I am guessing you're just saying this so you don't get flamed by the concern trolls of the Internet who say you must be engaged, but in the case you actually feel this, it's not true at all. You don't owe your attention and reaction to the news to anyone.
Do any good in life for others less fortunate or in need and know that's more than thousands of hours of watching CNN coverage of Ukraine-Russia conflict or Roe v. Wade being rehashed the 76th time.
This doesn't require checking the news daily, but maybe at least once a month?
Books, develop a moral compass, talk with experts or even trusted friends, observe what is happening in your area and act in good faith to become involved.
IMO I'd trust the vote of someone who volunteers with the poor over someone who just watches $BIGNEWS each night
Making a good choice is more than having data, it's about having wisdom of what even matters in life and which data even matters for moving towards that good life. The news cannot tell you what is Good.
Millions of people are ignoring that advice currently, and unlike action - say, giving to those in need or volunteering your help - a single vote doesn't spur any change; lost to the margins of error.
I personally think many people hide behind voting as their civic duty as a way to get out of action and helping those in need, especially those who are local.
Sure, voting is fine. I do it. It doesn't much matter given the city, county, and state I live in (Seattle, King County, Washington State) since you can guess how issues are quite easily litigated and voted upon, but I'll learn a little bit about the stuff on the ballot and cast my vote. I also don't really think it does much; I mostly do it to silence those who think not voting is some cardinal sin.
Helping those in your neighborhood with food security, transportation, or access to information/services makes an impact that day for that person. They don't much care who you voted for. Little Free Pantries and Little Free Libraries are a great way to get started with hyperlocal giving, if anyone is looking for a way to help locally and disconnect nationally/globally from events that you have vanishingly little (I'm being generous) control over.
Even if you accept this is true, I have a hard time believing that 'following the news' actually achieves this in any substantial way. If anything, it may have the opposite effect, as ad-driven sensationalism selects for disjointed, short-term stories with large emotional impacts over those which enable readers to form far-seeing, rational, coherent world-views.
At some point watching the news is purely entertainment at best, and a way to feel better than others by being more informed at worst.
You wish.
People have always voted with their guts and feelings, much less with their brain.
I'm not saying that what currently passes for news is a good solution, but I feel like a lot of people sort of throw the baby with the bathwater and justify completely detaching themselves from what's happening because news are heavily flawed. They are, and I don't blame anyone person from taking a break, but it doesn't scale. If a large percentage of the population does it it causes problems.
When I was younger, two consecutive governors from opposite parties both ended up in prison for their activity as elected officials. The STOCK act was passed 10 years ago, but insider trading in congress remains rampant.
We have different expecations.
NPR or a good magazine, yes. The news described in this article? No.
I have voted every election that I can physically do so, but at some point you hit the margin described in the myth of the rational voter.
Locally -- most people live in solid red or blue states, so if they want to go the extra mile, they could check if there's anyone worth voting for in their local red/blue party primaries.
Last couple of years, I've seen talking heads projecting among other things:
* Covid has a 10% mortality rate
* Covid will blow over by march 2020
* Covid is just a flu
* Covid will blow over by summer 2020
* Covid will blow over by fall 2020
* Trump will join the QAnon protesters
* Trump won the election by a landslide
* Trump will refuse to step down and become a dictator
* Covid will blow over by 2021 when the vaccinations get started
* Covid will blow over by summer 2021
* Covid will blow over by fall 2021
* Covid will blow over by winter 2021
* Putin is just saber rattling, he will not invade Ukraine
* Ukraine will fold like a house of cards
* The Russian convoy will be stuck in the mud forever and it's all Putin's got
* Sanctions will defeat Putin any moment now
* The Russians will turn on Putin
* The Russian Oligarchs will turn on Putin
* Putin will be defeated by April 2022
* Putin will be defeated by Summer 2022
If this is where you get your understanding of the world, I'm not even sure it's a net positive. You might just walk away with a less accurate understanding of things than if you simply weren't told about these things.
The news usually only have one thing relevant to your life: the weather.
It's impressive that, as a society, we've conditioned people to this. I don't read the news, I don't participate in social media outside of forums and IRC, I don't donate, and I don't vote. All things are things I used to do with regular frequency. I was constantly stressed, tired, and depressed. It was difficult to relate to people who had experiences outside of what I was being fed on social media, it was hard to even say I was happy at times because someone wanted to remind me that world was going to end.
All along the way you get these happy coaches who will tell you, "It's a marathon not a race", "empathy exhaustion is a thing", etc while also feeding you a machine of reactions to make sure none of that was true. Even when you're disengaged on purpose, there's societal pressure to stay engaged, and the system knows how to wield that pressure with some level of plausible deniability. It's far easier to tell someone who is saying, "This is too much" that their choices put them at fault; after all, they didn't have to read that next reactionary opinion.
These are all experiences with my hypothetical in-group, not even the categorical "threat". Yet, I wasn't ignorant. In fact, I would read on events - just not as they're happening, and not at a news website. You'd be surprised at the number of people who focus on writing thoughtful post-hoc analysis on actual collected facts - Wikipedia is one such source, as you mentioned. As for irresponsible, your ultimate responsibility is to keep yourself healthy. If you are not here, you cannot affect the world in any positive way - regardless of your level of input or listening. Anyone that tells you to do something detrimental to yourself on purpose is not actually looking out for your best interest.
Voting says more about you than it ever has or will about the candidates.
Once that realization sinks in, everything changes.
> Once that realization sinks in, everything changes.
Maybe, but probably not.
For instance, I don't vote because the parties have failed to address things that I think are important, or have gone so grossly off the rails that they are no longer a useful investment of my time or energy. In this way, non-participation is valid feedback - so it says something about the party and the candidate. To me, not addressing things I need solved by the party is feedback to me - feedback that's as simple as "your issues are not a priority to me or my constituents".
People trying to moralize voting usually can't comprehend this because the party is doing something they want. The problem is that moralizing voting is never okay.
Dobelli sums it up best:
Then you might like Legible News (https://legiblenews.com/), which uses Wikipedia’s Current Events portal.
However, I do think it's important to build a larger mental model of the world than you get by just sitting in a room by yourself. But I'd argue that the news is a terrible (biased, emotional, and inefficient) way of building such a model. Far better, for example, to spend a bit of time each month looking into the large scale trends that are shaping your world, country, and town.
It's really not. If you're spending even a little time reading relevant books (poli sci, political philosophy, economics, history, et c.) instead of following the news daily then you're doing a better job of being a good citizen than people who don't do that, but do follow the news closely.
Exception: local news, though even that you probably don't need to follow daily. Maybe check in once a week. That also happens to be the only level at which your, personal vote has enough statistical likelihood of affecting anything to have any actual value.
Caring and being a good citizen is consistently participating in politics that are closer to home, and participating in party politics. Earlier in the process = larger effect (so, party politics). Smaller pool of voters = larger effect (so, local). Not watching the news every day. Not voting in major elections (if you skip 100% of those but attend a corresponding number of local elections, you're doing your part much better than someone who does the inverse).
At the beginning of 2022 I decided to quit reading news, I realized that it took between 3 and 7% of non-sleeping time and added nothing to my life.
Spent two great months, then Russia invaded Ukraine and I went back to norm.
Tuning out and away from the news was the best thing I could have done for myself.