I’m a news junkie. My homepage is set to Google News headlines. I read the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, BoingBoing and anything that shows up in my feed reader under a variety of custom-configured search parameters. And say what you will about Twitter as a tool for outbound communications, but the hive is a staggeringly good source for breaking news.
I check the news first thing in the morning, last thing at night, and a dozen times in between, and it appears that I can only come to one logical conclusion: the news is making me crazy.
The problem with the news is that none of it is good. Earthquakes, global warming and giant blizzards round out the coverage of natural disasters. The healthcare debate has degraded into a shouting match where everyone points fingers and nobody’s actually doing anything to reform anything. There are reports that the economy will be a disaster until my preschooler is old enough to drive. There are wars, genocides and crazy Iranian leaders trying to score nuclear weapons. And the TSA wants to see what I look like under my clothes.
And so, for the sake of my sanity, I’ve decided to ditch the news. I won’t be able to avoid it entirely, of course, but aside from a small window that I’ve set aside at lunchtime, I’m not going to actively seek it out. I know that I’m sacrificing a certain level of awareness of world events, but I think that I’m fine with that. If it’s that important, I’ll hear about it. The news has a way of finding me.
Google Reader for the win. Only subscribe to the sources you want instead of browsing through Google News.