Saturday was my second attempt to avoid political news on television, with all its breathless hyping of trivia, for a single day each week. It was easier than the first attempt last week. Between social duties, I watched The Golf Channel and almost finished reading another book. Three times during the day, I checked the Bloomberg website, to make sure there were no economic or geopolitical events that actually mattered. Nothing happened that actually mattered.
On Sunday, I watched the political news channels of Fox, CNN, and MSNBC and learned that I had missed nothing of significance, much less anything that left me breathless. Avoiding political dribble is a worthy exercise in self-discipline, and I will continue.
My wife challenged me by asking if watching a golf tournament live is not the same thing as watching news. That's a fair point, but I'm trying to limit only the amount of political news stories that I consume, not the many non-political news stories.
However, I've become more sensitive to the number of news items that is NOT covered by the political news channels. There is an opportunity cost to watching political news, because you are not watching news that actually matters. If you are more familiar with the rants of political bullies or different presidential hair styles than you are with "Brexit" (the potential exit of Britain from the European Union), then you are watching too much political pornography.
On Sunday, I watched the political news channels of Fox, CNN, and MSNBC and learned that I had missed nothing of significance, much less anything that left me breathless. Avoiding political dribble is a worthy exercise in self-discipline, and I will continue.
My wife challenged me by asking if watching a golf tournament live is not the same thing as watching news. That's a fair point, but I'm trying to limit only the amount of political news stories that I consume, not the many non-political news stories.
However, I've become more sensitive to the number of news items that is NOT covered by the political news channels. There is an opportunity cost to watching political news, because you are not watching news that actually matters. If you are more familiar with the rants of political bullies or different presidential hair styles than you are with "Brexit" (the potential exit of Britain from the European Union), then you are watching too much political pornography.
