News vs Research

Happy Sunday,

“Now if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God—who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly—and it will be given to him.”

James 1:5

What if you “can’t” cut back on the news?
A question I often get after suggesting Christians should limit their news consumption to 5-15 minutes a day is: “What if I need to stay on top of the news for work?” 

I feel ya. My job is writing the news… so don’t worry, I have a #loophole.

There’s a difference between checking the news and researching a current event: 

• Checking the news = being told what matters

• Researching a current event = seeking understanding for a concrete purpose

Checking the news is passive; the news source isn’t just explaining an event that happened, it’s also choosing which event to explain (and, often, how to feel about it). Researching a current event, by contrast, requires purposefully choosing the event and then seeking out various sources of information. It’s the difference between someone learning the stock market went down while watching cable news and a Wall Street analyst researching why the stock market went down.

It’s the same event––the difference is passive consumption vs. active investigation.

Simply being aware for the sake of being aware (i.e., checking the news) fed a directionless sense of anxiety and anger at the world in me. But, researching many of those same topics for a purpose (e.g., writing The Pour Over) hasn’t had that same effect.

So, for those of you who “can’t” consume only 5-15 minutes of news a day… I think you actually can. Researching something in the news for a concrete purpose doesn’t count; I’m simply advocating that you not endlessly learn about events/topics chosen by a news outlet (often intentionally curated to evoke anger/anxiety/fear).

What do you think?
Jason

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