Have you ever stopped watching/reading the news for a period of time because it had started to get you down?

Oh yes it is so depressing, I completely agree it’s difficult to watch, I pretty much stop reading the news over exam times and switch to joke websites and cheesy tv. I can’t keep myself out of the news-loop for long mind as my sister is a journalist, all she talks about is the news. I need to keep in the loop to have things to talk to her about as she will ask me my opinion on things then look at me in shock if I haven’t heard the story. My parents always keep updated on the news and so if I don’t I will feel left out at family gathering feeling like an idiot because I am not informed about current affairs. I learn about enough depressing things in my degree regarding the state of the oceans and how humans are messing that up, the last thing I sometimes want to hear about is how people are messing everything else up too.
If I ask her a fisheries and aquaculture based news story however, she will look at me in a similar way as if to say: and why would I want to know about that?!

Only when I’ve been on holiday in remote places. It is nice being out of touch for a while. It is very peaceful.

I’m think I’m taking a break in general, it’s difficult to come to any conclusion other than “There’s so much bullshit” when paying attention to all of this stuff. Current events, politics, reading about history in between, and still seeing unneeded ignorance all over the place is a real downer.

This must be where apathy comes from, because you gain the feeling that this stuff will only change on it’s own as society progresses, and you can’t really speed it along, you can only inform yourself about it.

Oh, yes, I definitely go through cycles.

Yes! Before 2007 I used to go online and read the news for 3 major cities I’d lived in as well as reading our own local hard copy news. It was so much entertainment or sensationalist garbage mixed with awful news that I had to stop paying attention to it for awhile. Somehow I managed to still learn about the world but my stress level and the speed at which time seemed to pass slowed a little.

I have not watched a newscast in many years.

Why? Because normally, I make the news and watching the bad is too strenuous day and night.

I have been TV and media free for 10 years now.

Very occasionally I read a news article on my homepage, but, usually only natural disaster related or science / human interest type stories.

I think that addiction to news and media is unhealthy.

No. The Wall Street Journal has a motto which goes, “All the news that’s fit to print”. Our newspaper prints everythig else.

A reporter in our town saw an opportunity to boost his career based on feeding the public gossip presented as truth. This started a firestorm of gossip. Eventually his article turned into national stories. He has bolstered his career by destroying the reputations of a number of people.

News, like so much of the rest of life has become a marketable commodity. A newspaper or news show cannot keep running if people will not read or watch it. So to deal with that, they have turned actual news into dramatic “stories”, as they call them now. Drama titilates, it entertains, and sometimes it qualifies as actual news. And unfortunately there is also a blurring of what constitutes actual news. I have personally seen gossip printed as fact, which is then combined with a few legitimate facts. People read it, they believe it, then it goes on to national news, and whammo, you have a national story.

I’ve seen it happen so many times now, I rarely bother to read or listen to the news anymore, because these days I ask myself, “How much of THIS news story is true?”

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Yes – I go through times when I just can’t handle it.

It was the best decision I ever made, kept me clean of all the…

Nah, shit happens.

My entire life.

I read my news and pick what i want to read about. Works well that way for me.

@snowberry: You do a huge disservice to the New York Times, whose logo has always been, ” All the News That’s Fit to Print.” (Not the Wall Street Journal.)

Look at the box at the upper left-hand corner. Here

“The New York Times’s masthead logo, “All The News That’s Fit to Print,” dates back to 1896, the first year of Ochs-Sulzberger family control of the paper…” Source

No. I want to stay informed whether the reality around me is uplofting or annoying as all Hell.

Yes. In fact the last couple of months I have watched very little tv regarding politics.

I also years ago listened to a lot of talk radio when I was in the car. I started to realize it was not fun, and did nothing for my mood, sometimes negatively impacted my mood. I quit completely for years. Every once in a while I listen to a little know, but almost never. Probably the last time was 3 month ago.

Yup. I haven’t watched television news in almost ten years. I stopped listening to radio news about five years ago. I haven’t read a newspaper in probably twenty years.

I do read the Associated Press and NPR websites a couple times a week.

@gailcalled I stand corrected. Still, there is a tendency among reporters to assume that if a local newspaper runs a story that it’s true, and they don’t check for veracity.

My opinion of news reporters is at an all time low.