Avoiding the news? You’re not alone.
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 9 August 2023
⏱️ 19 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A new survey shows that more people are avoiding the news. Today on “Post Reports,” our media reporter Paul Farhi talks with Elahe Izadi about “news avoiders” – and how the media could respond to this growing trend.
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Bad news seems to be constant these days. Thanks to our hand-held devices, that bad news can follow us everywhere. More and more, people who used to follow the news regularly are tuning it out.
This is bad news for an already struggling news industry. How can news organizations inform their audiences without overwhelming them? Today we talk about staying informed – and staying sane.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | A few years ago, Claudia Kaplan probably would have described herself as a voracious news |
| 0:07.3 | consumer. |
| 0:08.3 | Typically, I would read the Washington Post in the morning on weekends. |
| 0:13.9 | I got read The New York Times as well. |
| 0:16.1 | I would read The New York Times online during the week. |
| 0:19.2 | I watched a fair amount of MSNBC. |
| 0:23.6 | And then I read other things that I wouldn't really call them straight news, but things |
| 0:28.6 | like The New Republic and The Atlantic and things like that. |
| 0:35.2 | Claudia felt like she had to keep up with the news. |
| 0:38.3 | Like it was a core value to her, part of her routine, and maybe even part of her identity. |
| 0:44.3 | It's super important. |
| 0:46.0 | I really felt like it was something that I needed to be in the loop on, and it had always |
| 0:53.6 | put more or less been a part of my life. |
| 0:56.0 | And that need to be informed has slowly felt less necessary. |
| 1:01.2 | Claudia says it started with COVID. |
| 1:04.2 | Especially the early COVID coverage where there was so much uncertainty and so little science, |
| 1:11.6 | and so many conflicting warnings and so many obituaries. |
| 1:17.0 | And the constant scandal surrounding a certain ex-president hasn't helped. |
| 1:21.8 | Claudia says there are times when she hits a kind of Trump overload. |
| 1:27.1 | You just, you just can't take it anymore. |
| 1:29.5 | He just delies and the behavior and the bluster just becomes too much and, you know, I don't |
| 1:37.5 | need to watch reruns of the apprentice. |
... |
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