At the start of this year, 39 per cent of people questioned said they sometimes or often avoid the news, up from 29 per cent in 2018. They're overwhelmed by rolling news alerts and commentary, much of it horrific or worrying.
I must say my own attitude to the news is somewhat ambivalent. I want to know what's going on in the outside world, but I also recoil from so much outright brutality and misery - which I can do nothing about.
Of course journalists will argue that they have to give us the full horror of events like wars or mass rapes or barbaric regimes, so we realise just how dreadful they are. To skirt over sickening details or play them down in order to "spare people's feelings" is simply irresponsible.
But at the same time as we're made aware of all these appalling events, we're usually unable to do anything about them, which leaves us feeling not only depressed but frustrated and helpless. I have no influence over any of the public figures who could give us a better world. I can only watch as horror after horror unfolds.
In the end the only thing I can do is turn off the news and retreat into my comfortable domestic bubble, watching episodes of Simon's Cat, listening to Bonnie Raitt, and re-reading my favourite authors. Thank heaven for culture, which is always a reliable antidote to the savagery of the outside world.
My issue with the media is that it’s lost its credibility. There’s a lack of fact checking and instead, it’s biased and headline grabbing.
ReplyDeleteMany, perhaps most, news websites are focused on getting people to stay engaged as long as possible (so they'll see more ads). This is even more true of social media. Making people feel angry or upset is a powerful way of keeping them engaged. So they have an incentive to focus on the must infuriating stories and present them in such a way that readers feel as outraged as possible. Stories of evil acts -- always those committed by groups that the target audience can be assumed to dislike already -- are prime material for this.
ReplyDeleteI want to be aware of what is really happening in the world, and a lot of really horrible things do actually happen. The Holocaust was real. Mass shootings are real. The October 7 attack on Israel was real. But it is enough simply to be aware of the details; I do not feel a need to wallow in them and become outraged and upset when I can do nothing to help. Most of my reading and thinking is occupied with interests which, like yours, serve as a refuge from the news. When I read a science book, I'm often struck by a sense of "purity" in learning about the study of objective reality, untainted by the good and evil of the world.
Certainly any story or news source that seems focused on making you impotently angry, and always paints whatever it reports on in the worst possible light, should be discarded. They have an agenda and it's not to your benefit.