How to read the news

Three suggestions

Fortepan / Inkey Tibor

Two weeks ago, I laid out three arguments for reading the news. But newspapers, newsletters, newsfeeds – they’re a rabbit hole, aren’t they? And I’m not just talking about keeping up with the rapidly evolving political situation, but also about the abundance of insightful analyses. When the unread newsletters in my inbox recently exceeded 1,000, I realized I couldn’t keep up anymore and needed a new way to handle the influx of information. Here’s what I came up with.

1. Contexts

When newsletters primarily arrive in your inbox, new messages from other contexts (such as work emails that arrive on the weekend) grab your attention every time you open your email program to read the news. Conversely, incoming newsletters involuntarily catch your eye, even if you just intended to reply to personal emails. To avoid these built-in context switches, I recently changed a few settings. I didn’t expect these small changes to be so instantly calming.

Substack

Given that most of the newsletters I get are from Substack, I changed my delivery preference from email to app. To catch up on new newsletters, I either log in via my browser or open the app, usually once or twice a day. What can I say? The difference is huge.

Pro tips for Substack heavy users:

• Manage your content preferences in settings to control which topics you see in your feed.

• Actively manage notifications.

• Turn off autoplay.

Feedbin

For blogs, newsletters, and feeds not hosted on Substack, I use Feedbin to read them. It’s perfect for RSS, newsletters received using a custom-generated Feedbin email address, indieweb social, podcasts, and YouTube.

Smart mailboxes

For newsletters linked to a subscription and its associated email address, such as those from the New York Times, I set up my email program to redirect these messages to a smart mailbox, ensuring they are stored separately from other incoming mail.

An even better option would be to use a dedicated email address solely for news, but that would require updating every single source – a hassle I’ve avoided up to this point.

2. Timeframes

Even if you heroically resist endless scrolling and succeed in deliberately limiting the time you spend exposed to the news, there’s still a tricky question to answer: what’s the ideal time of day for reading the news?

To be honest, I don’t know

If you struggle with mornings as much as I do and have cherished that half-asleep morning news ritual since your youth, it will feel counterintuitive to ignore the headlines, avoid wasting energy and concentration in a constantly updated stream of bad events, and instead tackle the most important tasks first thing in the morning, as many well-meaning folks advise.

I’m afraid the never-ending cycle of digital news compromises Hegel’s idea of reading the morning paper as „a kind of realistic morning blessing.“ But how can one keep this effect when switching to another time? To be frank, so far I haven’t figured out a better hour that actually works.

Briefings

A workaround could be to get up to speed with a briefing and save the analyses for the evening. I recommend Kagi News, an app that „reads thousands of community curated RSS feeds from publications across different viewpoints and perspectives“ and then leverages AI „to distill this massive information into one comprehensive daily briefing, while clearly citing sources.“ There is only one update per day, and it takes less than five minutes to read.

If you prefer a summary by a single human being, a major newspaper’s briefing, like The Morning from the New York Times, can help keep morning news consumption at a healthy level. If you’re interested in newsletters curated by writers who read tons of material and recommend the best to their readers, this overview will help you get started.

3. What to read

It’s all in the mix.

Facts and filters

As I laid out in my first argument two weeks ago, an underrated way to read the news is to focus on fact-driven materials such as source documents, speeches, and in-depth investigative journalism.

To reduce filter bubbles, those without an e-paper subscription may try to avoid personalized home screens and clear their browser cache before visiting a newspaper’s website.

Viewpoint diversity

Because newspapers choose and interpret news differently, it’s smart to read two papers with contrasting political stances side by side. Alternatively, you could simply pick up a different paper every day.

As comforting and reassuring as it is to have one’s worldview, prejudices, and blind spots confirmed, it can actually be quite liberating to burst one’s information bubble.

Legacy and new

Legacy media and the new creator’s economy are not mutually exclusive. Both have strengths and weaknesses. „A newspaper,“ as Becca Rothfeld recently pointed out, „is—or ought to be—the opposite of an algorithm, a bastion of enlightened generalism in an era of hyperspecialization and personalized marketing.“ However, it’s best to mix original reporting, fact-checked and edited articles from traditional outlets with independent voices from gatekeeper-free platforms.

Print and screen

It’s not just romantic reasons that make reading a printed newspaper worthwhile from time to time, maybe on the weekend. The printed form inherently entails a certain slowing down, which isn’t just beneficial for your news intake. Plus, Sunday papers and magazines offer a broader perspective on daily events, using long-form articles to better contextualize current affairs.

Good and bad

To counterbalance the impression that the world is getting worse and worse and will soon come to an end, it’s imperative to acknowledge inspiring and optimistic news. It’s also wise to step back from the current moment and take note of long-term trends usually obscured by news hooks such as „the vast improvements in human living standards across long stretches of time.“

Global and local

Finally, if you read the news because you care about change, consider going local. That’s where you have the most agency and a strong chance to really make an impact in real life.