139. No news is good news
Lowering my consumption by broadening my menu.
Dear Reader,
News has always been easily accessible, even before the dawn of online media, and watching the Six O’Clock News on the BBC used to be part of our family routine while I was growing up.
When I moved to London in the late 90s, every afternoon and evening the news headlines displayed on every street corner would be inescapable as loud-voiced paper sellers encouraged anyone walking past to spend 35p on the latest edition of the London Evening Standard.
Unless it was a sunny day – when I would take both my lunch and the Standard across Piccadilly and into Green Park – I would usually spend lunchtimes at my desk, where I’d gobble up the day’s news along with my egg and cress sandwich.
Reader, I loved to know what was going on, and enjoyed the attention I would get if I were the first in the office to find out about something particularly interesting. News was my fuel to feed conversation, and it would be on my radar constantly.
My friend N possessed something I hadn’t come across in anyone before: a seemingly total lack of awareness of any goings-on in the world, and I sometimes wondered whether this was because he would always be looking at his feet rather than at his surroundings.
N would walk head down, nose pointing to pavement, and only ever looked up from the ground if he wanted to cross the road. Surprisingly, in spite of this he always had such confidence in where he was going, and I, the jealous disorient, would despair at how well he could find his way around. I would become helplessly lost every time I moved in anything other than a straight line despite constantly scanning for landmarks, but N could find his way to anywhere in the city without ever looking up.
I suspect he’d never set eyes on one of those newspaper sellers, but that didn’t matter to him at all. Reader, N had no nose for news.
‘How’s L?’ I asked him on our way to the park one lunchtime, concerned about his best friend who had been working abroad in a location where an earthquake had struck overnight.
‘She’s fine!’ he replied, giving the object of his gaze – the concrete slabs of the pavement – a wide grin. ‘She’s in Turkey.’
‘That’s why I’m asking. Haven’t you seen the headlines?’
No, N hadn’t.1
Plenty of people choose not to follow the news, and I even know of some who record the nightly TV bulletins to watch later, so that they can whizz past the parts they don’t want to consume. I’m a gullible sort, so have an unfortunate tendency to believe all manner of bonkers assertions – including this recent claim by my partner in epistolary writing crime
that he has built a replica of the Oval Office in his home at Freedman Towers.😳
Reader, I wish I had the intelligence to filter out the outlandish so that I could properly identify the real news… 💭
I cringe at my gullibility. On the same day – okay, yes, April 1st – on which I’d been taken in by President Terry I had also been fooled by this announcement by frozen food supplier Cook launching their latest product for summer 2024:
Here’s what they said about their launch:
With summer approaching, we’re thrilled to announce an exciting new addition to our menu. It’s a real freezer essential that’s super versatile, as well as gluten and dairy free: COOK Ice.
To make it, our chefs take water from our taps in Kent, lovingly pour it into little trays, then freeze until perfectly solid. It’s great served with drinks or can even be wrapped up in a handkerchief and placed on your forehead if you’re having a difficult day.
Alternatively, fill a glass with COOK Ice, leave for an hour, and – hey presto! – you have a glass of refreshing cold water. COOK Ice is available in portions for 1, 2, 4, and there’s even a Grand 8-portion that’s perfect if you’re hosting a dinner party and want to make your guests’ drinks a bit colder.
‘How silly!’ I thought. ‘I know that bags of ice cubes have been commercially available for yonks, but selling only up to eight cubes at a time? Ridiculous!’
Yes, Reader, I clicked on the link. And then….
🙄
I’d always enjoyed keeping on top of the goings-on in the world around me, and it’s long been my habit to seek out news wherever it is served for fear of missing out on being completely up-to-date with what’s going on. If I’m hanging on for the kettle to boil, taking a break from my desk, waiting for an appointment or out on the road for a job, well, the chances are I’ll also be scrolling through the news.
It’s dawned on me only recently that this compulsion to feed my brain with endless reports of things over which I have no control is spiking my anxiety. Yet I don’t think it’s the news itself which is the problem, but rather my urge to check it all the time.
ANNOUNCEMENT
📣
In an effort to reduce my exposure I have deleted the news apps from my phone.
In an age of instant media access, with new news flying in from immeasurable sources 24/7, it is all too easy to land in a place of overconsumption of the stuff.
Health experts have since time immemorial cautioned us about the risks of overindulgence, but pushing aside the dangers of unfettered calorie consumption it is worth noting that overindulging in anything will make thriving difficult.
With so much available for us to consume – whether that be Hershey’s, hooch or the headlines – being selective can be hard.
One bar of chocolate – delicious!
🍫 = 😁
How about three? Is having three bars of chocolate three times as good?
🍫🍫🍫 = 🥴
Of course not.
Fine, but bouncing this analogy of too much chocolate back to its diametric opposite of no chocolate at all might not be all that healthy either.
To cut down on excessive consumption of treats is a good thing, but to switch from all to nothing, and rewriting the script entirely to read ‘no snacks’ and a peevish ‘I mustn’t’ is a far from satisfactory alternative. You see, in terms of the news I neither want to be an ostrich nor have my friend N’s entirely non-existent nose for the stuff.
So what is a happy medium of media? Can I control my consumption without throwing that metaphorical baby out with the bathwater?
Well, yes I can: by adding to my menu, not restricting it.
My reading dish of the day would better satisfy my hunger by including more food groups than just the news: I need to establish an entire diet of words, not just really on nibbling snack after countless snack of news stories. You see, the endless scroll and I are hardly strangers. Until a few years ago I had been trying to balance my online life on the swaying platforms of traditional social media2, and with TwitStaBook off the menu had I simply replaced all that with a teetering stack of overfilled plates supplied by the news apps?
I can’t choose the news, but I can choose if, how and how much I access it. No news at all might not be good news, but including the news in a balanced diet of information consumption, well, that’s okay.
Having the kitchen radio tuned to Radio 4’s ‘Today’ programme while I make breakfast: ✔️
Reading the printed Saturday edition of my favourite national newspaper – something which takes me all week: ✔️
Scrolling through news apps on my phone just to fill some time: 𝗫
In my post-news-apps world I am relishing those newly-discovered moments in which I get to consume the next chunk of the latest book I’m reading, a Substack post by a favourite writer or heck, just step outside to breathe the good news of some fresh air.
And as far as the news itself is concerned, as long as I make sure to use my intelligence to filter the intelligence – disregarding the fact that I was taken for an April Fool by both Terry and Cook earlier this week – I can’t go far wrong, can I?
Love,
Rebecca
📚 Reading 📚
📚 The best news I had this week was about the publication of Ballbuster by my friend
. In this, her latest, book – an energetic story of hope in the face of adversity – Julie explores how her family of four dealt with her husband Jeff’s illness with the support of each other, their community and yes, chocolate chip cookies!You can find out more about this heartwarming read – and snag your own copy - right here.
Do check out Julie’s
newsletter, which is a Substack favourite of mine. Her Friday Write Along – her gift of an hour of writing space spent in quiet companionship on Zoom – is the highlight of my writing week.📚 By posing the question ‘is the news bad for our mental health’
of gave me both pause for thought and the inspiration to write my own post about the news. Read her post here:
📚 Regular readers of ‘Dear Reader, I’m Lost' will be no strangers to my ongoing light-hearted letter-writing project with fellow Brit
of . It’s his turn to reply to me on Wednesday, and you can find the archive of our chortlesome correspondence here.I have just about forgiven Terry for his April Fool gag. Terry, you got me – so would you please stop laughing at me about it! 😉
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L was fine.
Or, as I like to call it, the place where people I don’t know enjoy being horrid about other people I don’t know.
I miss the days of Walter Kronkite who reported the news and just the news without pomp, circumstance and a lot of fanfare. Mr. Kronkite didn’t insert himself into the news like so many of today’s reporters that sensationalize every word. This was back in the day when hurricanes only had women’s names, but other storms were just that, nameless storms—unless they were a Nor’easter, but even then, they didn’t give them names every time the wind picked up past 20 MPH with the snow blowing sideways.
Now with so much dis-information being bantered about depending on whether the news source is center, far left or far right, it is hard to know what or who to believe.
I always revert back to the words of my late dad, Clement C. Sawyer. He told me, when at the young age of eight… “Don’t believe everything you hear on the radio, see on the television, or read in the papers.” I never forgot that. In other words, what he was telling me was to be discerning in everything and to trust and rely on my own innate wisdom.
As for chocolate… I’ve tried cutting down to a couple pieces a day, it doesn’t work for me. Just one piece is too many, and a whole chocolate bar or two or three—is never enough. I’m such an addict! Looks like I’m gonna have to 12-step myself off Lindt chocolate now too. However, I did purchase one Cadbury egg the other day. My son was sitting with me when I opened it. I cut it down the center (on a plate) the long way and was surprised to see a white goo surrounding a yellow center, like a real egg, but with a chocolate eggshell. We both marveled at it for a bit, and daring the other to try it first. We both did get brave enough to taste the runny stuff at the tip of the knife, and found it way too sweet! The chocolate exterior however was, well, chocolate, and ya can’t go wrong with just chocolate. I think that will be my first and last time partaking of a Cadbury egg. Thank you very much. LOL!
I missed Terry’s April Fools joke, I’ll have to go back and read it. I’m just coming off almost 3 days without internet, so I’ve got a lot of catching up to do. I had to resort to reading a book of all things! LOL! Actually I found it quite pleasant and got halfway through the 500+ pages. Now I’m dying to finish it! I may have just found my new addiction!
Love your Saturday morning posts! 🤗❤️
You mean, Terry didn't remodel his study to look like the Oval Office? Great post, Rebecca. I think your new diet will work nicely.