Information Obesity
All the news worth knowing
Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock - Ben Hecht
Once, news, like sugar, was rare and important.
Now, news, like sugar, is everywhere, all the time.
Too much news leads to information obesity.
Too often we choose novelty, “up-to-the-minute news”, over quality.
News focuses on what’s happening now, but rarely tells you how we got here.
Slow down. Switch off. Important news will find you.
In the meantime, read a book.
And whatever you do, don’t look at the news before lunchtime.
In 2012 I read the book Games without Rules: The Often-Interrupted History of Afghanistan, by Tamim Ansary. And I realised that I’d know nothing about Afghanistan, despite over ten years of nightly reports that country. Four hours with a book taught me more than ten years’ TV & newspapers.