Media's aim is to keep people emotionally hooked on short term directional adjustments in political trajectory, including the presented minutia of the events that seem to determine it.
The only way to consume news, without subjecting oneself to the inner turmoil that the news is designed to produce, is to develop a long term theory and then just check in with the headlines to make sure that things are progressing toward it.
If they don't seem to be, adjust the theory and then keep-on with the aforementioned method.
Sure, some people emotionally need to be apprised of the tragedy of every story. They may even convince themselves that the World's trajectory hangs on the balance of every event. I'd suggest that this is both irrational and hints at addiction behavior. But if this isn't you, or you want to become less addicted, then give the above method a try.
After awhile, you'll begin to admire the efficiency of and relative inner-peace from your new hard-won detachment skill.
What would be the most efficient way of creating a long term theory for a newcomer and where should they start ? Global systemic issues ? Local/State level issues ?
In theory, you could start from any thought. However you may think the world works or is heading toward, you re-evaluate it every once in a while and change it if it isn't looking true. You will eventually get to a more nuanced, hopefully more well informed, view.
Another fun thing to do, along a similar train of thought, is to use something like the internet archive [1] to go look at your news site of choice, a year or two back, and see how their attention-grabbing predictions and declarations played out.
In general, they won't. And this newfound knowledge can then be carried forward when reading the attention-grabbing predictions and declarations of today. It's basically a more generalized version of the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect.
That is the goal of continuous news. But one can easily sidestep that with a newspaper or weekly news magazine.
Which is more than sufficiently often. With extremely rare exceptions you never need more current news than that.
There are still plenty of ways to go wrong with that. But there is no value in getting news 24/7, and you can assume that such news is there to entertain rather than inform.
I tried this and spent $300 on an annual subscription to a daily paper newsletter. It didn't work – the news cycle still happens and biases still exist, which both lead to the kind of cycle the GP is talking about.
I think you do need a media organization to have less of a viewpoint (aka, bias) and more long-term predictions on the future. Unfortunately the closest approximation to this seems to be random Substackers, as even prestige entities like The Economist or The Financial Times are largely bias/worldview-driven.
Getting out of the need for continuous news is a necessary but not sufficient step. As is putting up barriers to keep out the news drone just from what you overhear.
After that you at least have sufficient breathing room to at least attempt to make your own predictions.
I like the idea of this approach. But how do you form a theory for what is going on in the US, for example, right now where it seems to be unpredictably chaotic? Although I suppose that's a theory too.
The problem with ignoring the wealth of deeply tragic events occurring all over the world right now is that the source of many of them predicates our neoliberal-sanctioned way of life, with all of our excesses, a way of life of which we somehow feel deserving... Despite actively seeking ignorance of the destruction and oppression which provides our fancy little laptops and running shoes. Despite the refusal of most of us to meaningfully civically participate in a system which we have a moral duty to correct, even if it benefits us to leave it alone.
A world theory is nice to have, but unless someone is engaging with this sociopolitical landscape and at least attempting to rectify the wrongs that fuel their lifestyles, it comes off as incredibly privileged for someone to be able to just turn off the sad news while the rest of the world has to live it.
The only way to consume news, without subjecting oneself to the inner turmoil that the news is designed to produce, is to develop a long term theory and then just check in with the headlines to make sure that things are progressing toward it.
If they don't seem to be, adjust the theory and then keep-on with the aforementioned method.
Sure, some people emotionally need to be apprised of the tragedy of every story. They may even convince themselves that the World's trajectory hangs on the balance of every event. I'd suggest that this is both irrational and hints at addiction behavior. But if this isn't you, or you want to become less addicted, then give the above method a try.
After awhile, you'll begin to admire the efficiency of and relative inner-peace from your new hard-won detachment skill.