Ask HN: How do you get important news faster? Do you care about it? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How do you get important news faster? Do you care about it?

8 pointsibaikov18 comments

How do you get news in the first place? Do you filter a lot and only read small amount? Do you care at all to get news asap or do you feel like if something is important to you then you’ll hear about it later anyway?

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Late last year, I signed up for a daily delivery of a physical copy of The Financial Times. I rarely read news websites, other than HN and Reddit. Why? Because I wanted to be informed about world events but dislike the always-on nature of online news, and because I have a certain romantic ideal of reading the morning newspaper with a cup of coffee. Unfortunately it doesn't arrive in the morning and usually comes around noon.

How has it been? Both good and bad. I do like having a physical paper put in the mailbox, as it's fun to look forward to a "delivery" every day that is more real than just looking at my phone.

On the other hand, I find the FT to be worth reading only about every other issue, largely because there simply isn't enough news to report in 24 hours. The opinion and editorial sections make up a decent portion of the paper and largely aren't worth reading. But, every other issue or so, there are a few excellent articles absolutely worth the price of admission. And even then, the quality of the "boring" articles is leaps and bounds above what I used to read in the NYT or the Guardian.

I'm not sure if I'll be renewing it later this year, as it does feel like I'm wasting a lot of paper – but only on the days when I don't enjoy the articles. I wish they had a twice weekly edition, which would be the perfect interval IMO.

Check out The Economist, it’s a weekly publication and has generally very high quality writing as well

I used to read The Economist but the viewpoint irked me too much after awhile. I suppose The Financial Times is nominally somewhat similar, but I've found the FT to be a little more grounded, probably because they're primarily a paper for people in finance first and the general public second.

What was it about their viewpoint that bothered you specifically? Just curious, I’ve generally found their reporting balanced, with a tilt towards economic liberalism and democratic institutions (which they proudly state as their philosophy)

To be honest, it was awhile ago and I don’t remember precisely. It just didn’t seem like that original of a viewpoint and not something that was worth paying for. The FT is much more finance-details oriented and less ideological, which I do appreciate.

I can't think of a news story in the past two decades where a personal response in two hours would have been more beneficial than one in two weeks, based on better info. I'd like a latency knob on my news that I can set at around 500 hours. But it'd be nice if there's a loophole for hurricane warnings, etc.

Well, now I can think of some: weather and traffic reports.

I have the same feeling, so I don't really regularly check news anymore, but do sign up for various emergency alerts (from Google, my city & county, etc.) They'll usually text you (or at least try to) when shit goes down.

Some smaller agencies use Twitter, though, unfortunatley.

I just don't get news at all. Never watch TV. Never read newspapers. Never listen to the radio. Never read news website. Never use social media. I _did_ do all of that, but it has never been useful or actionable in any way so I stopped, for the better. I am confident that the important stuff will eventually reach me.

Basically, all I care about is trafic conditions, extreme weather warnings (rare around here), the date of the next bulky trash collection, and information related to my trade.

I try to ignore as much as possible. Almost nothing in the news directly affects me. I'll hear about anything important -- people love to talk about news. I have a weather app on my phone, that's usually all I need to look at to go about my business.

Social media is the fastest today. Probably even TikTok. It matters for some things - floods, wars. There's enough paranoia that advance warning helps; it was useful when we had waves of on and off COVID lockdowns. I like to have a month's groceries at home but it's bad when every damn person in town is buying months of groceries at once.

HN is quite fast too, almost too fast. It'll probably be off the front page by the time I'm awake. But not for political news.

What is an example of important news that I need to hear about same-day, or even same-week?

It's only when I'm about to get on a plane that I need to double-check that I'm not flying somewhere suddenly volatile.

This is exactly why I made this post here. I suspect that the audience on HN doesn’t or stopped overconsuming news, now I want to ask people elsewhere and I think the answers will be quite different.

Someone posted this a while back https://www.newsminimalist.com/

Otherwise I used to check the news mostly for the dopamine hit or out of boredom but rarely benefit from that. I still do, but I limit it much more and have to say, less is better. I don't believe I've missed out on any news that would have made my life better and if it's ever something really really important, someone will probably tell me anyway

Two things I read:

https://sumi.news/

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events

Just for a quick sweep.

Then I open Twitter/X and browse to my local news site.

This takes at most 5 minutes to skim world (and local) events and catch up.

- The Economist, usually podcasts while getting ready in the morning.

- All-in podcast when I feel like being entertained

99% of news is generally irrelevant to daily life, maybe once a month something catches my eye and I feel like being more informed about the topic

I used to be a news addict, doom-scrolling through Google News etc. several times a day. After the Trump years, though, I decided to take a break. Basically stopped consuming most news, only occasionally checking the wire services (like apnews.com) maybe a few times a month or less.

Yep, the country's going to shit still, the Middle East is at war, the world's burning up, schoolkids are getting murdered, etc. Same ol', same ol'. Nothing I can do about any of it anyway, so what's the point of stressing over it?

I don't even remember any major events after Covid, and my life seems no better or worse off for it. I also deleted all my social media a few years ago, and that was definitely a HUGE net positive.

I don't think people in general -- as a barely evolved ape -- really have the mental and emotional capacities to consume ceaseless global catastrophes in real-time. It just seems like a surefire recipe for anxiety and depression. The "media-pharmaceutical complex", maybe?

> Nothing I can do about any of it anyway

There is absolutely something you can do about it. Vote. And that doesn't take 24/7 monitoring of news, it just takes a few minutes every year or two.

Yeah, I've been hearing and doing that my entire adult life. Has anything gotten better? Nope. We're long past a functional democracy. It's all captured and corrupt.

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