Article pairing: stop reading the news

No News Is Good News – Thomas Bevan, Commonplace Newsletter

People claim that they consume the news- and this used to be my reasoning too- because they argue that it is both a good thing and in fact a duty to be informed about the world at large.  But this belief- and it is at root an article of faith- doesn’t hold up to real scrutiny.

The news is the opposite of understanding because understanding is a question of seeing processes and trends.

The Media Timescale Edition: On the structure of news, pace layers, and the fifty-year newspaper – Noah Brier, Why Is This Interesting

In a classic essay from 1965, Johan Galtung analyzed the structure of news. He argued that the frequency with which outlets publish — daily, and now instantly — limits their ability to cover long-term positive trends. Imagine if newspapers did not come out every day but instead once every half-century.

— Max Roser, Stop Saying 2016 Was the Worst Year