Why I Don't Watch the News

1. It's depressing.

     As DL recently said, there are billions of good things happening every day, and yet the news manages to mention ONE of those good things and one HUNDRED of the bad things. While children drowning and people dying in fires and people being mugged and raped and murdered and countries in the midst of war and turmoil and starvation are all unfathomably horrible things, the news chooses to concentrate a disproportionate amount of its coverage on these horrible occurrences while disregarding the fact that a whole bunch of babies were born today and someone made it to their 100th birthday and a kid learned how to do a somersault. The news deems these events trivial, and yet they're the fabric of this universe, the good things that keep us going every day. If the world was run by death and destruction and tragedy, as the news portrays it to be, I can't imagine how it's lasted this long.
     Basically, this video:

2. It's one-sided. 

     In America, people either watch Fox News, or MSNBC. Never both. My grandparents, for example, get their news from one source- Fox News. So they only ever hear the conservative bias on every issue. It goes the same for people who watch liberally-biased news channels, such as MSNBC. This is because news channels determined that this is what people want. People like their news to lean left or right and be biased in favor of their personal views. 

3. It's not always accurate. 

     This ties in with the one-sided nature of the news. Stories about sex and scandal and blood are amped up to be as intriguing as possible, and I wouldn't doubt if news casters do a fair share of embellishing. And if there are any facts that would go against the biased point they're trying to make, they'll just leave those out. Not telling isn't the same as lying, right?

4. It's inflammatory. 

     If there's nothing "big" (blood, guts, death, war, Hollywood affairs) going on at the moment, the news will search high and low for a story to make a bigger deal of than it really is, and they won't let it go even after it's over and done with. 

5. Ignorance is bliss. 

     Sometimes I like living in blissful ignorance, not knowing what Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus are doing, not knowing about the most recent government scandal, or some "life-altering" exposé. 

     So I don't watch the news.
     In the video above, Hank mentions that we like to blame cable news for giving us this idea that the world sucks, but it's not just that; it's how our brains work. We freak our over bad stuff and hardly blink at good stuff. So trying to convince ourselves that the world is actually pretty good is actually pretty hard. It goes against our nature.
     This post was inspired by a dinner conversation and by my grandparents... my beloved grandparents who watch too much Fox News and consider putting a lock on their bedroom door even though their house is almost in the middle of nowhere and in one of the safest places on the planet.

Day 186 Song Recommendation: "Don't Panic" by Coldplay.
-SE Wagner