People Who Don't Follow The News

In My Humble Opinion
21

Those that are exclaiming that ignorance is bliss are abusing an adage to avoid having to express their opinions. Kind of a cop-out if you ask me, and pretty much against everything this board stands for.

It’s not about ignorance. I don’t follow the news but I don’t believe myself to be ignorant (who does?). I couldn’t tell you who Bush has in his cabinet or why Wolf Blitzer is any better or worse than Tom Brokaw, but does that mean I’m ignorant?

Surely someone who knows these things can jump up and shout “Yes!”, but everyone has their own knowledge base and interests that they follow. No one can know everything and I’ve yet to see anyone in this thread explain why it’s so important to pay attention to the media. Why is a knowledge of current events, skewed by the media or not (that’s another debate I think), any more important than anything else?

For those that would counter to the effect, “But don’t you care about the “war” in Iraq and the potentiality of weapons of mass destruction and biological warfare being used against us, etc etc?”, I’ll head you off at the pass and tell you flat out, no.

It concerns me not at all. Not because it doesn’t affect me, but because I think the planet could use a little crop dusting. Or a lot. And if I’m part of it, so be it. I wasn’t contributing much anyway.

22

originally posted by jjimm
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jjimm , as I said I do read background articles.
But you are right about one thing: when the war does start, I will probably not know about it for 2 days. Then I will probably be told by my co-workers or I will read about it in my local newspaper. (Quality local magazines do cover important world news, you know!)
And as I have pointed out, for the outcome of the Iraq-war it doesn’t matter .zilch if a certain person named Maastricht will inform herself of that fact one, two of zillion days after it happened. And like it or not, the same fact applies to you, jjimm do

23

I used to be a news junkie, but I haven’t kept up in years. I’ve of course known for years that most TV news is crap, and I gave up TV news completely after all the Y2K crap, with a brief respite during the bad things of 9/11. The only exception is the occasional weather report. I know I could go to print or on-line resources for a better picture of things, but a choose not to, mainly because I tend to get stressed out about all the bad things going on in the world, and I have enough stress in my life from personal things.

So when discussions come up about what we should do in Iraq, I tend not to have a strong opinion. I have a very vague idea what’s going on, and a vague opinion but I’m definitely not well enough informed to speak intelligently on the issue and I know I’m not. So I don’t.

I do watch The Daily Show and read The Onion on occasion, though. Does that count?

24

I actively avoid keeping up with news. I get anxious easily, and hearing lots of bad stuff happening that I can do nothing about distresses me. So I avoid it.

And I don’t have many opinions about current events, either. And I’m not the best-educated voter either.

But I’m ok with that, because it beats worrying myself sick every day.

I applaud you folks who can handle it. I don’t know how you do it.

25

I didn’t know that’s what you meant by “background articles”. But seriously - did you watch any news on September 11, 2001, or find out about it later?

I agree that the problems of us little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world, but at least a lot of us have the vote, and can contribute a tiny, tiny little bit towards voting out people who are doing things of which we disapprove; or contributing towards things of which we do approve. But I guess if you get that from background reading, rather than breaking stuff, I see your point.

26

“Ignorance is bliss”

If some people actually believe this, that means they wouldn’t want to be bothered with something like the Nazi Holocaust. If news is depressing they think, that would really bum them out. If ignorance is bliss, then all of the investigative work done by Woodward and Bernstein was all irrelevant, as for as they’re concerned (these are just a few salient examples, of course).

I say ‘Ignorance is bullshit’-this junk about ‘too depressing’, or ‘it’s not relevant to me’, or whatever is just a pathetic copout excuse for weak minds. It is intellectual laziness and sloppiness. As members of a democracy, it is your duty to be educated and infromed on the world around you.

27

If you don’t pay attention to news, even if only to critique it, what in tarnation are you doing here?

or did you not notice the slogan on the home page?

28

Not a news watcher either - especially nowdays. It blows my mind the amount of brainwashing and garbage the gov’t tries shoving down people’s throats.

That said, I do read the newspaper and get news from the BBC website and Ananova. I rather prefer choosing what I want to know about.

29

They’re not talking about general knowledge, they’re talking about keeping up doggedly with world events every day and being fully informed.

30

I can’t remember the last time I bough or read a newspaper; I avoid them by conscious effort.

I watch the TV news occasionally and I get the main news stories on the radio as I drive to work; any stories that interest me, I will research on the net.

I did go completely without television for two extended periods (I didn’t want to pay the licence fee, so I got rid of the box) - it was strange - I had an unusually large amount of free time, but odd things happened; some of the currency formats changed here -the £5 note got a major redesign and the first I knew about it was when my boss handed me one and asked me to run an errand (I thought it was a joke).

31

Cecil doesn’t write about current events. Unless you count stuff like How do you become a United Nations weapons inspector?, that is.

32

I’m not a TV person, so I rarely watch the news. I used to subscribe to daily papers, but I do get tired of wading through the advertisements and goofy non-news sections that take up the bulk of the paper. I stay on top of a lot of local issues because I’m pretty involved in the community, but a lot of national and international stuff gets past me until it’s fairly widely spread.

33

I don’t watch the news a lot, basically because I don’t have time, and when I have the time to watch tv…I don’t want to hear about all the shit that’s going on.

I usually watch the local news, and I turn on CNN or something to get the latest updates, but other than that, I read the newspaper and tune in to Animal Planet. :slight_smile:

34

My two cents.
News is rarely good. Why make an effort to watch bad news.

News (especially now with whole channels devoted to it) can be(and is) very (very) repetitive.

News is misleading. We can believe that conflict has started/ or increased in a place where it has not changed, simply because the news has decided to cover it (with nothing else to cover)

Some believe news is biassed and is more a propeganda tool than anything.

OTOH watching news (regularly) may be intellectually stimulating, and it is good to be informed.

It provides material/ammo for conversation.

35

And sometimes it can be downright stupid - “new expensive studies show that loud noises can hurt your ears”

36

I actively avoid news with the occasional exception of NPR. It’s too negative. I try to be happy person with a positive outlook which is very important not only to me, but to my pessimist husband as well. When he has his violent fits of depression, my attitude helps pull him out. I know, he’s told me. So I cherish and protect my positive attitude on life. Filling my brain with all the awful things going on in the world tends to steal my sense of everything’s going to be alright. Call me a coward all you want.

37

I consider myself incredibly lucky that my colleagues are a bunch of smart, well-informed people with a diversity of opinions–and nationalities.

I keep up with the news a by listening to NPR and skimming the NY Times online in no small part because if I didn’t, I’d be completely lost in lunchtime converstations and other informal gatherings. Similarly, when I’m not hearing intelligent conversation on current events from a wide range of people–something that news sources rarely offer–I don’t get very much out of the news, and usually don’t bother following it.

Forget TV news, though. I watch CNN if there’s some breaking story, or if I’m stuck in an airport or something. Otherwise, I don’t need the narrow-minded, faux-controversy-driven infotainment offered by television news.

38

originally posted by jjimm

I’m glad we agree :slight_smile: .

I think this discussion would benefit from distinguishing world-important breaking news (real breakthroughs in the Iraq war, 9/11) from all other day-to-day-TV-news.
Reading the other posters who do not follow the news, I find it’s mainly on the latter that they’ve given up.

OP byAce309

Ace309 I’m curious, what would you say now?

39

Local news is a farce. One day someone in a TV station news department decided it would be a great idea to have one of those satellite trucks so they could broadcast LIVE! At the SITE! Then to justify the cost they send the damn truck out SOMEWHERE, ANYWHERE, on EVERY news story. And, of course, they all have to have them, several of them in fact, because God forbid they should be SCOOPED! I have seen reporters standing out in the rain in front of a darkened, closed City Hall to report on a council meeting that ended an hour or so earlier. How are we better informed with that reporter standing in front of an empty building, not even interviewing anyone, than we would be if the anchor was simply reporting from the desk? And those “feature” stories they do - they have become all-out productions! I remember during one of our droughts, when lawn watering was restricted, instead of just informing their viewers what cities were restricted and what the restrictions were, we had to watch them go out and interview homeowners (like I give a rat’s ass what Joe Blow thinks about soemthing so mundane). Not only that, but the first 30 seconds of the “story” was nothing but film clips of yard sprinklers! Huh? I remember when I was in grade school, the local news was 15 minutes long and consisted of one anchor at a podium and a weatherman. There were no “productions”, there were no “feature” stories, there certainly weren’t two and three anchors, and there were no “your underwear may be killing you” stories of today.

And I have never figured out why every year on the last Friday in November, we have to all go out to the malls with the reporters to see how many parking spaces are left in the lot. Hey, folks, guess what? IF IT HAPPENS EVERY YEAR, IT"S NOT NEWS!

And God help you if you live in a sports town. When Emmitt Smith was fired a few days ago, they actually INTERRUPTED PROGRAMMING! Just like they did when Bill Parcells was hired, just like they did when Dave Campo was fired.

And then when something of great import does happen, they think they have to be on the air withough interruption, sometimes for days, even though there is very little new to actually report. And they spread more misinformation than information becuase they’re so afraid of dead air and being scooped that they’ll say ANYTHING and hope it can be verified later. If not, oh well, at least they were watching Channel 8 and not Channel 5.

And my last rant, great portions of the local news are nothing but advertising for the network shows! They actually “report” on what’s going to be on later tonight or tomorrow night, as if it were “news”!

Whew. There, I tink I’m done now. Thanks, I needed that.

PS - Believe it or not, it is possible to watch bad news all day and actually NOT be a depressed, negative person.

40

I don’t actively avoid the news, but I don’t watch TV, or listen to radio often, so if I want news, I have to actively seek it out. I was subscribing to and reading The Nation, but no longer have time for it. I guess I get most of my news from here at the SDMB. Occasionlly I’ll pop into CNN.com, but I’m usually unimpressed with the content.

Basically, the amount of time and attention I’d need to devote to be properly informed is not worth the returns, IMO. I don’t need to hear about the new ways in which terrorist threats are going to have us all duct-taped into our apartments, etc. As someone said farther up the line, if it’s important enough, I’ll hear about it.