I check Google News and the BBC News web site at lunch time, but I don’t read or watch a lot of local news.
I listen to Morning Edition on NPR for at least an hour each morning, while I’m on the treadmill; typically I also listen to an hour of All Things Considered. I also check various news sites (not aggregators or blogs, though) during the day.
I refuse to watch local news. It is reliably stupid, sensationalistic, and several other insulting adjectives I’m too lazy to come up with.
Brother.
I used to go to tv news for more information on critical stories - the Towers, earth quakes - but now I scan websites. Actually, I do use google news a lot.
The result is a weird kind of very well informed ignorance.
I answered “religiously” because I’m a serious political junkie. But I don’t keep up as much on the non-political news. Eventually though, some blowhard politician will make every current event a political issue sooner or later.
I like the local news on one TV station that shows, on the right hand side, a list of stories coming up: ‘thruway crash kills Cicero woman’, followed by ‘restaurant on West Side shut down’, ‘forecast’. I just turn it on to hear the top stories and watch until after the weather forecast…I read local news online mainly because the comments section is so hilarious. World news I manage to pick up enough information around the web and of course any big huge story, or something that’s of special interest to me, I search out and read about in more depth. I consider myself quite knowledgeable about what’s going on in the world. I know people who have no computer, no newspaper, and don’t watch news much on TV, and they’re always surprised - ‘what do you mean, the mall in Nowheresville was torn down, since when?’ - ‘I had no idea it was going to snow this weekend!’ - ‘Earthquake? where? in Japan?’
I used to watch CNN and the evening news on TV and frankly I am so nauseated by 80% of it, and politicians in particular, I no longer have the stomach. But I do know at least the headlines every day.
I went with never. It’s really a never too…very often someone will mention something hat I have no idea about. I’ll have a vague conception of things if Leno mentions it.
My life sucks enough, I don’t need reminders that it’s only gonna get worse.