I think the uncharitable self-interpretation of this feeling is "burn out" or "not caring" when it might be more accurately described as more responsible information consumption. It's not like we've always had this unfettered access to global heartbreak and problems we can't do anything about plus a responsibility to consume it. The idea that we have to pay attention to everything in the world every minute of the day else we're terrible civil servants is a relatively new phenomenon... and not one that I think is particularly productive, or valid.

Especially in politics, when everything is blown up to be the end of the world then the actual stuff that might be worth taking note of is buried in the noise.

I came to the conclusion the only time it's probably worth checking up on news or historic news is before an election, that has some value.

Otherwise ignore it. Anything truly important will reach you anyway.

Some great reading material on this: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews

Agreed about Newshour. they may have a left bias but they report facts and not just mostly opinion like most other channels.

Interestingly there's what I perceive as a large percentage of people that would argue that NPR is overall very unbiased.

One thought experiment I would propose for those people is that if you find yourself overwhelmingly agreeing with nearly everything that a source presents, that itself is proof of extreme bias in that source.

An impartial, unbiased, source would present you with different, and often conflicting opinions. It would give a -good faith- attempt to present both/all sides of an issue. It would cover the grey areas of issues and not just make every issue binary, black and white. You would find yourself agreeing with some content and disagreeing with other content. Every story shouldn't be you just nodding along in agreement as they bash your political/societal 'opponents'.