Is the news media really trending towards becoming an all purpose bullshit magnet?
I’ve come to the conclusion that the items journalists don’t report on are usually the very things you actually want to know. Rolf Dobelli, Stop Reading the News
Imagine being invited to address an audience of a journalists about one of your books and when you arrive, the news editor asks if you can talk about your recent blog instead. The one that proclaims that you do not read the news.
This happened to former news addict turned entrepreneur and author Rolf Dobelli in 2013 and formed part of his humorous opening to Stop Reading the News - A Manifesto for a Happier, Calmer and Wiser Life.
Over the years, I’ve come to the conclusion that the items journalists don’t report on are usually the very things you actually want to know.
Rolf Dobelli, Stop Reading the News
About Rolf Dobelli
Born in 1966, Rolf Dobelli grew up in Lucerne, Switzerland and by the ripe old age of 17, became addicted to news. Back in those days, primary news sources were the radio, television and newspapers.
Dobelli spent every Saturday in the library’s reading room alongside bespectacled elderly men, hoping he could someday be as worldly and sophisticated as they seemed to be. When the internet arrived in the 90s, his news habit spiraled out of control until he could no longer concentrate on books and longer articles, and began to suffer from anxiety.
Realising that he was suffering from information overload, Dobelli began to question what his excessive news consumption had bought him. That’s essentially how his book Stop Reading the News was born. A meaningful, thought provoking and insightful read, with short, on-point chapters that cover a range of relevant topics. Highly recommended.
“Rolf Dobelli possesses one of Europe’s finest minds.”
Matt Ridley, author of the “Evolution of Everything”
Did you know that phony news allegedly became the news in 1983?
I worked in the Australian media industry in the 1980s and 1990s and in hindsight, am grateful that I was primarily involved in the publicity and promotional side of things. The news was always so dark and I commended the TV reporters for staying as sane as they did.
When the communistic santisers sunk their claws even deeper into the Australian media industry from the late 90s onwards, I ended up slipping into a Near Death News Experience (NDNE) because the news became so boring. Until 2020, when the COVID ambush struck. A carefully orchestrated event that would never have succeeded without a conveniently hijacked media industry in full Feardemic Mode. According to former Queensland Senator Gerard Rennick, politicians and the judiciary were exempt from the experimental jab and some had the audacity to be filmed being jabbed for a narrative news piece about doing the right thing and not putting others in danger.
I can’t help but wonder if I had continued to work the media industry, would I have been swept up in the fear of it all or would I have seen through the smoke and mirrors and told management to stick their ‘no jab, no job’ propaganda and move onto happier, healthier pastures?
Knowing me, I would have chosen the latter option.
Rolf Dobelli gives the reader guidance about the many potential gains to be had in a life without a 24-hour news cycle: less distraction, more time, less anxiety, more insights. In a world of increasing disruption and division, STOP READING THE NEWS is a welcome voice of calm and wisdom.
dobelli.com
Notable Notes from Stop Reading the News
Why irrelevance is at the heart of the news industry’s business model
To the media, what’s relevant is anything that grabs attention. This is the racket at the heart of the industry’s business model. The news they supply us is irrelevant but it’s sold as relevant.
Most people assume that the world news is automatically relevant to them. They are mistaken. News organisations want you to believe they are giving you a competitive advantage. Plenty of people fall for this.
Consuming the news actually disadvantages you. If it did genuinely help you get ahead, news journalists would be the highest paid earners in the world. But they’re not – at all.
First internet browser ‘Mosaic’ didn’t make the news on 11 November 1993
The first internet browser appeared on 11 November 1993, probably the most significant invention of the twentieth century after the atom bomb and discovery of antibiotics. The browser was called Mosaic. But it didn’t make the news that day. The point is, neither journalists nor consumers have much sense of what’s relevant.
The relationship between relevance and media seems inverse: the greater the fanfare in the news, the smaller the relevance of the events. Over the years, I’ve come to the conclusion that the items journalists don’t report on are usually the very things you actually want to know.
You have probably devoured roughly 20,000 news items in the past 12 months, approximately 60 per day at a conservative estimate. Be honest with yourself, can you think of a single one that helped you make a better decision about your life, your family, your career, your wellbeing or business? A decision you wouldn’t have made without the news?
None of the friends to whom I asked this question could give me more than two examples - from 20,000. That’s a pretty shoddy hit rate.
Dramatic changes to news delivery and access have been detrimental to mental health
According to a study by the American Psychological Association, half of all adults suffer from the symptoms of stress caused by news consumption. One in 10 Americans check the news once an hour.
The figure for social media feeds is even higher and the news is becoming even more garish and shocking.
‘The way news is presented in the way that we access news has changed significantly over the last 15 to 20 years. These changes have been detrimental to general mental health.’’ Graham Davey, Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Sussex University and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Experimental Psychopathology.
Avoid ideologies and dogmas at any price
Ideologies are among the stupidest things our brains have ever produced. These are essentially self-built mental prisons. The effect on the brain is like a high voltage current causing all sorts of impulsive actions and blowing every fuse. Avoid ideologies and dogmas at any price. Ideologies narrow your worldview and lead you to make terrible decisions.
News, in reinforcing confirmation bias, becomes ideology’s accomplice. We can see this happening in political discourse: if you unleash a whirlwind of news on the population, it polarises the public. The problem is that people don’t realise when they have fallen prey to an ideology.
If you meet someone who shows signs of a dogmatic infestation, ask them the following question: ‘Tell me what specific facts you would have to learn in order to change your mind.’ And don’t get smug - ask yourself the same question if you suspect you’ve edged too close to a particular dogma. Actively search for counterarguments.
The news makes itself comfortable in our brains
News has to be extremely short even as it tells the story. This can be done through a brutal process of simplification. No matter what happened, it will only ever be attributed to one or two causes.
If you avoid the news and instead either read a long article and books on a particular topic or discuss it with experts, you get a much more realistic picture of the situation. And you won’t fall prey to the illusion that the future is easy to understand.
If you consume the news, you run the risk of subconsciously using it as the basis of your decision making. The news makes itself comfortable in our brains - and we love to wallow in it. The more emotional the imagery, video clips and headlines, the more space it takes up.
The news puts itself at the top of our mental filing cabinet and is thus much more available than other information which might be a much better basis for making a decision.
News constantly urges us to form opinions
It’s a serious mistake to think we need to form an opinion about everything. 90% of our opinions are superfluous. Yet the news is constantly urging us to form opinions. This robs us of concentration and inner peace. Opinions are like noses - everybody has one. Consuming the news is like having a whole face full of noses.
Statesman Marcus Aurelius recommended exactly the same thing roughly 2000 years ago: ‘You are at liberty not to form opinions about all and sundry, thereby sparing your soul unrest. For the things themselves demand no judgments from you.’
A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention
Concentration requires time without interruption. The moment you open yourself up to the torrent of news, your ability to concentrate is swept away by the current. News will make a shell of you. Worse still, it will have a negative impact on your memory.
Ask yourself: What were the 10 most important items in the news last month (that aren’t still in the news today and are not sports related news?) Most people can’t even think of five. So why would you consume something that contributes nothing to your base of knowledge?
Nobel Prize winning economist Herbert Simon identified the problem nearly 50 years ago: ‘What information consumes is rather obvious - it consumes the intention of its recipients. Hence, a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.’
The news is mental pollution - keep your brain clean
Why do we abandon ourselves so thoughtlessly to digital distractions? Because media company algorithms know precisely what images and videos are best able to overcome our willpower… Why are you sending your brain into this unfair, bloody battle when there’s nothing to be gained from it?
That’s not even the worst of it. Not only do you have nothing to gain but you will have still more to lose. You will not only lose your concentration but also your willpower which you could have used for something more sensible. Once your willpower is depleted you don’t have any leftover for the next challenge.
Since you will inevitably lose your battle with the news websites, the only rational strategy is to avoid the battlefield entirely. Don’t visit new websites. Why would you give these companies valuable minutes of your life, your urgently needed willpower and your personal data merely to get nonsense and advertising in return? Sounds like a pretty bad deal.
The news is mental pollution. Keep your brain clean. It’s your most important organ.
We are training our brains to pay attention to crap
The more news you consume, the more you encourage the formation of neuronal circuits adapted to the flood of information and to multitasking. At the same time, the circuits necessary for absorbed reading and deep thought will atrophy.
I always notice that the most passionate consumers of the news no longer have the ability to read longer articles or books. It’s not because they are getting older or busier. Rather, the physical structure of their brains have changed.
Michael Merzenich at the University of California in San Francisco puts it like this: “We are training our brains to pay attention to the crap.”
In my experience, your brain will need a year’s abstinence from the news before it’s capable of reading long texts without fatigue. The sooner you start, the sooner you’ll regain your focus.
A celebrity is a celebrity because they are a celebrity
Celebrity is a self-referential system. A celebrity is a celebrity because they are a celebrity. How they became a celebrity is soon forgotten and plays no role in the media circus.
Journalists report on the celebrity because they are a celebrity. It’s virtually impossible to name someone who became famous before the advent of the news media whose fame wasn’t based on competence or power. At most, you could come up with a few criminals.
Celebrities are famous for reasons that are utterly irrelevant to society and our own lives. Now, celebrity isn’t bad per se. What is unfortunate, is that in the media’s eyes, celebrities crowd out all the people who have actually achieved something. The news media has severed the bond between fame and accomplishment.
If you consume the news, you won’t merely lose the battle with fake news, you’ll lose the battle with fake fame, too. Don’t do that to yourself. And don’t do it to society.
News makes the already rather brutal natural hierarchy even more brutal by reporting disproportionately on the beautiful and the successful. It functions like a magnifying glass. The publication of annual rich lists isn’t a happy day for a ‘normal’ millionaire, let alone for us non-millionaires.
In short, consuming the news widens the pool of potential competitors to include the entire world. We compare ourselves to people who have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with us.
It’s idiotic to dwell on things that we cannot control. Nearly everything we hear is outside our sphere of influence. So you can safely disregard it. Devote your energies to things you can influence.
Many media companies require journalists to produce up to a dozen stories a day
Good journalists take time over their articles. As in every profession, however, there are also incompetent hacks who lack the drive or talent to achieve anything worthwhile. Or – and perhaps this is most common – the time.
Bad journalism is not solely the fault of bad journalists. The problem is that these most brilliant people have become accidentally trapped in an industry that makes less and less sense.
Juggling the news has become mindless. Many of these clever writers don’t have the time to do investigative work or in-depth research. More importantly, they don’t have time to think or the space or opportunity to explain complicated things.
Pressure on journalists has risen exponentially since the turn of the century. Many media companies require their journalists to produce up to a dozen stories a day – all in pursuit of clicks and likes. Maintaining high standards is impossible.
We can’t really accuse media companies of having screwed up journalism – it was the internet giants who stole their advertising revenue, undermining how they do business: Google, Facebook and Amazon. Yet these giants are only as successful as we consumers make them by spending time on their platforms.
Holding journalists responsible for the current mess is like holding sugar cubes responsible for our poor diet. Our own behaviour as consumers has led to a race to the bottom. The only way to avoid losing the race is not to take part.
Public Relations vs Traditional Journalism
For every reporter in the United States, there are more than four public relations specialists working hard to get them to write what their bosses want them to say.’
Clay A. Johnson, Media Entrepreneur
Worldwide, the public relations industry generates a turnover of between fifteen and thirty billion dollars a year – the best evidence that journalists and consumers can be successfully manipulated, influenced or won over to a cause.
If PR advisors can manipulate journalists, who are professionally required to be sceptical about powerful organisations – then what chance do we have of avoiding their subtle influence?
More than 50% of internet content, users and clicks on the internet are fake
Propaganda is nothing new. A hundred years ago, the American writer Upton Sinclair wrote: ‘When you read the daily paper, are you reading facts or propaganda?’
These days, however, two things are new – the sheer volume of fake news has mushroomed, and publishing digital fake news costs almost nothing. Fake news is specifically targeted at individual consumers, known as micro-targeting, and thus packs more of a punch.
Soon we won’t even need humans to produce fake news. In the future, these automatically generated articles will be perfectly tailored to the preferences of the consumer. Whether these articles have anything in common with the truth is secondary. The main thing is that they generate clicks and thereby advertising revenue. Or they sway our opinion or encourage us to buy something.
I don’t know a single creative person who is a news junkie - news kills creativity
Studies suggest we have already passed the ‘Inversion’, meaning that more than 50% of the content, users and clicks on the internet are fake. If you want to protect yourself as much as possible against manipulation, it’s best to keep well clear of the news. A pleasant side effect? You’ll be rid of a huge bulk of crap advertising.
News kills creativity – pseudo knowledge stifles our creativity. This is one of the reasons why mathematicians, writers, composers and entrepreneurs usually pull off their most creative accomplishments when they are young. Their minds are free to roam through wide, uninhabited spaces, encouraging them to develop and pursue novel ideas.
I don’t know a single creative person who is a news junkie – on the other hand, I know plenty of extremely uncreative people who consume vast quantities of news.
News media is trending towards becoming a bullshit magnet
Creativity requires concentration. If you are constantly distracted by the news, you can’t form new ideas. People who abstain from the news are accused of being nerds. Nerd is another word for master.
True value – for ourselves and for society – is generated solely within our circle of competence. It cannot be any other way.
Someone who is best in their niche has achieved mastery. Someone who has dipped a toe into hundreds of different topics and drooled over every titbit of news won’t suddenly turn into a creative genius. They may not be a nerd (although this is actually a compliment), but they’ll always be a bog-standard idiot.
You’d expect the media to function as a bullshit filter for readers, listeners and viewers. Yet increasingly, the news media is trending towards the opposite, becoming a magnet for bullshit of all kinds. Nonsense is not only tolerated and repeated, it’s actively given top billing.
Not all media outlets publish rubbish. Yet there are increasing numbers of media outlets – especially free newspapers and online, whose business model involves shoveling the greatest magnitude of rubbish over the greatest possible area. Not because the owners of these companies prefer juvenile comedy. Or because the editors are primitive goons. The companies and editors know exactly what they are doing. They publish crap because their consumers lap it up. By publishing crap, the media encourages crap.
One word of advice: don’t try to purge the world of nonsense. You won’t succeed. The world can stay irrational longer than you can stay insane.
Consuming the news is like a frantic never-ending journey. Reduction is far more beneficial than addition. Less is the new more.
The theatre of terror cannot succeed without publicity
Terrorism only works thanks to the news media. The terrorists’ true weapon isn’t the bomb but the fear triggered by the bomb. The actual threat is relatively small but the perceived threat is immense. This balancing act is made possible by the news media.
Israeli historian Yuval Harari has remarked, ‘Terrorists are masters of mind control. The theatre of terror cannot succeed without publicity. Unfortunately, the media all too often provides this publicity for free. It obsessively reports terror attacks and greatly inflates their danger because reports on terrorism sell newspapers much better than reports on diabetes and air pollution.’
If you consume the news, be aware that you are unintentionally supporting terrorism. It’s up to you to pull the handbrake.
The news is wreaking havoc on your peace of mind. It’s not just the frantic sense of chaos but the permanently negative emotions it’s always stirring up. News and comments about the news bring out the worst in humanity. Keep an airtight seal between yourself and this incubator of negativity, abandoning the hopelessly infected to the virus.
News cannot answer the Big Questions. In fact, it suggests these questions don’t exist at all. If you consume the news, you’re becoming another person, another character – a worse one than if you filled your mind with wise content.
‘To achieve wisdom, we should all choose a limited number of master thinkers and digest their works,’ suggested philosopher Seneca, 2000 years ago.
Philosopher Epictetus said: ‘You become what you give your attention to… If you yourself don’t choose what thoughts and images you expose yourself to, someone else will.’
Quality of political discourse has gone noticeably downhill in the last 30 years
How do you vote sensibly without the news? My recommendation: Look at what the candidates have achieved and what they have promised. When you research the information, ensure that you, and not the media or machines, determine your path through the internet.
The news isn’t just unimportant to democracy – sometimes it can even be damaging.
The quality of political discourse in the last 30 years has gone noticeably downhill. This period corresponds precisely with the rising tide of the news.
The internet made it possible to disseminate the most irrelevant items of news completely free. Thanks to smartphones, the news found its way into the furthest corner of our private sphere from 2007 onwards. The development is suspiciously reminiscent of a mechanism we recognise from the ‘arms race.’ Where the net gain is zero.
The louder an outlet screams, the louder all the others have to scream, too. The more outrageous one side’s arguments, the more outrageous the other side’s counterblast has to be. The consequence? White noise and a polarised society.
No business model has proven stable enough to support explanatory journalism on a large scale.
At base, explanatory reporters must, like their investigative colleagues, be experts. And one can only be an expert in one area, or two at the most. A journalist who holds forth on ten, twenty or thirty different topics cannot be taken seriously. Their analyses, opinions, and ‘global explanations’ cannot be taken seriously.
Apart from professional publications, no business model has proven stable enough to support explanatory journalism on a large scale. Yet the more people stop reading the news, and start to value quality reporting, the greater the likelihood that one day it will be sustainable. This about-face must be led by consumers. The market will respond accordingly.
The danger is growing all the time that the news will turn our brains into mush. Fresh waves of news are breaking over us constantly, each one bigger than the last. Get out while you still have the strength. Time is running out.
The day everybody realised they didn’t need the king
On 26 January 1649, Charles 1, King of England, Scotland and Ireland, was condemned to death. His attempt to do away with parliament had precipitated a civil war – a war he lost.
Like all kings of that era, Charles thought he had a divine right to rule and a not-significant part of the population believed him. It was the first time in history a king had ever been executed. Uncertainty rippled across the continent. Was this even permissible? What might the consequences be? Would God plunge the world into chaos?
On 30 January 1649, at two o’clock precisely, in front of thousands of spectators, the king climbed the scaffold and placed his head on the block. After a short prayer, he signalled to the executioner that he was ready to die. One clean swing of the axe was enough and his head rolled off.
The next day, 31 January, life went on.
The king and the news have much in common - irrelevance
I’ve reserved a certain reverence for the news similar to that once reserved for kings. Many people’s initial reaction to the idea of giving up the news is to ask, is that even allowed? Sounds ridiculous, but for many people, living without the news is truly unimaginable, the way it was unimaginable living without a king 350 years ago.
Of course, the media pulls out all stops to maintain its aura of relevance. It’s a spectacle designed to say this is about everything. And yet, it is about nothing at all.
For hundreds of years, the king sat unquestioned on his throne – then he was beheaded for attempting to do away with parliament (1649) and suddenly everybody realised: we don’t need one. It’s exactly the same with the news.
Is a total news ban heretical?
At first, a total ban seems daring, immoral, egotistical, heretical. Yet our grandchildren will look back at today’s news junkies and shake their heads.
When you first stop reading the news, you’ll probably be gripped by the subtle sense that you are doing something radical. It was like that for me, anyway. Like I’d done something improper. Like staying informed about everything was the duty of any decent citizen.
In time, however, I grew more confident that I was on the right track. My arguments became sharper, my attitude clearer, my decision making better, my peace of mind more profound.
Rolf Dobelli, Stop Reading the News
PS: Are you aware that in 1982, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation was allegedly taken over by Chase Manhattan and Security Pacific National Bank and by August 1983, phony news became the news. Read all about it here.
Until next time.
Yuval Harari?
WEF Yuval Harari?
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