Feeding News Addiction
September 28th, 2006 by Matt InglotSteve Pavlina recently wrote about his 30 day news fast trial that he has decided to continue with indefinitely. Despite his excellent points, I’d like to write a post disagreeing with Steve on the matter.
Steve cites a number of reasons why news should be avoided, which can be roughly summarized as news is a short-sighted, biased, negative, selective, irrelevant, shallow, untrustworthy, inactionable and redundant source of information. Even with truly quality news sources these points all apply in some doses, but if most of the news you receive is inactionable then I say that the root problem is you are listening to the wrong news!
I have several fields of interest, of which business and computer technology are of highest relevance to my daily life. I like to keep on top of them for a number of reasons, and sometimes the highly summarized trendy myopic news media suffices. Where Steve has taken an extreme approach of avoiding all news, I simply stay away from the stuff that holds no value to me. I’ve found that a great way to do that this is through RSS feeds, so long as your RSS reader isn’t setup in a way that is visible during work. I have my RSS feeds setup in my GMail account, which I check roughly twice a day. I click the interesting headlines that show up, while my brain automatically filters out those that aren’t relevant.
What do I gain from not blocking myself off from the news media?
- Inspiration. Whether I need a blog post topic or I’m on the lookout for a new business idea, being exposed to current topics provides fuel for new ideas. Sometimes the greatest breakthrough could be in taking an idea from a different discipline and applying it to something relevant to me.
- Competitive information. Knowing how the market is doing, what certain companies are up to, and what sort of business and technology advances are out there, or just what’s hot provides plenty of material relevant to my business making decisions.
- Awareness of trends. Since the news media is indeed myopic, profit-oriented, and controls heavily what people discuss, it provides a good idea of what the current trendy issues are in a particular subject area.
- Avoiding becoming myopic myself. It’s fine and well to focus on and become an expert in a chosen field, but I don’t want to feel like I am living under a rock. That’s where the stereotypes like the PhD genius who is completely oblivious to the world around him come from.
- Enjoyment. I find it genuinely interesting to know about some of the things that are going on in this world. The news media places under my nose topics that I would never actively seek out myself, such as the discovery of a new cancer cure or a NASA space mission.
I should also not forget to mention that I’ll know when the planet is evacuating long before Steve 
It all comes down to expanding your horizons intelligently, and regardless of its flaws the news media is a highly valuable tool when its user knows of its limitations. Do not forget that other sources of information have their own human-induced faults and should all be scrutinized carefully. The moment a source of information becomes trusted blindly it automatically becomes a source of propaganda.
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September 28th, 2006 at 5:59 pm
I completely agree with you on this point. I read Steve’s post, and I guess I can see where he is coming from, but the arguments you made for wanting to stay current are more compelling to me than the ones he made for avoiding news. I do the same thing you do and take things in via RSS. That gives me complete control over how, when, and what I read, and allows me to be productive during the day while still keeping up with developments that are relevant to what I do.
September 29th, 2006 at 12:18 pm
This is sort of case in point what I was talking about a few months ago when I wrote, The Ministry of Steve Pavlina.” He has some okay ideas, but it feels like more and more of his recent stuff has these undertones of severing himself from society.
I’m a current events kind of junkie. I don’t check news very often, but if I’m not listening to something that is informative in some way I feel disconnected. I listen to tons of talk radio for this reason. It makes me feel like I’m connected to the world, and that’s very important when you’re talking about society which is social by definition.
June 1st, 2007 at 5:15 pm
I think you are right. Steve’s article made sense but i see what you mean and agree with you.