News doesn't always have the most important things to you, but it clues you in on the world.
Just because I may learn some small things that probably does not affect me directly and additionally receive some news that make my mood worse due to hearing some yet another negative news about bad stuff / politics / yada yada, what's the point?
80% of the news I read is HN and some programming related websites and whenever I jump into "mainstream" media, then I feel like I'm reading some shit - click baits, tragedies, controversial stuff, drama seeking, celebrities
it's irrelevant for me
There's a profound difference in what you get out of a curated editorial in the Economist and the talking heads on Fox News.
I'd argue the former has tremendous value and isn't presented in a way that pokes at our anxieties.
Best case scenario is that you are shown a select few fragments of reality, strategically arranged. Worst case scenario is the fragments themselves are questionable.
I don't feel like someone is trying to inform me when I watch the news. I feel like someone is trying to manipulate me.
1) Things happen around the world that you can't observe.
2) People need to participate in democracy for democracy to work.
3) Things that happen elsewhere might affect things locally through latter order effects.
Can we agree on those assumptions?
If so, you may need to keep at least somewhat up to date on current events. How would you do so without news?
Further; painting all "news" with the same brush is getting real old. It's not a single organism.
Kind of
1 - Sure. But the idea that your news of choice gives you a representative, unbiased picture of that is laughable.
2 - I disagree. Casting ballots to potentially swap heads of governments - who are largely symbolic and functionally impotent - barely qualifies as participating at all. Power in modern democracies spread very thin, and most of it is not elected.
3 - Sure, I suppose.
Books might capture the feelings of now: 1984 wasn't making predictions, but illustrated the concerns of the current time. Same for the things in "A Brave new World".
Reading books about the history of cooking isn't going to give you much of a worldview, nor is it going to prepare you for a government restricting your ability to get birth control, abortion, or sterilization surgeries. Books also aren't worth much if you don't reflect on them - but once you do reflect, they aren't realistically all that much better or worse than other artistic mediums and you don't even have to read the books to get advantages (some visual adaptations are good, and there are always audiobooks too).
It isn't to say that you cannot learn from them, but it isn't the same sort of information.
An exercise I came up with years ago: On a piece of paper write down the most important issues in the world. If they match the exposure that the typical news media provides, then you've lost the ability to have an independent perspective.
There is nothing actionable to be gained from the news. In a tragedy, victims have victim shit to do. They aren't learning what to do next by watching NBC. The authorities local to the incident manage the situation.
