Daily Journal

Jackson: News ingestion has become a chore

There is nothing like making a good decision and being reminded how good it was. The positive reinforcement is becoming a regular thing. Since age 12, news consumption has been as important to me as any body organ.

Mainly, my source of infusion came via newspapers. The kind you could hold, fold, swat flies, put it away and pick up again. And after it was no longer relevant, you could find several other uses for it.

National, regional or local news, it didn’t matter. I preferred newspapers over books. The paper provided a sense of being objectively informed. Everywhere you went, a newspaper was available. To further satiate my need for news, radio and television filled in. With age I was able to ascertain subtle political and cultural leanings of publications, but for the most part they remained fairly objectionable.

Even early television news, with limited outlets, could be counted on for accuracy and remaining unbiased. Consumer fact-checking of reports was unnecessary as the reputations of the few major newscasters served as an accountability gauge.

Oh, long gone are the good old days when if you heard a news story, it had a high probability of being true because of who reported it. Decades later, the sources and dissemination of news has grown exponentially and without any regulation in regard to accuracy, fact and truth. News in its traditional sense of publishing information of recent events has been usurped by a deluge of readily available biased, unresearched opinion. Leanings are no longer subtle. Facts are no longer finite but alternative.

News ingestion has become a chore. Like food items before food value warning labels, with today’s news you can’t be sure what you’re consuming and whether it is good for you. The recommended “newstritional” values are absent for what we are calling news. My palate for news did not change. It stopped being enjoyable. After a few conversations, I realized I had tuned out. No news literally became good news.

More and more talk about current events became shortened by my responses like, “I heard about that,” or “Vaguely recall it,” or “That’s news to me.” It is liberating to be able to answer a did you hear or know question with a resounding, “No!” “How could you not have?” is the typical reaction to my noninterest.

If the news does not limit or stop my ability to roam about the country freely, read and walk, I am apt to not be too concerned. Even if I have heard about it. There is a direct correlation between the immediate and the personal effect of any news and my interest in it. If the news does not pertain to my gender, age group or economic status, I am less likely to be entertained by it.

I have learned to turn it off. And, although I might be aware of issues that adversely affect others, I am less likely to engage in long chats about something that doesn’t affect me.

Current news is less about informing the consumer and more about eliciting victim empathy. There is nothing more freeing than replying to, “Did you hear what the president is going to do to (insert any group)?” by saying, “No.” I could say more, but I refrain.

I cannot garner any empathy for any group that feels threatened by any action by a government we chose when a sizable portion of that group supports those actions. That is not my conversation. That is not news to me. The threat to your group’s well-being was partially mandated by your group.

Should there be news that old men can no longer play basketball or take long early morning walk or have a beer, I’ll be enraged and engaged. But, it has to be factual.