but what's the point of watching news? why bother?
News doesn't always have the most important things to you, but it clues you in on the world.
Just because I may learn some small things that probably does not affect me directly and additionally receive some news that make my mood worse due to hearing some yet another negative news about bad stuff / politics / yada yada, what's the point?
80% of the news I read is HN and some programming related websites and whenever I jump into "mainstream" media, then I feel like I'm reading some shit - click baits, tragedies, controversial stuff, drama seeking, celebrities
it's irrelevant for me
There's a profound difference in what you get out of a curated editorial in the Economist and the talking heads on Fox News.
I'd argue the former has tremendous value and isn't presented in a way that pokes at our anxieties.
a) Through friends
b) It's so big that's almost everywhere and you cannot escape it
c) I don't get informed (but may later in time)
Of course it's not perfect approach
For instance, if you want to be an informed voter, then spending a few minutes flipping through the Vote411 pamphlet put out by The League of Women Voters is going to put you ahead of the vast majority of people who absorb political news 24/7. It's also often the only information you'll find on many local races.
Often people will tell you that they're watching the news to be an informed voter, except they're mostly watching things that align with the decisions they've already made. I know many people who decided years ago how they feel about a national candidate, spend hours every week for years watching news that just reinforces that, and then zero knowledge about any of the candidates in local races where there vote actually has a much greater impact. That's not being an informed voter, that's feeding a bad habit.
Likewise with international news - what are people actually trying to accomplish? Most of the time it's not being informed, it's following a media narrative and ignoring things as soon as the narrative changes. Do you remember when Darfur was a big topic in the early 2000's? Mali about 9 years ago? Those conflicts are still ongoing, but seem to have been forgotten. How about "Bring Back Our Girls"? Likewise Libya, Syria, and a host of other conflicts that suddenly shift from "very important and everyone needs to be informed about it" to a distant memory.
Again, the way these things are treated isn't about keeping people informed, but feeding media junkie habits. And the nature of this kind of poor reporting has very real consequences - just look at the Iraq War. Ignorance is preferable to disinformation.
Best case scenario is that you are shown a select few fragments of reality, strategically arranged. Worst case scenario is the fragments themselves are questionable.
I don't feel like someone is trying to inform me when I watch the news. I feel like someone is trying to manipulate me.
1) Things happen around the world that you can't observe.
2) People need to participate in democracy for democracy to work.
3) Things that happen elsewhere might affect things locally through latter order effects.
Can we agree on those assumptions?
If so, you may need to keep at least somewhat up to date on current events. How would you do so without news?
Further; painting all "news" with the same brush is getting real old. It's not a single organism.
Kind of
1 - Sure. But the idea that your news of choice gives you a representative, unbiased picture of that is laughable.
2 - I disagree. Casting ballots to potentially swap heads of governments - who are largely symbolic and functionally impotent - barely qualifies as participating at all. Power in modern democracies spread very thin, and most of it is not elected.
3 - Sure, I suppose.
Books might capture the feelings of now: 1984 wasn't making predictions, but illustrated the concerns of the current time. Same for the things in "A Brave new World".
Reading books about the history of cooking isn't going to give you much of a worldview, nor is it going to prepare you for a government restricting your ability to get birth control, abortion, or sterilization surgeries. Books also aren't worth much if you don't reflect on them - but once you do reflect, they aren't realistically all that much better or worse than other artistic mediums and you don't even have to read the books to get advantages (some visual adaptations are good, and there are always audiobooks too).
It isn't to say that you cannot learn from them, but it isn't the same sort of information.
An exercise I came up with years ago: On a piece of paper write down the most important issues in the world. If they match the exposure that the typical news media provides, then you've lost the ability to have an independent perspective.
There is nothing actionable to be gained from the news. In a tragedy, victims have victim shit to do. They aren't learning what to do next by watching NBC. The authorities local to the incident manage the situation.