Bad news: why you should be extremely selective with your news sources

There is a growing sentiment proposing you shouldn’t consume news. News are said to spread no more than noise and negativity. The interesting thing is this sentiment isn’t spread by uneducated people, but by intellectuals I admire, like Naval Ravikant and Sahil Bloom. Bloom said:

Want to know more about the world? Turn off the news

And this is true for most news today.

Why most newspapers are on the decline

Due to digitization, low-cost online competition has forced many newspapers to adapt a free or freemium business model. Articles are filled with ads and readers can buy a subscription to remove ads or access exclusive content. This changed the way newspapers earn money. Advertising has topped paying subscribers as the main intake. This made newspapers increasingly keen to keep readers on their app/site, so they can show more ads and earn more revenue. The consequences: sensationalism and clickbait.

The news paradox makes this even more problematic — the more news you consume, the less well-informed you may actually be.

But there are exceptions, and they are called paid-only.

Why paid-only newspapers are worth it

These newspaper earn money mainly from subscriptions. This means their revenue is determined by the level of quality, detached from the page views. For example, The Economist. Its formats range from The World In Brief, a daily 5 minute briefing, to weekly in-depth articles about business and politics. At its highest level, news are like a live book. High quality articles written by experts deliver you invaluable insights to make wiser decisions.

By spending no more than 10 minutes a day reading news from higher-quality papers, you can bypass the news paradox and understand the world, better.

Want to know more about the world? Be selective with your news sources.

This post was created with Typeshare