How to consume the news

I do watch news regularly, but find sometimes these days they go into too much detail over one thing. If it is getting to me I go to a channel or source where you just get briefly what is going on to keep me informed.

I have days when I am happy to consume the news, and days when I will actively avoid it. I am also quite choosy about the news categories I read, and how I consume the news.

Depending on my mood, sometimes I'll watch the national and/or regional news programs on TV. At other times, I'll consume the news via the BBC News website. The news programs generally tend to focus on the headlines of the day, whereas the websites can sometimes go into more detail, and include news that hasn't featured on the TV news programs.

If I read news articles that irritate me, upset me, or bore me rigid, then I'll promptly find another news article to read, or come off the website and close my web browser.

Whilst I consider it no bad thing to be aware of what is going on in the world, there are many people who prefer not to because they can find it too upsetting. Only you can decide if following the news or not is the right decision for you. If you would prefer to read a book, rather than watch/read the news, then read a book. You can catch up with the news another day, if you want to.

I don’t think it is necessarily a niche issue to want to be on top of the news, yet also not wanting to participate in it. I live in America, so our news (as you’re probably already aware) is HORRIBLY divided between political lines. I actually use BBC more than I do American news outlets, because at least they are not Democratic or Republican. So I have a tendency to skim headlines from many different news outlets so that I am somewhat aware of what is going on, but I rarely dive in because I don’t want to be misled by political affiliations one way or the other.

There are a lot of things that we have to worry about as Autists with the news, and I’m sure as an immigrant you have even more to worry about, but I don’t think you should feel shame to engage in your passions over the news. Your interests are very important, too. Maybe there’s a way you can strike a balance between the two?

I'm a news hound, I read the Guardian newspaper every day, watch the BBC 6pm news and Newsnight 5 days a week. I don't enjoy scenes of suffering either, but I think it's important to know they're going on, especially when there are so many in positions of power who'd rather us not know. WE might just be able to influence some change, either giving money to help disaster relief, or making us better at choosing who to vote for, or rather who not to vote for. We can campaign and offer our support to causes we feel strongly about, we can write to our MP's and ministers. We can do none of this without information

Knowing what is going on in the world is important to me but I dislike watching some news accounts of human and animal suffering on TV because the imagery and sounds stay in my mind and it affects my mental health. 

I get most of my news from the following sources:

Public Library Online has most of the UK and many international newspapers free of charge. Every morning I scan the headlines and first few pages of all the main UK papers and some international papers, reading the stories I am interested in. I even scan the ‘gutter press’ tabloids as it is interesting to compare and contrast how some papers provide more factual accounts while others sensationalise and make headlines of stories that don’t deserve to be published.

BBC News App is useful, although its cut and paste style of journalism makes some articles incomprehensible. They often begin a new paragraph with “S/he said this or that” instead of providing a name, so I have no idea who they are referring to. 

News and politics podcasts. TV channel websites.

Inah said:

how do you make time for it and make sure it doesn’t pull you down

I am able to reduce the time spent consuming news by scanning and skimming the above sources. Politics, wars and disasters pull people down and some people I know respond by not consuming any news. If the news becomes too much for me I stay away from it for a few days or longer. 

I think there are are number of issues you are skirting around. I have paid attention to the news for 50 years, but I ignore a lot of it now, although I try to be informed (more so than most as I remember lots). I prefer to read, not watch.

1. News is business. People make money from it. There is a lot of competition, so people need you to look. This encourages the US approach of sensationalist language. Effectively, they dramatise events.
2. This encourages being first, the details are not important, they can be corrected later. A balanced view becomes your problem, not theirs.
3. News has been changed to make it more relatable. Things are put in terms of human interest stories. For example if there is a fire, they don't tell you there was a fire, they talk to the people affected, they get witnesses. It is to trigger your emotions. It is not just about the facts. There are plusses and minuses to this approach.
4. News is entertainment. There are rolling news feeds. This means they have to find things to show. It can give you a distorted impression that bad things are happening all the time.
5. News is a tool of activists. Stories can be promoted or ignored, facts can be cherry picked, an agenda can be put forward, items can be framed, to create an impression. If it is a regulated outlet it can't be pure propaganda, but it can still be manipulative.
6. News is often not just news. It is presented with an interpretation. They tell you what it means, what you should think about it and why it matters. Think about why they do that and how open it is to abuse.
7. News is sometimes not news at all. They tell you what is going to happen. E.g. they tell you what someone will say on the future, what will be in a budget, what a company ids going to do. This is prediction. The need to be first has even changed the definition of what news is.
8. News has been globalised. You can see stuff that you would never have known about 30 or 40 years ago, or would be a couple of lines in the paper. There is always something bad to report. It distorts perception.
9. It is biased towards bad news as it sells and gets eyeballs, we are wired for it. There's limited good news reported. It is scandals, wars, disasters, death, crime, etc. You either have to become numb or switch it off.
10. There is a lot of single issue stuff where things are taken out of context. Yes it is bad X happens, but to stop it requires Y and Z which would be worse, but they don't say that.
11. Big stories are often presented superficially due to time or space. Nuance and detail are missing.

All of these things affect your perception.

I don't know if you read Steven Pinker's book, "Enlightenment now". I don't agree with all of it, but the idea is sound. The world is considerably less bad than it was. Famines are rare or don't happen (unless in war), indeed more people are overweight than underweight. When I was a child we were all supposed to be starving by now.

There are few wars, not more. War has always been present. It won't go.

There is less poverty.

The idea everything is bleak is not really true.

Arguably, the vast majority of news is irrelevant to you and your life. You can live in your house, go shopping, eat, work, play, live your life without knowing it. It doesn't affect you, won't affect you, and you can't influence it. This is not selfish, this is just self preservation. We are designed to worry about so many things.

How to consume it? In moderation. Look for facts and figures, not emotions. Check they are true. Worry about things that will affect you. If you don't understand treat it with suspicion, look out for other views or reports, or buy reputable books on the subject to become more informed about the nuance and detail.

If you want to be knowledgeable, recognise you can't know everything about everything. Pick a few things that are important to you. That gives you something to talk about, but you can defer on the things you don't.

If you know something about finance and business it covers most things, as everything boils down to money in the end.