Reading news, or not

News should inform, educate, and spur us into action.  Not all news is equal, though.  I see many articles that seem to have no purpose.  As Thoreau writes in Walden:

Hardly a man takes a half hour's nap after dinner, but when he wakes he holds up his head and asks, "What's the news?" as if the rest of mankind had stood his sentinels [...] After a night's sleep the news is as indispensable as the breakfast.  "Pray tell me anything new that has happened to a man anywhere on this globe," — and he reads it over his coffee and rolls, that a man has had his eyes gouged out this morning on the Wachito River; never dreaming the while that he lives in the dark unfathomed mammoth cave of this world, and has but the rudiment of an eye himself.

Most of us crave news, but the news we seem to crave the most is the worst for us.  Hearing about a local fire, some senseless tragedy, or some sports incident gives us the feeling we are learning.  But we aren't learning anything.  These things are all constants.  Every day there will be a local fire in some place.  Tragedy is universal, and you can count every year to have at least one or two major international tragedies.  Sports news happens constantly, but the games go on unchanging year after year.

Some news isn't even news.  How often do I hear news that the government is considering doing this, or the opposition may respond with that.  This isn't even news!  It's mere speculation about future news.  It is wise to ignore these kinds of stories whenever you see them.

Daily news seems to be not worth it.  Better to pay attention to the long-term trends, and educate yourself on them.  If you do that, you'll be more educated than most everyone else, and you'll have a better chance of acting correctly in matters of politics.