Why you should avoid the news media and what to do instead

Published on 2022-08-24.

This is a small introduction to a really great article about how toxic it is to follow the daily news and what to do instead.

When I was young, I had the both fortunate and unfortunate experience of a family member getting into a mess that eventually ended up in all the major Danish news papers at the time (before the Internet was a thing). It taught me a very valuable lesson early on, that you absolutely cannot trust any of the major news media. None of the journalists took the time to investigate what had happened and why. What they did instead was to use big headlines with ridicules and utterly exaggerated (and blatantly lying) titles. What seemed to matter most to them was how to get people emotionally hooked, rather than showing an interest for the truth and the facts. In any case, because of that experience I became extremely aware of how the news media operate and I learned to always investigate a matter myself before I reach any kind of conclusion.

News media is not about relating relevant information, it's all about controlling the masses, making money, inhibit thinking, and they do that by creating sensational, graphic, shocking, scary, story-formattet crap that keep our brains wired on hormones that effect the mood.

If you want to understand this better and understand what to do instead, read the article Avoid the News (PDF) by Rolf Dobelli. It is very good!