Taking breaks from the news is not a moral failure

Lesson #34 of 40

As I approach 40, I’m embarking on a year-long project to reflect on the lessons I’ve learned in four decades of life. This is lesson #34. You can read the full series here.

Hi Jimmy! Thanks for helping our garden grow.

Saturday morning, still groggy from a bad-news hangover — this time from watching maddening footage of President Trump and Vice President Vance berating Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy in the Oval Office — I started a garden in my backyard.

First, my daughter and I fitted together the boards to form a raised bed. Then, we leveled the ground and covered it with sheets of newspaper. She lost interest and darted around the yard while Billy transported heavy bags of compost and mulch. Meanwhile, I stood in the dirt, spreading layers of soil with my gloved hands over a multitude of headlines and stories. (Several of those stories were about Jimmy Carter, who died at the end of last year. I hope his spirit blesses our garden.)

Time passed quickly, and before I knew it, the chilly morning had turned into a warm, sunny afternoon. My news-induced fog had cleared, replaced by a sharp pain in my bad knee from all the lifting and bending. A fair trade-off.

I know the garden won’t fix everything this year, but I hope it keeps me occupied, especially in the dog days of summer, when the brutal heat sends my mind seesawing between manic eco-anxiety and depressed lethargy. Summer may not be great for my mental health, but it is prime time for tomatoes, zucchini, and okra — veggies we’ll be planting soon.

I’ve been spending more time in the dirt. A friend is teaching herself to crochet. Others are getting into puzzles, building elaborate video game worlds, or mastering the art of zentangling. Our methods may vary, but we’re all aiming for the same thing: spending less time online, consuming less upsetting news.

Journalism has long been in crisis. Business models are broken. Trust is eroding. And recently, there’s been a notable uptick in news avoidance. Worldwide, nearly four in 10 people say they sometimes or often avoid the news, according to the latest research from the Reuters Institute.

As much as I care about journalism’s survival — it’s an industry I work in and believe is crucial to a functioning society — I can’t blame people for stepping back. I’m one of them. And I no longer feel guilty about it.

Taking breaks from the news is not a moral failure.

This is a lesson that’s taken me years to learn.

Ever since high school, when I joined the student newspaper and declared journalism my calling, I have dutifully consumed the news. I remember driving my first car and choosing NPR over music. Spreading out pages of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution as soon as my parents finished reading them. Pouring hours into articles for The Henry Herald, our county’s hyperlocal paper, without getting paid a cent — but feeling like I’d won the lottery. (Why, yes, I was a very cool teenager, thanks for asking!)

From high school, I went to state college, taking every journalism internship I could land. By senior year, I was interning at CNN — the headquarters, now shuttered, was just down the street from campus. Again, I was unpaid. Again, I felt like the luckiest person alive. When I graduated, I was offered a temporary position at CNN Digital for $30,000. Could life get any better?

Not surprisingly, I drank the Kool-Aid. I thought it was exciting that every cubicle worker had a TV set tuned to CNN while also juggling attention between multiple computer screens. Our job was to take in a firehose of information and turn it into another firehose of information for readers and viewers.

In my seven years at CNN, I lost track of how many late nights I put in. How often I opened my laptop after work to answer urgent emails. How many times I ducked out of a gathering with friends to respond to breaking news. How many times I dreamt about work. I couldn’t possibly count, but the severe jaw pain I developed told me it was a lot.

It was a lot — of work, of information, of stress. But it was a privilege! I was helping to deliver important news to the world. And I was getting paid for it! On any given day, I could rattle off tsunami death tolls, viral internet memes, celebrity gossip, and pithy slogans from Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street protests.

Fast forward to today. I no longer work in a newsroom (though I do work with journalism support organizations), and I no longer consume a firehose of information. At best, I take in a trickle — just the most important headlines, locally and nationally — and no more.

I am far more unplugged than I used to be. And I’m far happier for it.

To be clear, I’m not advocating for avoiding the news entirely. Not at all. An engaged and well-informed public is essential to democracy, and journalists provide crucial accountability, context, and truth. But I do recommend setting boundaries and approaching the news more mindfully.

I’m no longer a champion of the 24/7 firehose that gave me my start in journalism. I know how stressed out and flooded I felt working in that environment, and it pains me to admit that the audiences I was serving may have felt similarly. In journalism, being informed on everything, all the time, is a badge of honor. But it’s a badge I no longer feel good wearing.

I know there are a decent number of journalists who read this newsletter, and I’m writing today’s lesson with you in mind: You, too, can set down that badge without guilt.

Just like stepping away from work helps me think more clearly and write better, taking breaks from news helps me to better understand and process what’s happening.

Gone are the days of refreshing Twitter during every major news event (I finally deleted my account last month, and it felt great). I no longer receive breaking news notifications (I disabled those in 2020 and haven’t looked back). I place hard limits on using my phone before bed or after waking up (sometimes that means I get major news hours after the rest of the world; I’m okay with that).

I still feel informed. But I don’t feel overwhelmed — or, at least, not as overwhelmed as is possible in today’s relentless political landscape. I’ll take it.

If you want to stay engaged with the news while avoiding burnout, here are a few helpful strategies:

• Be intentional about what you consume — and how. My smart friend

  Gray Chapman
  has landed on a three-pronged approach: listening to podcasts like NPR’s Up First (“because I can be walking outside while listening instead of doomscrolling”); prioritizing local news that directly impacts her community (Rough Draft does a great job summarizing Atlanta issues); and focusing on 1-2 issues she really cares about (“and going directly to the experts,” like
  Jessica Valenti
  ’s Abortion, Every Day.)

• Choose media with clear stopping points. The infinite scroll is draining.

  Caitlin Dewey
  recently spoke to the ever-informed Matt Kiser, who recommends formats with defined beginnings and ends, like print newspapers, newsletters, or even actual books.

• Read the news, not reactions to it. In a great piece reflecting on her changing media habits, Nieman Lab’s Laura Hazard Owen noted how social media often amplifies outrage without full context. Instead of consuming only snippets and hot takes — something she used to do often — she recommends reading full articles from original sources.

These days, I think of the news like a stream: something I can dip into as needed, rather than a firehose blasting me all day. Setting boundaries with news is a lot more relaxing. It’s empowering, too. As political psychiatrist

Karin Tamerius

put it, “If every headline, debate, or social media post sends you spiraling into despair, you’re not in control — your emotions are.” But by training yourself to stay informed on your own terms, “you become unstoppable.”

And if all else fails? Grab a print newspaper (they still exist!), get up to speed with the latest headlines, then go outside and toss some dirt on everything you just read.

It’s an odd suggestion, sure. But I hear it helps.

xoxo
KHG