I live in a news junky’s paradise. I suppose that Reykjavík is also a media hound’s heaven just like Toronto. T.dot is highly multicultural, highly wired, and oddly liberal so there is an endless array of content. Reykjavík is highly wired, culturally curious, and other modes that I hope to discover. We get our news and content from all corners of the world and the mind.
But I’m tired. There is so much content that you can be overloaded. Or you start to wonder if it is even healthy sometimes. A few sources are outright ignored for reasons other than so called bias. Cnn (sic) is one of those sources that I can’t watch for more than a few seconds except on very rare occasions. But that is an ancient story, they lost my interest some time before O.J. Others are used for comic relief, again, for only a few seconds. And a few comedy sources are better outlets for serious news. There is a lot of irony in life.
When you add up the time spent soaking up media rays instead of solar rays you might wonder; why? So last year I made a new rule, no more than 7 minutes of news per day, from any media format. I began to cherish those minutes. So much content and so many formats that I never had a regular schedule for it. Some days I might use up 5 minutes by reading every newspaper at the coffee shop. That only left 2 minutes for all other sources. Each day was a decision on what to take in and what to discard or ignore. Does The Daily Show deserve to be counted toward my minutes? Yes and no, it depends on the day and if I happened to come across it. There were no longer any daily schedules or hard rules about any one source or another. I felt I had even more diversity than before.
And a funny thing was noticed. I was not missing anything I needed to know. I was still getting the news. All of it. At least what I’d consider news. I was never the person that sat in front of the live news crime of the week century waiting for something to happen. I don’t feel left out if I hear about the white Bronco car chase a day later than you do. And I only needed 5 seconds of my life to find out about it. But I was scouring the planet for anything of interest. So now I was limiting myself to seven minutes.
And now something else has been noticed. Seven minutes is too much on many days. In a past life I could spend hours and now I am lucky to get seven minutes. It is funny what you notice when you step back. Redundancy, speculation, preaching, marketing, mass hypnosis, diversion, magic, mirrors, nausea, ad nauseam, and on and on. And always the marketing. You can’t buy or look at anything without the marketing for more.
So the new rule, is, no more rules. If I go weeks without hearing a goddamn thing then great. If something actually happens I’ll know somehow. And some days I might spend a few precious minutes soaking up the daily grind.
They used to say, 500 channels and nothing to watch. Well, 500 NEWS channels and nothing newsworthy. Or, little more than 7 minutes worth on any given day.
February 28th, 2007 at 11:01 am
I believe in the seventy minute rule… there is no way to get in the news and information you need now a days in those 7 minutes… trust me from a confessed genius and prodigy child I will tell you that the more you read regarding current events, technologies and the economy the more youll gain in the long run. Im a walking example, i have expertise in a number of areas due to the fact that I read the news, read up on the latest technologies and am fully aware of most whats happening in our world!!!
February 28th, 2007 at 2:22 pm
I hear you grasshopper… But I’ll maintain that those seventy minutes can be compressed into seven on most days. A bizarre example that wouldn’t apply to many people I know (I hope), so substitute the headline for anything of actual interest:
“Anna Whatshername Smith is found dead!”
..ok, I accidentally hear that breaking news. In a few seconds I have that important piece of critical news. I’m done with it and move on and if something else happens (in this case she’s dead so what else could happen that I need to know in real time?) I’ll hear about it later.
Ah but wait there’s more, or there might be more, if I wait. While we’re waiting we can listen to an array of talking heads with endless speculation, opinion, knee jerking, reaction to knee jerking, reaction to speculation, moral judgments, predictions and connections, and a long list of queued images, sound bites, history lessons, and a retelling of the same information in case I’m just now joining them.
I could immerse myself into the collective mindset and feel that I’m sharing my feelings with others that care as much as I do. If I instead just move on with my time I’ll eventually get the whole story trimmed of trivial bits and fluff. Speculation won’t matter once the facts are in and it is the facts that are what matter in the news. I can speculate all by myself. The information on demand that our modern lives offer is great but it shouldn’t mean that I have to use that information at the same time as everyone else. That is contradictory to the notion of ‘on demand’. If I get the info later or next week it is exactly the same info except that I spent only as much time as I needed which might be seconds or it might be much longer. Sometimes the facts can be had in mere seconds. I prefer that my talking heads be the people that I can talk to directly in a two way conversation. The seeds for that dialog is the actual news.
The point is that I don’t feel the least bit uninformed. Maybe I’m old and need less of the history lessons that I’ve already experienced. Or I’ve replaced spoon fed info with my own thoughts and two way discussion. Or maybe I took the facts and did my own research. Or maybe the extra info is of no interest to me even if I’m curious about the facts. There is a lot less actual new(s) content than it appears. I’m not missing out on anything except a whole lot of marketing and marketing disguised as something else.
There are always exceptions to the rule. But dammit, I want my 63 minutes for the true reality show that is my own life. I’ll take the seven minutes and then spend the other sixty three on the tangible world. Maybe we can call it Organic News (TM.). I don’t mean news that is about organics or styled in a manner that fits my personal morals. I care little about perceived bias or the minutia that dominates content. Facts are the facts (and da proof is da proof). I don’t feel threatened by the messenger or the message, but do feel insulted by the ‘Culture Lite (TM.)’ attitude and delivery of 63 out of the 70 minutes.
But I do care. It was during those seven minutes that gave me something that led me to many hours of research outside of the real time media channels that was much more interesting and in depth. Just because so and so said it today doesn’t mean it hasn’t already been said before which is just as valid then as now. If it can’t add anything new or real to the subject than it is a waste of my time.
In today’s local news, the Just In Time system has us in trouble over fuel. Instead of soaking up many minutes or longer on the dubious details and the Real Time News about what so and so has to say about it I spent time getting my fuel needs fulfilled. It took very little time to get the facts which gave me time to apply them to my life.
February 28th, 2007 at 3:26 pm
On the other hand… This blog itself is another form of media content. It isn’t news but I’d hope that some people would spend seven minutes or more reading it and commenting. Blogs are designed to be read chronologically, if only a few minutes at a time.
If you’ve read this one post then you’ve used up most of your seven minutes. damn…