Finding Perspective: A Reader's Guide to News Noise
Recommendations for Coping & Building a Balanced Media Diet
Need Help Navigating the News?
Everything is a Lot.
I look at my phone in the morning and feel a thousand angry bees buzzing against my skull. Throughout the day countless shades of panic blink and flash through the screen. And now the news machine’s favorite panic-bait cash cow is back in business for another four years.
It could be helpful to check in on our media diet before things get out of hand, eh?
Finding the right information, witnessing an invigorating moment of truth, somehow mixing up the perfect mental salve, can offer moments of clarity or transcendence. Below you’ll find some books, movies, and more that may be helpful catalysts to consider your relationship with the news more deeply.
Chime in with a comment if I missed anything x
Buy the featured books and a curated selection of related titles at a discount here.
The News: A User’s Manual by Alain de Botton
An easy-to-read overview of the Modern News Experience. This book, though grounded, has a twinge of utopian thought peeking through the reporting and offers some insights about how to manage the noise.
Read this if…
you want to better understand how you engage with the news
you could use a tour guide through the modern media landscape
you are allergic to theory and want to read something straightforward and digestible
“A balanced life requires a curious combination of inner and outer concern: we have to internalize the general message that emerges from others’ accidents — that we are highly fragile and temporary — without, however, getting so deeply immersed in their particulars that we… avoid our responsibilities to ourselves.
We must both register and yet at the same time not fixate upon the sadness and pain with which the news seeks to confront us at every turn.”
Network (1976) dir. Sidney Lumet
A scathing and enjoyable film satirizing television networks in which a dejected news anchor, working at a failing network and on the brink of suicide, is abruptly launched into becoming the latest prophetic mouthpiece for America’s rage.
“All I know is that first you've got to get mad. You've got to say, 'I'm a HUMAN BEING, God damn it! My life has VALUE!' So I want you to get up now... I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell, ‘I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!’”
Watch this movie if…
you are exhausted by the spectacle
you want to watch something smart and true
you’re mad as hell
you’re not gonna take this anymore
Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Neil Postman
A timeless and legendary book examining the media’s relationship to truth and message. In this provocative piece of cultural criticism, Postman explores the impact of television on the way we think and communicate.
Read this book if…
you’re willing to overlook a few dated references to enjoy some borderline-prophetic finger-wagging from 40 years ago
the internet gave you brain worms
Our politics, religion, news, athletics, education, and commerce have been transformed into congenial adjunct of show business, largely without protest or even much popular notice. The result is that we are a people on the verge of amusing ourselves to death.”
Smoking Typewriters: The Sixties Underground Press and the Rise of Alternative Media in America by John McMillian
A summation of the rise, rivalries, raids, and rapture of the radical underground newspapers of the 1960’s. Though the media landscape has changed greatly since the sixties, the rebellious spirit and resilience of these papers brought me a great deal of hope for the future.
Read this book if…
you’re amused by leftist infighting
you are interested in the revolutionary potential of the press
you listen to Velvet Underground on vinyl
“We are people of this generation, bred in at least modest comfort, housed now in universities, looking uncomfortably at the world we inherit…”
The New Paper: A Different Way to Get Your News
I subscribe to The New Paper (not a sponsor)(could be though, hmu) for $8/mo. They send me a quick text message every weekday morning with a numbered list of single-sentence news reports, accompanied by non-paywalled links for deeper reading. I find it to be a brief, no-bullshit way to stay tapped in, and it’s worth every penny.
Plus, you can try it for a week and decide if you like it before buying.
Check out The New Paper if…
you want to be “plugged in” but don’t know where to start
you want to stop relying on social media for breaking news
you love a TL,DR
Slow Media: Why Slow is Satisfying, Sustainable, & Smart by Jennifer Rauch
In this brief and enjoyable read, Rauch takes cues from the “slow food” movement and considers its relevance in our relationship to news and media diet. Not unlike fast food, the strategy of being first to break the story can put quality and accuracy of information at risk; in this book Rauch offers exciting evidence of a pendulum swing from speed towards a future of slower, more deliberate reporting.
Read this book if…
you check the news daily
you’ve joked about trading out your smartphone for a flip phone
you downloaded a meditation app once and never opened it
“Modern individuals increasingly have less control over the speed, rhythm, duration, sequencing, and synchronization of their daily activities. This raises important questions of politics and ethics, of domination and free will. To truly live our own lives, we need the power to allocate our own time.”
Hopefully some of these works can offer some perspective or help guide you through the noise of the hour. My bookshop list has a few other titles I didn’t get to here — if you buy them through me I could get a few sheckles, which I’d greatly appreciate.
Don’t forget: the news moves fast, but history moves slowly.