and then those same stories become their reality. Kid gets abducted 3,000 miles away? Your kid is next, so you better not let him go outside. A single person has some weird disease that has symptoms that match yours exactly? You are going to die!
You have to realize that the news, at least Americanized news, has become entertainment – and that’s about it. It’s all about ratings, money, and who can scoop the most useless story first. And it’s making us sick in the meantime because it becomes real to us. We have to stop letting it.
Stop watching it. Get what you need from actual news sources and be done for the day. I used to get pissed off and upset when watching the local news until I realized it wasn’t news at all. I still get plenty of information off the internet or the radio, but I have learned to tune out most of the irrelevant stuff. If you are feeling overwhelmed, I suggest you try it as well – it helped me immensely.
So true, so true. I am so sick of the news i could scream.
Hubby likes to watch the today show and if i hear Matt Lauer one more time ask a mother in an interview “so, how did you FEEL when you saw your young child go under the wheels of the bus”? How do you think she felt you IDIOT! Why must you ask…why, because we all want to see her start to cry and tell us how it all happened. We are hooked on bad news…and it has to stop.
I once had a teacher in high school that had just returned from the Orient. She explained to us that the people very much keep to themselves. And her example was this:
In America if someone is hit by a car everyone gathers around and oohs’ & stares..
In the Orient someone can get hit and may possibly lay there for quite some time before help arrives as the people will politely and kindly step over them…
(while i think the story is a bit stretched, on the Orient side, it proves a good valid point).
This is the truest thing that I have read all day. It’s disgusting to think how we have become so used to being entertained that we don’t know what “news” is anymore. Like all news is bad news.
Now I take pride in the fact that I no longer watch the local news, and rarely see the national news. When I want to what’s happening with celebrities, then I’ll start watching again. But until then, I’ll rely a few trusted websites to keep me informed.
I tweeted this; it’s so true!
I so agree with you. We don’t even have a TV. We not only got sick of the news but sick of it all. Reality shows are about as real as a wooden nickle. What’s left but prime time soap operas, “cop” shows that aren’t realistic and “comedies” that aren’t funny. But the news is the worst. I haven’t seen a good news story since Walter Cronkite and his generation left. I don’t take the newspaper either. I’m sick to death of all slanted way the media in the US tells their stories. It’s always got an agenda and is told so that you will think what they want you to think. Thanks for the good post David.
Definitely agree. I came to that conclusion a while back – news is bad for you! I avoid tabloid journalism like the plague. A diet of junk news can lead to mental obesity. 😉
BBC website is a great ‘real’ news source (but being a Brit I am biased), I would also recommend Channel 4 News here in UK. They have a nightly news programme, and also a great website.
I have the BBC news headlines update in real-time on iGoogle and Apple Widgets. I can read more if it’s an item I’m particularly interested in.
Occasionally, if there’s a big news item I’m interested in (such as the situation in Thailand) I will watch Channel 4 News in the evening (7-8pm).
I agree with Deb too. Most of it on TV is crap anyway. I do have a TV though (but its days are numbered).
I did this 4 or 5 months ago. I realized, when I was in Paris, that I didn’t miss the news. The world will go on without me knowing the latest. I’m much happier.
Amen. I find most people, even when they disagree, are pretty reasonable. You’d never guess that from watching US news outlets. The most accurate, non-biased source I’ve seen for information on the Gulf Oil Spill, literally in our own backyard? You guessed it, the BBC.
I agree, I’ve found that skipping the news makes me happier (and less paranoid). In a perfect world, I’d keep up-to-date with “real” news and have the time and resources of that knowledge but for now I have other things I need to be doing with my time.
I hate watching the news, which is probably why I’ve never been that interested in watching it. My mom would get so paranoid about me going shopping in a town about an hour south of us simply because she’d see all sorts of murders/rapes/shootings on the news… even though I’d never be anywhere near that particular area where these things occurred. I promised myself from a young age that I wouldn’t be that ridiculous, and so far I’ve been pretty successful 🙂
As someone who has lived in the UK all there life, I have no experience with the state of news in the US, but from your explanation it sounds awful. At least the news here actually is news, even if it is about the only thing on TV that isn’t boring drivel.
Yes, many times watching news is making me depress and hopeless about the whole world. We have 2 little kids so watching in front of them is no-no and we have stopped watching news after 2001 news overdose that I went through it.
Now, we get news from various online site, not only US centric to get a balanced news browsing.
I haven’t watched the news since I consumed 36 hours of it after the events of 9/11. No more. I refuse. I don’t mind not knowing everything that’s going on in the world, nor do I mind not being involved in the heated debates at work about just how bad this Democrat or that Repbulican are and/or why each respective political party is out to destroy America. I am so sick of it. The local news is all “Murder, death and destruction…we’ll tell you how to feel about it, tonight at 10”. No thanks. I don’t need to be told that a car wreck is a tragedy, I can decide that on my own. I will say that BBC is very unbiased when reporting on American events; FoxNews and the “Mainstream Mediea” (whatever that is, Sarah) could take a lesson in impartiality from BBC News. No news isn’t just good news, it’s ignorant bliss.
o god yes, it’s all BBC newspod for me
I just linked to this on FB but in reading the comments I would like to point out that PBS still does real news. I am overly fond of Bill Moyers.
I haven’t watched the news in ages and can tell a definite difference in quality of life without infotainment. I stopped watching before the tragedy in China, and guess what? I heard about it anyway. I’ll turn on BBC every once in a great while and get actual news, but by and large I’m missing nothing, the world is still spinning, and I’m a lot happier. Stay informed if you choose, but being entertained and made to feel scared of the world around you is not staying informed.