A Week Without News
Even before COVID-19 took over, the news moved fast. Each day brought new stories of politicians and celebrities, of scientific discovery and economic strategy. I couldn’t get enough. Over my five years in college and graduate school studying politics, religion, and economics, I developed a keen interest in world affairs. As a devoted follower of e-newsletter and podcast The Skimm and a major West Wing fan, I spend a large portion of my day reading, analyzing, and thinking about politics. But then COVID-19 hit, and everything changed. As I began to grapple with the sweeping changes in my life, I realized that the constant news wasn’t helping. Even my purely political sources were consumed by COVID-19. I needed a break.
What does a five day “news break” mean? I made a pact with myself to avoid the following:
Reading articles shared on Facebook
Listening to news and politics podcasts
Reading The Skimm e-newsletter
Listening to North Country Public Radio or NPR
Opening notifications from my BBC and Apple News apps
Scrolling through my BBC, Apple News, and Atlantic apps
Luckily I could still enjoy the Office Ladies podcast!
I made it until 10:15pm the first day. Facebook betrayed me. Before I realized what had happened, I’d opened up an article about medications being used without adequate testing and started reading. The next day got easier. Over the rest of the week, the little times throughout the day when I’d read articles I filled with other things: writing a letter to a friend, calling one of my bridesmaids, and just trying to keep up with my Zoom meeting dominated work schedule. That said, though I continued to avoid “news” in the traditional sense, I still hadn’t found any more emotional headspace than when I started this experiment. I still saw headlines of articles telling me the US ranked #1 in COVID-19 cases and Mom sent me articles about Gouverneur Cuomo. St. Lawrence University, my employer, sent out an email informing me that another employee had been confirmed to have COVID-19. For all my efforts, COVID-19 news still dominated my thoughts and conversations. Of course, COVID-19 is all anyone talks about now, so that isn’t shocking.
During the week, as I accidentally consumed some of the negative news, I also stumbled across the good. Wednesday morning, as I scrolled through Facebook and past depressing headlines, I noticed one about an Italian priest who gave up his respirator so that a younger patient could live. Since I was on my news break, I didn’t read it and lost the article to the abyss of my newsfeed. Though I didn’t read the article, it’s existence reminded me of something important. In my attempt to block sadness, I realized that I’d made it harder for myself to recognize the small miracles in the world. It reminded me of this quote (albeit cliche but very appropriate) from Mr. Rogers:
“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’”
So I started to pay attention to the helpers. I saw one of my friends from England edit her profile picture to have a frame expressing her pride to be a National Health Service midwife. My aunt in Lake Oswego, OR got a job at a grocery store so her community can still buy necessities through the pandemic. I listened to the Archbishop of Canterbury invite Christians around the world to join him at 12pm, whatever timezone, on March 25th to pray the Lord’s Prayer, and at noon on Wednesday, my family and I raised our voices in prayer. While it’s easy to focus on the bad in a situation, it’s worth taking time to see the good. It is clear to me that hiding from the news isn’t just impossible, it is not all that helpful either. Perhaps the better way moving forward is to be selective in what media I consume.
Even more than losing sight of goodness, there were also parts of following the news that I missed. Let’s be real, I will always love politics. While I learned to scroll past the sensationalist headlines from Buzzfeed News, I regretted not being able to discuss this week’s fivethirtyeight politics podcast and The Argument episodes with Austin. I didn’t need a break; I needed balance.
Admittedly, my life is much busier lately than it has been. My family has been helping Dad transition to online services, both for our regular services and for daily new ones. I’ve been trying to help Mom prep the house for social isolation. While the work from home lifestyle may be low-key for some, each day I’ve been consumed by meetings and rapidly changing decisions. At the end of each day, I am absolutely exhausted. The time that I have is precious, and I don’t want to spend that time drowned in news about the updated stats on the infection rate across the country. I want to spend it catching up with a friend, baking with Austin, or practicing watercolors. I want to spend my time with the people that I love, doing the things that I love. And, honestly, that includes reading The Atlantic article ‘How the Pandemic Will End’ that I saved and catching up on a few podcasts here and there. Besides, if I don’t catch up on these articles and podcasts, how am I going to hear about the miracles?
