Quotes about News

In a fake news world…

In today’s world, ignorance can be a damn good strategy.

“Don’t get into this binary thing where you’re looking at Fox or CNN. Read the other side. Some of your fellow citizens have good reasons to believe something different than you do. I try to think sometimes about where are they right? Not are they wrong. You’ll become a better thinker. And you earn peoples’ respect. By telling the truth, being a team player. Team player doesn’t mean you don’t complain. It means you complain if we are doing something stupid.”
Jaime Dimon

“Our obsession with being informed makes it hard to think long-term. We spend hours consuming news because we want to be informed. The problem is, the news doesn’t make us informed – quite the opposite. The more news we consume, the more misinformed we become.”
Shane Parrish

“Catastrophization ends up distracting us from the long-term systemic work we signed up to do. It’s a signal that we care about what’s happening right now, but it also keeps us from focusing on what’s going to happen soon. The best way to care is to persist in bending the culture and our systems to improve things over time.”
Seth Godin, Blog

“It can be so easy to get distracted by, even consumed by, horrible news from all over the world. The proper response of the Stoic to these events is not to not care, but mindless, meaningless sympathy to these events does very little either (and comes at the cost of one’s own serenity, in most cases). If there is something you can actually do to help these suffering people, then, yes, the disturbing news (and your reaction to it) has relevance to your reasoned choice. If emoting is the end of your participation, then you ought to get back to your own individual duty—to yourself, to your family, to your country.”
Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic (Page 221)

“Our world is abundant with quiet, hidden lives of beauty and courage and goodness. There are millions of people at any given moment, young and old, giving themselves over to service, risking hope, and all the while ennobling us all. To take such goodness in and let it matter—to let it define our take on reality as much as headlines of violence—is a choice we can make to live by the light in the darkness.”
Krista Tippett, Becoming Wise (Page 265)

“It’s hard to make good news sexy. It is. I think about this a lot as a journalist. But maybe it’s like kindness. Kindness is the stuff of moments, but it can be absolutely transformative in moments. Beautiful lives are transformative in moments. But we have to train ourselves to look for them.”
Sylvia Boorstein, via Becoming Wise (Page 222)

“The ‘news’ is defined as the extraordinary events of the day, but it is most often translated as the extraordinarily terrible events of the day. And in an immersive 24/7 news cycle, we internalize the deluge of bad news as the norm—the real truth of who we are and what we’re up against as a species.”
Krista Tippett, Becoming Wise (Page 4)

Epictetus Quote on Learning and How Our Willingness To Appear Clueless Is Key To Maintaining Curiosity

“If you wish to improve, be content to appear clueless or stupid in extraneous matters—don’t wish to seem knowledgeable.”
Epictetus, The Daily Stoic (Page 38)

Beyond the Quote (Day 395)

The moment you believe yourself to be knowledgable is the moment you kill curiosity. After all, if you know, you know. What more is there to be curious about? You can only be curious about things you don’t already know. Or, maybe better said, if you think you already know, then there’s no more “know” to add. The problem with believing you know is that it implies the task is completed. It’s a statement of being done. But, acquiring knowledge/ learning is lifelong—never something that is completed. Which is precisely why you shouldn’t even wish to seem knowledgable in any area of your life.

“The most reputable [news] outlets entertain their audience with the truth. They tell true stories. But even then, they know that it’s not the truth that generates profits—it’s always the stories. Stories keep us tuned in. Stories sell newspapers. Stories get clicks. Yes, truth matters. But when it comes to the bottom line, journalism isn’t a truth business. It’s a story business.”
Brandon Stanton, Humans (Page 177)

James Clear Quote on Learning and How Reading and Reflecting Hold the Keys To Knowledge

“Reading can teach you the best of what others already know. Reflection can teach you the best of what only you can know.”
James Clear

Beyond the Quote (318/365)

And if you’re not doing either, where is it that everything you know is coming from? From social media? From click-bait websites? From news conglomerates? Or maybe from friends and family members? But, where then are they getting their knowledge from? From those same sources? The question you have to ask yourself is, how does the quality of this information compare to the quality of the information that might be obtained from reading and reflecting? I suspect that it may not only be substantially below in quality, but of little to no quality at all. I suspect that it’s a no comparison.

“If you wish to improve, be content to appear clueless or stupid in extraneous matters.”
Epictetus, via Stillness is the Key (Page 31)

Beyond the Quote (100/365)

In a world of 24/7 news coverage across hundreds of thousands of news coverage sources, it’s impossible to consume everything that is being broadcasted—it’s never ending. And because it’s always a race between news coverage organizations to be the first to broadcast, so much of what’s shown is speculative, shallow, incomplete, and, well, excessive. If you always want to know everything that’s going on in the world at all times, then turn on the news and scroll through your never ending social media timelines for every waking minute of your day. The crazy part is that you will be able to do it.

“I choose art and beauty, vague as those terms are, against ugliness and horrors in which we live today. For somebody to look at a flower or listen to music does something to one, has a positive effect, and being surrounded by ugliness and horror does something negative. So I feel my duty not to betray those poets, scientists, saints, singers, troubadours of the past centuries who did everything that humanity would become more beautiful.”
Jonas Mekas, via Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 45)

Beyond the Quote (20/365)

If it bleeds it leads. If you haven’t heard this expression before, it’s sort of the unannounced, unofficial but predominantly popular strategy for many media outlets that represents the idea of using fear and despondency to keep viewers tuned in, listening, and coming back to them for more. It’s popular because it works and because it works it helps media companies sell more advertisements and improve their bottom-line.

“Why avoid TV news? The thing is, most people are addicted to a constant flood of what is passed off as news but is mostly just superfluous nonsense about celebrities, politicians, and minor events. Additionally, because of the ‘scare factor’ necessary for keeping eyes glued to the screen (which in turn attracts advertisers and income), TV news is notoriously negative and will have a big impact on your subconscious over time—as with any high-functioning computer, the output of your mind is shaped by what you put into it.” ~ Mark Divine, The Way of the Seal

“News is to the mind what sugar is to the body. News is easy to digest. The media feeds us small bites of trivial matter, tidbits that don’t really concern our lives and don’t require thinking. That’s why we experience almost no saturation. Unlike reading books and long magazine articles (which require thinking), we can swallow limitless quantities of news flashes, which are bright-coloured candies for the mind.” ~ Rolf Dobelli, via James Clear Blog

“We are incredibly well informed, yet we know incredibly little. Why? Because two centuries ago, we invented a toxic form of knowledge called ‘news.’ News is to the mind what sugar is to the body: appetizing, easy to digest—and highly destructive in the long run.” ~ Rolf Dobelli, The Art of Thinking Clearly

“We justify paying attention to the media because we think it makes us informed, but being informed is useless when most of the information will be unimportant by tomorrow. The news is just a television show and, like most TV shows, the goal is not to deliver the most accurate version of reality, but the version that keeps you watching. You wouldn’t want to stuff your body with low quality food. Why cram your mind with low quality thoughts?” ~ James Clear, Blog