"Oh I never watch the news"

[oklumberjack]

Ok, I feeling really judgemental about this I'll admit, but here goes.

I went out for dinner this week with some school mum's from the primary my dd has just left. These women are acquaintances of mine. Nice women, friendly but I don't consider them my closest friends.

Over the course of lunch, we were discussing our summer etc. I mentioned the Olympics and something about Theresa May. They all looked blankly at me. All 5 of them said they hadn't seen any Olympics and had no idea how we'd done. 3 of them had not even heard of Theresa May. The conversation then got on to how they never watch the news, or read a newspaper or even access it online. As soon as news comes on they turn over. I was shocked. I kept very quiet that I'm a Radio 4 and 5live listener, avid Daily Politics watcher and rather enjoyed watching the cycling,rowing and diving at the Olympics on the BBC.

However they could tell me all about Love Island, Big Brother and TOWIE which is where the conversation went next. I felt really out of place. They seemed to think that being interested in the news made you some kind of snob.

Ok, so we're out of step in what we like. We probably won't hang out much in the future, however please tell me I'm not really unusual in checking in with the news at least twice a day!

VioletBam, couldn't agree more, well said.

Why odd? What's the old saying, news travels fast, I don't watch the news but I can tell you who Thresa May is, what Brexit is and most of the topical news, each go their own anyway, no one should force their views on anyone else. If you want to watch the news, watch it, if you don't, dont.......end of.

But the OP isn't talking about people who don't watch traditional news sources and still keep up with what going on, she's talking about people who (unlike you) don't know even the basics.

I don't access the traditional news sources (TV/newspapers) very often because I don't like the UK bias (I'd rather know the big events worldwide than small events that happen to be occurring in the same country), but I do find it odd that some people deliberately avoid all news sources (including talking to other people!), to the point where they don't know who Theresa May is.

I do think there is alot of 'bad' news (articles written to stir/tragedy porn etc) so I can understand wanting to avoid that, but you can avoid that by picking better sources, I don't really understand not wanting to know anything.

I don't watch the news but I do keep an overview on Twitter and follow various other groups and get information from there.

I have no idea who did what in the olympics and would file that under the same level of interest as big brother and love island.

Doesn't make me better or worse than anyone else, although I am less stressed than friends who watch the news religiously.

Meh, I never watch the news. I read stuff online - normally via Facebook or Twitter. I don't care about the Olympics.

I did study politics at university though and I followed Brexit. I just don't need to read the papers and listen to Radio 4 everyday to keep myself informed!

Oh yes the 'I've never read a book'

The same colleague said that to me recently. 'But I'm still good at English and spelling'

Says the woman who's FB is littered with do'nt, was'nt, could'nt

formerbabe this happened to me!

Mentioned something in the news at one of my baby group things and they looked at me like I'd just farted on their kebabs!

All (seemingly) bright, intelligent women - who then proceeded to start a chat about fucking Water Wipes v Aldi Wipes.

Christ alive.

voiletBam, of course it's your choice, as it is theirs. I was just a little taken aback myself. I wouldn't dream of saying anything to them (that's what MN is for).

I know for a fact they are good parents. I've 'known' them for 7 years now.

Elspeth - I'm meaning the way the news is presented. When events such as earthquakes, terror attacks, tsunamis etc. happen, they can't just give the facts in a respectful way. They go over and over the same ground to the point of ridiculousness. I realise there's a public thirst for this kind of thing, but it often goes beyond the realm of decency, I think.

I listed to current affairs programmes and news on the radio, but find TV news coverage a bit OTT.

Taking pride in ignorance and proudly limiting your knowledge to trash culture is "worse" I would judge too op. Yanbu.

Well it is ignorant to deliberately not know about the world around you.

And people are arguing that knowing about Kim kardashian is of the same importance as understanding whose the pm and what they are doing?

Fuck me- the idiots are out in force today.

I feel slightly ashamed that I often miss the news but I do catch bits from others and then read/watch. My mum devours News 24 which imo is unhealthy too.

If something big is going on, I will follow it - like Brexit. I can't think how anyone could miss Theresa May becoming PM in light of that and it's not as if she weren't a well known mp before that. As for what's she's done , well not much yet. She's only been in power five minutes and most of that has centred around Brexit. I mean, has no one heard Brexit means Brexit?

As for Love Island, I switch off when people talk about that but then again I don't watch much else either

I watch the news or listen to Radio 4 in the mornings, but I often find the best source of news is MN I've often found out about current events before DH, who reads the news online daily.

I like to try to keep up to date with politics and world events, I think everyone should. We should know what our government are doing in order to vote responsibly.

I can also understand people avoiding the news because it gives them anxiety. I have stopped reading newspapers because of all the sensationalism and graphic images of death. They seem to go out of their way to horrify and shock and since DD's birth I cannot deal with it anymore. I still want to know what is happening but I just can't get the images out of my head

What I can't understand is adults who just aren't interested or don't care

I won't watch the news. I watch it once a month, tops and that is only if nothing good is on. Same with newspapers, I read our local weekly paper which is free but that's it. I have general anxiety and knowing all the shit that goes on every day does me no good. At best it's depressing, at worst it makes me more anxious.

I know Theresa May is acting PM but couldn't tell you anything else about the woman. Couldn't even tell you if she is pro leave or pro remain.

I haven't watched a single second of the Olympics because I find it boring, much like watching any other sport but I think we placed fairly high, didn't we?

I don't think you've found your people here, op. Although to be honest TOWIE and BB would have been my breaking point. Cannot fucking stand them.

The "nothing to do with me" comments are so simplistic. How do they think they'll get a pension one day? NHS services - both in terms of funding from the govt and huge numbers of EU workers who may have to leave? Funds for state schools? Do they think it's nothing to do with them when governments cut benefits for austerity measures and people they know lose out? Do they not think it's relevant to them, who is allowed to work and live here, what we are doing about housing etc? Are they independently wealthy and not in any way connected to the economy?

I don't enjoy watching news on TV -- too many sensationalist stories about child abuse and murder. But I think as voters, in a wealthy country whose policies affect people the world over, we have a responsibility to know enough to make decisions we believe in.

Those saying all media outlets have an "agenda" - what's the alternative? People who tweet news get it from somewhere too, as with FB - usually ultimately from some kind of media. There's no completely pure information, free of any opinion or framing, but good journalism is much better than unsubstantiated opinions from some random dude on twitter.

Almost by osmosis they must of heard of Theresa May, however they obviously blanked it out. Shrug.

Soubriquet if you don't understand politics, wouldn't watching the news be a way to address that? It's kind of important to your life.

I thought this was interesting - a new book, Head in the Cloud: The Power of Knowledge in the Age of Google by William Poundstone (which was extracted in The Observer last weekend). Behind a paywall, so here's the gist -

The author did surveys of general knowledge in the US and the UK (and discovered that more than 50% of people under 30 couldn't name the largest ocean on earth, the famous palace built by Louis XIV, who invented radio, or which Roman emperor supposedly fiddled while Rome burned). So what, you might say.

But the bit that was interesting was that he found a correlation between general knowledge and political views and socially responsible behaviour.

He asked whether you would throw your pet off a cliff for £1 million - only about 7% of the British public said yes, but that percentage was double among people who scored poorly in the general knowledge quiz.

In the same survey, the people who didn't know which document King John signed in 1215 were more likely to think people should be allowed to smoke in pubs. Those who couldn't name their MP were more likely to say it was OK for businesses to post fake online reviews under a false name. Those who thought humans lived at the same time as dinosaurs were less likely to vaccinate their children with the MMR.

His conclusion on the vaccination issue is that anti-vaccine parents do look stuff up on Google, but aren't able to distinguish medical research from pseudoscience and conspiracy theories on someone's anti-vac blog because a general background in evaluating knowledge isn't something you can Google, it's something lifelong, so the internet is no help to them.

I thought it was chilling, and as good an argument as I've come across for the necessity to be aware of the world and what's going on.

My anxiety problems stop me from watching/reading the news.

I find I start needing to fix the world, organising food/clothes collections or using social media to show my friends/family about social injustices.

I realise a lot of people do the same, and to great effect, but they probably don't then get heart palpitations, insomnia and crushing depression that everything is too big to fix and the realisation of being such a small cog on the machine.

It was having such a negative impact on my mental health and day t day life, that I made the decision to not watch the news, read papers etc.

This was about a year ago. Obviously, taking the spark away helped ease my anxiety.

I now use social media and online sources but only the headlines.

For example, I know about the awful situation in Penge and my heart aches for that poor family. All the extra, the media's non-stop grief-porn (looking at you and your ilk, Piers Morgan) is of no interest to me and I imagine is very negative for the family.

News junkie here. I don't think I have any friends who watch TOWIE, but I'm 44. That's fairly poor for grown women. Of course, I watch Come Dine with Me faithfully (we run out of them, actually, I bet most people think that's not possible) so who am I to judge.

I've often wondered why people judge themselves to be more intelligent than the TOWIE brigade because they have News 24 on, when it's just as voyeuristic and sensationalist.

You must be kidding. Do you mean any 24 hour news service when you say 'News 24'?

I think it's kind of admirable, actually.

I'm a bit of a news junkie, but I think it's a fruitless pursuit (especially in relation to mainstream media outlets like the main newspapers and the BBC). "News" is - or should be - different things to different people.

I really don't care. It all balances out

I don't watch love island, BB, strictly come dancing or anything like that. I will watch GBBO and BGT but that's it.

I couldn't give two shits about KK or any pop reference really.

Helmet, just because you're not into watching the news, doesn't mean you'd rather watch Kim Kardashian, I'd sooner eat my own crap than do that. I like biographies, the History channel, I know a lot about this country's history, I have a doctorate and I know what's going on around us, but I just don't watch the news...........or the Kardashians.

I admit I don't read a particular newspaper myself, only the odd article I find interesting via Twitter etc. Maybe I shouldn't have included newspapers in my OP. I was just listing possible news outlets.

Until whose