Liberal News Avoidance: A national civic health threat?
Therapeutic Journaling #3
I often make tiny efforts to promote the Southern Adirondack emeritus journalist Ken Tingley. Long time editor and reporter in New York's north country, he is smart and makes good observations. He often writes local stuff, but just as often takes a more philosophical approach that is useful and relevant to the civic health of our nation. Meanwhile, the US Rep for Glens Falls and all of Northeast New York is Elise Stefanik, and his opinion of (contempt for?) – her is similar to mine, providing a extra bump of gratification.
In his post today he talks about how important it is not to quit paying attention to news altogether. A gentle prod, the way he does it, to remind folks it's important to know what's going on.
It's a relevant message to me, because I'm self-consciously avoiding a lot of news since the election. I mean, for sure I'm avoiding the news mediums I know damned well will leave me more stressed, frightened, and angry … not so much because of the news itself, which is bad enough. But because of the medium's intentionally provocative presentation of the news. What that means in large part is that I read fewer of the NYT and WaPo headlines that land in my email box or bing into my phone …. and spend very little time watching MSNBC or CNN.
On the other hand, I do continue to read most of the stories on the daily lineup on The Atlantic ap, along with a fair number of stories on the New Yorker Ap. I also read stuff in The New Republic, and keep pretty much up to date with my favorite substacks – seldom missing a Heather Cox Richardson, only occasionally missing a Jay Kuo, and usually taking the time to read the free bones that The Bulwark tosses out.
Then there's the ProPublica stuff I'm interested in, and a few other generally more conservative but still very sensible and insightful substacks like The Dispatch and Yascha Mounk that I read from time to time. I do partake of some amount of inflammatory stuff from time to time, like Thom Hartmann. And most evenings, Mary and I continue our 40 year-old habit of watching the PBS Newshour together.
I'm not sure I'm ready … no, I take that back. I'm sure I'm not ready to reenter the fray of high adrenaline liberal entertainment news. I plan to continue getting most of my information from written media.
But still, life is complicated, and I'm not sure that liberal entertainment news avoidance is the healthiest approach on the national level. And Ken Tingley's blog today drives home a worrisome nail by adding this blurb at the end of his post:
“Poll numbers
That recent AP-NORC poll showed that since the election, MSNBC ratings were down 54 percent and CNN was down 45 percent, but Fox News' audience was up 13 percent.
That should not be surprising since the candidate it supported won, despite the fact that it continues to make dubious claims that fly in the face of factual evidence.
That said, since the election, 72 percent of the viewers watching those three cable networks, watch Fox News.”
And that … cannot be good for civic health, for three-quarters of American news viewers to be watching State propaganda.