News is just trivia, so why do we treat it as though it’s important?

By David McElroy · July 26, 2013

Nothing points out the banality of news like missing a few days of it. After nearly a week away from news, I wondered if I’d missed anything that mattered to me. After looking around for a few days, I haven’t found anything yet that was worth paying attention to.

From the middle of last week until Monday of this week, I was preoccupied with other things and didn’t read any news. For most of that time, I was taking care of a dying cat. Even when I wasn’t directly dealing with her, I was concerned enough about her that I lost interest in following anything in the news.

Since Tuesday, I haven’t found anything that I missed by ignoring the news for five days or so.

Hundreds and hundreds of websites, TV channels and newspapers are devoted to keeping us up to date on the news. Surely some of what they publish must be vital to me. Right? Or is it just habit to keep paying attention to what they’re saying?

I missed the run-up to the birth of a royal baby. I missed various people in Washington yelling at each other for various things. I missed minute-by-minute coverage of a couple of high-profile political races in New York City. (Both of the races are in the news because of the past sexual escapades of candidates, not because of anything related to the issues in the races.)

What else did I miss? As I’ve looked back over the list of headlines from the last week, I see that all I’ve missed is trivia. I see absolutely nothing that matters to me. I see things that might qualify as entertainment, but not things that matter one way or the other whether I know about them.

For someone who spent years working in news, it’s always jarring to realize how little news matters. I grew up thinking it was important. I read the newspaper every day from an early age. But now, it all seems like banal trivia. And it reminds me of something from Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451.” Captain Beatty is explaining to Montag why modern media helped keep people unthinking and happy:

“If you don’t want a man unhappy politically, don’t give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet give him none. Let him forget there is such a thing as war. If the government is inefficient, topheavy, and tax-mad, better it be all those than that people worry over it. Peace, Montag. Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs or the names of state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last year. Cram them full of noncombustible data, chock them so damned full of ‘facts’ they fell stuffed, but absolutely ‘brilliant’ with information. Then they’ll feel they’re thinking, they’ll get a sense of motion without moving. And they’ll be happy, because facts of that sort don’t change.”

I don’t believe there’s any specific intent — on the part of media or government — to do this. I think it’s simply what people are interested in paying attention to. Absorbing trivial facts — and thus feeling informed — is easier than having to think about principles or reason things out.

Those in the political and media classes tend to see the world differently, though. I came across a quote Thursday from the late Helen Thomas that gives a peek into that mindset. She was a White House correspondent for almost six decades. In an interview in 2005, she was asked why she stayed on the White House beat instead of moving on to covering something else.

“What made me stay is because it’s the center — everything comes to the White House,” Thomas said. “All news that affects the country or the world comes through the White House so why not be in the center of it? There’s never a day without news, and it always affects this White House. I was interested in the news and that was the place to be.”

And that’s the way these folks think. They think that everything that matters originates with government — and it’s centered around the person we view as a modern-day king.

Thomas’ thinking was very much from the progressive left. She and others like her — which includes those on both the left and right today — believe that pretty much everything that matters comes from government. If there’s a problem, government has the solution. If there’s progress to be made, it will originate with the benevolent dictators in the White House.

Nothing could be further from the truth for my life. Governments only get into the way. And given the fact that so few people share my view about government, there’s nothing for me to gain by keeping up with what it’s doing. It’s going to be done to me whether I follow it every day or not.

The things that matter to me have to do with love and money and creativity and curiosity and hope. There’s nothing in the news that addresses those things. So news is just intellectual clutter. Just trivia.

If I gave up all news for a month, would I ever start paying attention to it again? I’m not sure. Maybe I should try it and see.

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I’m seeing a lot of simplistic and dishonest explanations right now for the current rioting in France. Those on the populist far right claim it’s all about Muslim immigrants to France disrupting the culture. Their message is that this sort of thing is going to happen in the U.S. unless “we defend the border.” On the far left, socialists and their fellow travelers claim the riots are all about wealthy people in France not paying enough taxes, resulting in cuts to government services. The truth is far more complicated, but it’s rooted in the decline of population growth in Europe. There simply aren’t enough young workers paying into the tax system anymore, so cuts in social services were inevitable. There is genuine cultural tension as more and more people immigrate from other countries, but government cuts to education and other services are even more important to what’s happening. The situation is complicated, so don’t let dishonest people with U.S. political agendas tell you that it happens to support whatever they were already promoting for partisan reasons.

Here’s another reason to appreciate the cats in your life: New research involving 93 countries found that places with more cats per person also tended to have happier people. The researchers say the finding fits with previous evidence that living with pets can reduce loneliness and stress while providing companionship, emotional attachment and social support. The study doesn’t prove that cats cause greater happiness, but it certainly adds to the evidence that sharing your home — and your life — with a cat might be good for you.

The company that owns Facebook and Instagram is heavily promoting its new AI-based software assistant called Muse, but people who are using it as it was designed are incredibly foolish. An early adopter of the software discovered that a few days ago when he advertised an item for sale on Facebook Marketplace — and he inadvertently gave Muse full authority to act on his behalf. The software agreed to a lowball offer made by another Facebook user and then gave that man the home address of the man for whom he was an agent. The software told the buyer that the seller was home and waiting for him. When the buyer showed up and waited angrily, the would-be buyer left an angry review for the man. And this angry man had the seller’s home address. It was only well after that that the software reported what it had done and admitted it had made a mistake. I won’t be putting that much power into the hands of any software. I think anyone who agrees to such terms is a fool. And the software’s user agreement says you’re responsible for purchases the software makes in your name. Nope.

Meet my new girlfriend. Her name is Meg. And she’s my little sweetheart. A couple of months ago, a neighbor across the street told me about a new stray in the neighborhood that she and I were both soon feeding. The cat had been very skittish about contact and she had a lot of scabs and parasites in her fur, but a trip to the vet last week revealed that she was otherwise in good health. The vet estimates her to be 1 to 2 years old. I named her for Meg Murry, the 13-year-old protagonist of Madeleine L’Engle’s wonderful book, “A Wrinkle in Time.” (Please read the book. Don’t watch the horrible movie.) Since we lost Lucy almost a year ago, it seems appropriate that we finally have a new little girl to join the household. She’s already captured my heart, but Alex, Oliver and Sam aren’t there quite yet.

There’s nothing socially acceptable that’s as dangerous as drinking alcohol. Most people grow up being told to “drink responsibly” — and all of us see people abusing this drug in one way or another — but the truth is that drinking alcohol is always a terrible risk. The alcohol in these drinks is toxic and the human liver has to work hard to filter the toxins out. What most people don’t realize is that alcohol is classified as a known carcinogen by the World Health Organization — because of the well-established connection between imbibing and various cancers. Many people have taken refuge behind the idea that light or moderate drinking might be safe, but a new study shows that drinking even one drink a day increases the risks of 10 types of cancer. When I was a teen-ager, I looked around and saw the negative effects that this behavior had on a lot of people and decided not to start drinking, so I’ve never even tried this poison. The evidence keeps piling up that I was lucky to have come to that conclusion early.

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