Get the news, then get out

The news likes to play a trick on you: the more often they discuss it, the more NEW the story is. It’s always getting a refresh.

Partly, this is due to the way viewership and listenership used to work. You’d have a single, linear progression of content, broadcast live. So if the sports talk radio host had a two hour show, he had to realize most people didn’t start listening the moment he began the show. So he’d revisit and re-summarize and remix the same points ad nauseum as a form of service to new listeners, sometimes with a courtesy disclaimer: “and if you’re just joining us…”

Today, that still exists — things are still broadcast live. But additionally, we have access to recordings in audio and video form, on-demand. For the news media, it’s no longer just about serving the audience regardless of when they joined. It’s not enough for them to just revisit and re-state. Given how ad supported content works and lives online long after the live broadcast, it’s now about filling every little nook and cranny on the subject with their hot take — because it’ll all go sit on a digital shelf soon, and therefore it all must feel valuable enough to consume.

Now here’s the punchline: it’s not.

It’s not all valuable. Not enough to command THIS much of your attention.

We think it is. We want to refresh and refresh and scroll and scroll and check back and consume every new take because maybe one of those will matter.

This dance of the news media with our attention has careened wildly off the dance floor. It’s crashing through every moment of our lives.

We shouldn’t let it.

Consume enough to be informed. Then stop. It feels horrifying just to suggest, but it’s the only way to stay sane. Focus on the main stories and facts, then resume caring for yourself and for each other.

I want to be clear: the media matters, and the news reporters covering any crisis are true heroes. Support them. But do so through that lens: get the facts, then get out. Don’t binge the analysis and quick takes and tangential stories.

We are better together. We are in this with our loved ones and our neighbors and, indeed, everyone. But we needn’t consume every moment and every angle and every hot take. That will destroy you.

And we need you — the full you — more then ever.

💛