My media blackout

j.s. pill II

This morning I had a brief read through some news sites while eating breakfast. This is usually a fairly routine and almost ritualistic part of my day as I'm sure it is for many people - but today marked the end of a one month complete media blackout for me.

My decision to cut all news out of my life for a month was an off the cuff one. Right now I'm living in India and we experience power/internet cuts quite frequently. Following a period where we had no internet for 10 days straight, I said to myself: 'Hmm, I seem to be surviving OK without the Guardian etc. I wonder what would happen if I went the whole month without??'

I wouldn't consider myself a news junkie but I am very much in the habit of filling spare minutes reading papers, browsing news sites and listening to podcasts (I watch virtually no TV though). I did find the lack of information and the sense that I was missing out on seemingly important events a little bewildering at first but once I was over the initial five or so days I didn't really miss it at all. I still needed something to fill the void of course so rather than going on to the news sites in the morning while having my tea & smoke, I'd look up a wikipedia article or something like that (and I learned a lot about such random topics such as the development of small arms during the Franco-Prussian war in the process).

And what did I miss out on?? Terrorist attack in Belgium, Panama papers and alas, England winning the grand slam in the rugby - to name but a few events. I also missed out on the usual torrent of molten horse-sh*t right wing fear mongering; the moany liberal Fintan O-Toole-ism and of course, all the info-mercial/lifestyle & 'here's what happened to me today' filler.

Has my brief exile from the world of news thought me anything new or changed my perspective?? What earth-shattering conclusions did I come to? To be honest, it didn't teach me anything that I didn't know to some extent already. I know the lines between news as curiosity, informativeness and entertainment are very blurred indeed. I know that the way one consumes news as opposed to the total time spent consuming news influences how you ultimately process. In know that there is so much going on in the world that really doesn't effect me in any meaningful or tangible way; that isn't any of my business or responsibility but I feel almost obliged to give a sh*t about.

My solution to bad news consumption habits has always been a 'news diet' - I could ramble on about this forever but the essence of it is; the odd kebab isn't going to kill you but you should try your best to fill your diet with whole foods and leafy greens (substitute Brendan O'Connor for Kebab and FT/New Statesman/Economist or whatever for the rest). Like food diets, sometimes one's discipline becomes a bit lax and before you know it you're scrolling down through the Daily Mail with your pizza covered fingers. But, so long as you keep with it 90% of the time you should be able to maintain your body mass or sanity.

My plan of action for the future is simply to try and stick to the news diet as best I can; pick my battles and ration what I give a sh*t about and completely stop reading the Daily Mail, Sunday times and Irish independent* - seriously, reading all that sh*t again after 1 month actually made me feel ill.

Rant over - carry on


*may be a bit difficult for me here now that the Irish times is now a subscription service. Sure we'll see