If you are not already a regular PBS NewsHour viewer: Watch a full episode on YouTube, let me know what you think on Twitter and I’ll donate $10 (up to $500 total) to their fundraiser.
($150/$500 so far)
Staying informed on current events is something I consider to be a duty as an adult. Maintaining a practice for doing that seems to be getting more difficult over time– Everything feels urgent, there’s more and more to keep up on each day, and without doing the same homework as others it’s hard to have a conversation about it.
A few years ago I began in earnest reviewing the different sources of US news available. Where could I get reliable information? Is it efficient with my time? Could I discuss it easily with my friends? What should a healthy “information diet” look like for me?
Here are some problems with a lot of the news sources I looked into:
- The 24 hour news cycle is incentivized to eat all your time. In its worst forms it’s better for them to make you angry and confused so you’ll spend more time consuming.
- Oftentimes I feel like the presenter or writer is trying to convince rather than strictly inform. Opinion can be important but it contributes too much to the bubbles we all live in and I’d like to decide my own.
- A lot of the good stuff is locked behind paywalls. No good for discussion.
- Television news is really convenient, but it has its own unique issues:
- It’s tough to find a good source if you’ve cut the cable cord. YouTube and broadcasters’ sites have it, but:
- Online video tends to be chopped up into lots of segments. I want to get caught up quickly on a variety of subjects.
- And overarching all Internet-sourced news: Who is giving you this information and why? Are you seeing something mostly because it supports your current biases?
There are a few written sources I like, but in the television and video segment one show stands FAR above the rest in my opinion: PBS NewsHour.
Here’s why I really like the NewsHour:
- It’s accessible. You can find it on YouTube in full episode format or in segments, on many smart TVs, and on public television.
- It’s free and publicly supported for everyone. There are sponsors, but no ad breaks.
- It’s respectful of my time. An hour seems like a lot for a daily news show, but in a year or two of fairly serious viewing I have never felt like I wasted my time watching it.
- It’s been around forever. We watched it as a family when I was growing up, my parents called it the SnoozeHour. People know the show.
I learned while reading the Wikipedia page that the NewsHour has published editorial guidelines. Give those a gander. It’s hard to find editorial guidelines for a lot of news outlets, and they’re not all so approachable as that bulleted list. I can feel the effect of those guidelines in their reporting.
A lot of those guidelines deal with empathy. They treat all their guests extremely seriously and fairly, letting them fully answer questions and not interrupting. As a result the guests treat each other seriously and fairly even when they have opposing viewpoints. They take the viewer seriously too, making things clear and labeled, getting the best sources possible, and giving you context to make your own decisions.