I can relate. I have also stopped following the news, and almost all social media as well. I don't know if it is an age thing, or just the state of the world. But the past year, opening a news site have given me stress symptoms. And news sites love to feed it. Someone burns a koran? It is only news if it is reported. If someone does it in their basement alone, it would not matter at all. But instead it becomes a global shitstorm which I can't do anything about except be careful in crowded places.
Better to stay home and program. This + ChatGPT have made me more productive than ever before.
Plus all news are biased one way or another nowadays. It doesn't matter if you're left or right, the news you're getting is spun in a certain way to push whatever narrative your particular media outlet wants to push.
This, in combination with their incentive to make everything seem like a huge problem that might lead to the end of the world, is a pretty toxic combination.
You should look up who gives money to people who do that, and what political movement they represent. You should then look up this book [0] and who also gets money from the same group of people. I'm sure a lot of things would become more clear to you.
Be careful what you wish for. What if the news didn't report on corruption? Because you can find a whole lot of places where the news won't do that, and you'll know it only from gossip or involvement. What if the news didn't report on tragic events? Let's say a natural disaster or a horrific crime happens in your community, and the news media is just silent, pretending like nothing happened. I bet a lot of people would think it very strange if news media didn't report on these negative events, or if international news didn't report on the war.
> Someone burns a koran? It is only news if it is reported. If someone does it in their basement alone, it would not matter at all.
Yes, of course. But that's exactly what a protest is. It has nothing to do with the burning of the book itself, and everything to do with doing it in public and letting people know. Even if you live in the most rigid dictatorship, you can criticize the president as much as you want in your own basement. It becomes something completely different when you do it on a public square with a crowd watching or participating. But still there are those who want to make what happened in Tiananmen in 1989 become not news. Then it wouldn't matter at all, as you wrote.
As for Quran burnings, a person in my country - that is not Islamic - was sentenced for spitting at and burning the Quran as a protest against a recent Islamic massacre against people in his group. Imagine the situation: Your people are being killed because of a holy book, but you are not allowed to protest against that book. In that case the news media chose to be silent about the protest and about the sentencing of the man. Just an example.
The bigger problem with news media in my opinion is delivery. I can't stand any TV news, because the way the reporters talk is just sickening. They have adopted this kind of venomous and angry voice that just reeks with contempt against the viewer. I remember many years ago I had been out on travels and spent months far away from TVs. I the airport there was a TV with CNN on broadcast, and I was just shocked at how hateful the voices and demeanor of the presenters were. Like, why would anybody voluntarily watch and listen to this? But if you're used to it you might not notice.
But focus on negativity does also get exaggerated in TV news, such as when they are showing clips of traffic accidents far away, or floods in foreign countries that have floods every year, as well as murders in foreign countries that have no international impact. I think it is like you say to keep people in a negative mindset, because that makes them weak and ready to be influenced, not least by advertising that promises to make them feel good if they just buy this product.
I am not against news. It is vital in a democracy with a free press. But that does not mean I need to take part of it daily, or many times per day even. There are lots of news I would rather have a weekly or monthly summary of rather than day-by-day developments.
It may be news, the preview movies on a Disney DVD, commercials, advertisements, billboards and whatnot. I absolutely hate enforced media. I do know it pays the bills/makes other things cheaper because of its revenue, but i stopped caring about those business models a long long time ago. They are all in it for the money and nothing more.
I will pay for products, as long as they leave me the f alone. No enforced "you should try this or buy that!" stuff. So i use pihole, duckduckgo, etc. It is my infrastructure and i will use it as how i see fit.
Better to stay home and program. This + ChatGPT have made me more productive than ever before.