‘News’ is a funny word.  It could seem to be a plural of ‘new’, but ‘new’ isn’t a noun.  There seems to be a tendency, too, to make assumptions about the noteworthiness of an event based on whether we characterize it as ‘news’, to the point of having an entire separate word to describe those as ‘newsworthy’. There are cultural expectations that adults will have some basic familiarity with ‘current events’, with the implication that failing to follow ‘the news’ results in being somehow less relevant, well-informed, or professionally viable.

It’s a trap.

Think it over with me for a moment…periodicals and televised programming centered around journalism and reporting of selected current events or culturally relevant topics are often looked upon with a higher than average level of credibility. Why is that? I mean…they are producing a product for profit, are they not? The truthfulness of the material they offer is not actually regulated or accredited, and the goal of gaining or maintaining viewership, ratings, or sales numbers is not at all the same as a goal of ‘providing factually accurate information’ – is it? What would ‘news’ look like if all the inflammatory language, the color, and the spin were removed? If unbiased, unemotional language were used to present facts simply, we would probably be less compelled to read or watch it. Words, once again, being used to control us. Words being used to persuade us to spend our time receiving input that may not have lasting value, but will assuredly rob us of our time, and potentially our comfort, peace of mind, and ability to manage stress. No one news ‘source’ (they are not sources, they are brokers at best. lol) has a monopoly on manipulating the public, because they all have the same actual goal – gain viewers/readers, gain ratings, make sales for advertisers.  Is there an untapped segment of the public out there? (Angry women? Single mothers? Those on the right? Those on the left?) The media will identify it, and someone will begin creating content to appeal to that group of people – to acquire them as regular consumers.  It’s not about information, and it is not about truth. It is about ‘the business win’.

Why do I care? Pretty simple – I’m working on learning to take care of me; to manage my stress level, treat myself well, and live a good life that has meaning and in which I can thrive as a being. As the 2012 US presidential election approached last year, I found myself regularly in a state of stress and near-panic over news articles. Unacceptable.  I wasn’t sure how to deal with it – some of the events in the news were even triggering my PTSD, resulting in lost sleep, panic, emotional volatility, nightmares, and a near-continuous state of severe stress that was making me ill, and severely unhappy.  I gotta admit, it gets depressing really quickly to read some heinous news report about a gang rape a world away, and find no comfort at all in local or regional reporting right here at home – because so many of the voices in the news sound suspiciously anti-woman to the point of being ‘pro rape’.  It was an ugly election, and I have a long list of human beings of both genders that I not only won’t ever vote for (no matter what their future achievements or stated values may be), I feel rather as if I can’t actually count on the culture I live in to value and support women, or treat them compassionately and fairly under any circumstances.  It became a very scary world to live in, pretty quickly.  Someone, somewhere, must think it is OK to deliver ‘news’ content that willfully and deliberately selects verbiage that stokes emotional turmoil, triggers anxiety, depression, and anger, and may be not only hurtful and confrontational, but also may not be true…just to get it seen, just to make money. Ick.  The horrors of reported news from December through January was enough for me. I don’t need to complicate things that are already hard on me by allowing content providers to manipulate my emotions.

I turned off the news.  I gave it a break, skimming only what I had to, avoiding the rest. I turned off feeds. I uninstalled applications from my devices. I started logging off and exiting and shutting down things I am not actively using at any given moment.  I feel better. lol. Every day that I don’t read a story where some over privileged idiot with too much power and not enough wisdom says something stupidly offensive and hurtful, I have done myself a favor. I made some choices about content, too. I revisited my settings on the two content providers I choose to continue with regularly – and discontinued all the political and business ‘news’, entertainment ‘news’, and any category that had become a regular source of stress. I am keeping content relating to mindfulness practices, health and fitness, food, and ‘good news’ where that is available. I skim the front page quickly – subject lines only – and move along.  (It may be relevant to something that Hugo Chavez died, that seems historical I suppose, but I am also quite certain that not one detail about that actually matters to me in my here and now.) Going any deeper seems to require, at some point, suspending any skepticism and ‘trusting’ news content providers to be truthful – and to trust that their sources have been similarly truthful.  I’m not actually willing to indulge in that level of trust, when it has become pretty clear that The Daily Show can be relied on more easily to be accurate than mainstream ‘news’ content providers. lol.

Are you taking a moment to feel some sympathy? Are you also taking a moment to feel a little smug that you are not so helplessly enthralled by ‘the media’? Before you go too far down that road, please just take a moment to think back on your past 6 months or so – did you make even one decision to take an action, or engage in a behavior, because of something you read/heard on the news? Did you repeat to someone else even one ‘fact’ that you read/heard on the news, without independently verifying it yourself? I don’t think saying more is necessary, and your choices are your own. 😉

I also don’t want to waste my time reading what someone else wrote about what they think about what someone even further removed experienced, or base all of my thinking and decision making on things I read or heard somewhere.  I want to have my own experiences, and I want to have time to do that.  I gained hours of time back by discontinuing the habit of reading the news, or Reddit, or forums about this or that topic of interest. Now I have time to talk. Time to feel. Time to touch and be touched. Time to explore my life and my choices for the future. Time to consider what matters to me. Time to treat myself well and heal old hurts.

I discovered I do not know how to read the news mindfully.  So…I stopped reading the news.  I haven’t missed it.