Quit Reading The F*cking News
A brief history of my news reading habit
I was nine when I started reading the newspaper. It was called Deccan Chronicle. Every morning I would go to the door, unfold the day’s paper, and skip to the end for the comics printed at the back. And that was it. That was my only exposure to news in the early days — Calvin and Hobbes, and Archie. Every morning before heading off to school.
Then one day I was at my cousin’s place when I saw him with the paper, sitting in the corner, with a pencil in his hand, for what seemed like hours. “What are you doing?” I asked him. He turned the page to reveal a nine-by-nine-square grid and said, “Suduku.” He then went on to explain the rules and taught me how it’s solved. And I quickly took to it. From then on I had added another activity to my morning routine — read comics, solve Sudoku. I was twelve then.
As time went by and my interests grew I found myself browsing through other sections of the newspaper. At first, it was reading the cover stories, then following some of them in for the continuation, and as I flipped through the pages I would find another story that piqued my interest, and another, and another. You get the idea.
These were pre-internet years.
I was seventeen and while I had started reading more news now than when I was nine — news was still something I would read only in the mornings. I remember there being something called an afternoon-newspaper. People would sell it at the traffic signal on my way back from school. But I found that idea lame. Why would someone want to read the news in the afternoon when they have just read it in the morning? What could be so important? If there’s something that I need to know, I’ll read it in tomorrow’s paper. “Nahi chaiye bhaiya,” I would say and wave him off.
The next big change in habit came when I joined college. I remember being allotted a single room in the hostel. It was a ten-feet-by-ten-feet box (or three meters-by-three-meters, as I was later taught to say) on the first floor. Shared by me and another person. On the first day I had subscribed to the paper, there was no DC here so I switched to The Times of India.
As weeks went by, the newspapers began to pile, and started to take up more and more space. Getting rid of them became a hassle. Then one afternoon my roommate turned to me and said, “Padna nahi hai to lagwaya kyun?” (Why have you subscribed to it if you’re not going to read).
It was true. I had become busy with college work so much that there was hardly any time to read the paper. I would collect them during the weekdays and read them all at once on the weekend. It had become a chore. And besides, I had learned everything that I needed to by then — politicians are crooks, rich people are bad, and climate change is going to kill us all. So I took his advice and cancelled my subscription the next day.
I sailed through my college years without following the news — in print and online. If there was something important happening somewhere in the world, I usually heard about it from my friends in college (who had probably heard it from someone else, who had probably heard it from someone else, who had probably heard it from that one guy who still had time every morning to read the paper).
But things changed once I got out.
I had my own place now and some free time every morning — so started following the news, again. I doubled down on my newspaper subscription — The Times of India and The Economic Times. “Hindu bhi le lo bhaiyya,” the newspaper guy said. Sure, put that in too.
I would read the news whenever I found the time — on my way to work, on my way back, in the metro, at the lunch break, during movie intervals. Whenever and wherever I could find the time. Soon, even that was not enough and I felt the need to go on twitter and follow the news as it happened. Follow it up. Read more. I not only wanted to know the news, but I also wanted to be the first.
News headlines (this one included) are designed to make you click. Make you stop whatever you’re going and look inside. Make you think that there’s this thing that you really need to know — and if you don’t you’ll be missing out. Or worse, convince you that you’ll be at a disadvantage if you fail to read.
Think of the past year: Out of the 10,000 stories that you may have read, how many of them do you remember? Out of those, how many do you think made any difference to your life? Did it change your behavior? Are you better off after reading them? No?
This is not to say that news is bad. Or that society doesn’t need journalism. In fact to the contrary, we need journalism now more than ever before — to hold institutes and those in power accountable.
Society needs journalism. But not the kind that turns every twitter feud into a newsworthy article or presents every single event in the form of a debate. What we need is more investigative journalism.
In the past 12 months, even after reading the news regularly, the source that I’ve learnt the most from are in-depth books. Even on a topic such as Indian Politics and Current Affairs, which our news outlets extensively cover, I’ve learnt more from books like — The Billionaire Raj, Bottle of Lies, Democracy On The Road, The Feast of Vultures, India Unmade — than all Indian Channels combined.
I have now gone without news for over two months, so I’m reporting the advantages first-hand: less anxiety, more free time, deeper insights, improved relationships — heck, I even feel younger. If there was a pill that gave you all this, wouldn’t you take it? Quitting news is not easy, but it’s worth it.
