Form Aron Schwartz Aaron Swartz: I Hate the News
I agree it’s mostly a waste of time in that it often does not effect the reader directly, but the funny thing is, when a smart, accomplished person like Aaron proudly proclaims he doesn’t, people are like “hmm maybe he has a good point about not reading the news.” When when an average or less successful person does not, the response is more harsh “what an ignoramus” or blaming the person for voter ignorance or that he has a civic duty to read the news.
But if you don’t read the news at least occasionally you will be out of the loop and conversations and stories will seem foreign. Three weeks ago the French riot story was breaking but my attention was distracted but I kept hearing about Macron and yellow vests, so I had to see what the big deal was or else I would not know what anyone was talking about.
I think one should read the news for at least half an hour a day. It’s not a big time commitment and will make it easier to function and understand the world instead of just being confused and clueless. You can save a lot of time by reading the Wikipedia entry, which combines headlines into a single, up-to-date fact-checked resource.