I don’t watch the news, don’t listen to the radio, but I want to know what’s happening in the world. So I do two things on my phone, first I have the news App and Flipgrid set up on my phone… swipe right from my home screen and there are the headlines. Then there is always the search feature on the Twitter App with the news column.
I don’t spend a lot of time going past the headlines, but I do look a little deeper when major events happen. I also admit to metaphorically slowing down to see the accident at the side of the road, when a certain political leader tweets something outrageous, but the line between news and entertainment blurs here. It would be fully laughable if it wasn’t so unsettling.
This news-through-headlines (and trending hashtags) approach keeps me away from the painful aspects of the news that I’m fed up with, such as:
1. Headlines that belong in Tabloids such as, “This Facebook Post Almost Broke The Internet.” Or: “12 Products You Can’t Live Without.”
2. An overemphasis on Hollywood stars, musicians, and royalty.
3. An embarrassingly morbid focus on the macabre: Shootings, tragedies, and death.
But even this approach doesn’t allow me from escaping the idiocy of the news as described in this tweet:
Media outlets are pathetic!
Hackers put a propaganda/violent image onto a barely seen website and then media companies successfully distribute that propaganda all over the world.
Gotta get those clicks… even if it means being accomplices or at least abetters to terrorism.— Dᴀᴠɪᴅ Tʀᴜss ∞β (@datruss) January 5, 2020
It doesn’t stop the glorification of horrible people.
It doesn’t prevent me from seeing an onslaught of negative headlines about tragedies around the world.
Yes, some tragedies are relevant to the world, and a few need to make the headlines. But it’s time for news outlets to think of the turmoil and upset they leave behind when they use a ‘If it bleeds, it leads’ attitude. It’s time for news outlets to stop creating click bait titles. It’s time for news outlets to realize the influence they have, and to be more concerned with their influence, and less concerned about getting our attention at any cost.
In the mean time, I’ll try to do my part and avoid clicking on links that I think undermine valuable news sharing for the sake of one more view of advertising on a web page.
