That’s what my dad used to say.
“No news is good news.”
If you’re not hearing anything from your kid in college, that probably means things are going okay. Same goes for your ex-wife.
But my dad also watched CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite — religiously. And the news from Mr. Cronkite was not always good news. Mr. Cronkite found himself reporting on the assassination of President John Kennedy, the Vietnam War, the assassination of Martin Luther King, the assassination of Bobby Kennedy, the Arab Oil embargo, the resignation of President Richard Nixon, and the arrival of the Beatles.
Mr. Cronkite also covered the NASA moon landings, but some of us wonder if that was all faked in a TV studio.
My dad believed every word that came out of Walter Cronkite’s mouth. The news was like that, back in the 1960s and 1970s. Reporters told the truth. At least, my dad thought they did. Politicians lied through their teeth, as always, but you could believe a news reporter.
I was just a kid during most of Mr. Cronkite’s tenure on CBS Evening News, and by the time I went off to college, I had come to the conclusion that watching TV was bad for my health. Especially, watching the news. At that time, Dan Rather was handling the CBS Evening News, so I probably don’t need to explain. But I also understood that you get more listeners if you’re reporting bad news.
Who needs bad news?
So, I didn’t watch the news for, like, the next 30 years. I didn’t hear about the 9/11 attacks until I was at the airport the next day and my flight had been canceled.
The lady at the counter asked me, “Didn’t you hear about the Twin Towers?” I was confused for a moment, because I thought “The Twin Towers” was one of books in The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Apparently, tons of events had taken place while I wasn’t paying attention. The fall of the Berlin Wall. The Gulf War. The dissolution of Czechoslovakia. President Clinton not having sex with that girl.
But… were these happenings really important to know about? Did anyone benefit from knowing about some hanky-panky in the White House? I will be the first to admit that I’ve not been greatly affected by the dissolution of Czechoslovakia.
Then I got the internet installed. I was told it would make my writing career take off.
At first it wasn’t so bad. I mean, the news. I had a dial-up internet connection, so YouTube wasn’t worth watching; podcasts hadn’t taken off; most newspapers hadn’t yet made the transition to online.
Luckily for me, we had moved to a small rural town in Colorado, where the weekly newspaper did a get job of covering high school sports, and not much else.
All the while, behind my back, the news was slowly creeping up on me. Scheming to take control of my eyeballs and my attention.
But it wasn’t actually “news”. It was “fake news”. Fake news looks exactly like real news, because the politicians are still lying through their teeth… but so is everyone else.
Yesterday, my friend Jamie MacDonald sent me an email, offering some advice.
Jamie is not really my friend. He’s just some guy who got a hold of my email address somehow. He’s, like, a “fake friend.” But I appreciated his advice anyway.
We’ve learned how to regulate food, money, and exercise — but we’ve never been taught how to regulate information.
Every headline, notification, clip, and scroll is an input. Some nourish. Most overstimulate. And just like junk food, low-quality inputs leave you foggy, anxious, and craving more.
You don’t need more discipline. You need fewer things fighting for your attention.
Apparently, Jamie thinks I have learned how to regulate food, money, and exercise. Ha!
But he didn’t seem to be selling anything. Just giving thoughtful advice to random email users. So maybe he has a point.
Maybe no news is good news.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all. You can read more stories on his Substack account.