“The news is always depressing, and it really doesn't affect me”

The above statement (from ‘Dilbert Future’ by Scott Adams) very eloquently describes my views on the TV news.

In an interview a few years ago (sorry don’t have a link), Nassim Taleb (of the Black Swan fame) said something very similar in a blog post. His argument was more along the lines of news companies having no interest in trying to bring you accurate journalism, but rather trying to make money for their parent companies.

When you think about it, the news companies are in it to make money, so they have try to make lots of folks sit in front of the TV and watch their programming. And what’s the most effective way of doing that? You guessed it – make the news seem as sensational and depressing as possible. To achieve this, the news people will report the most unusual (as in never going to happen to you) and depressing (as in they will manipulate the story to make the victim look helpless – even though he may really be an idiot) stories.

Well, I’m making a stand! I have enough stuff to deal with in my own life. I don’t need to hear about unlikely events that don’t really change anything in my life except make me depressed. I don’t need to be fed how I should think. I would much rather get my news from regular people. That way at least I can form my own opinions…

As you can probably tell – I am fairly anti-TV in general, but that's another post (or series of posts…).