How to stay intentionally informed

Who deserves your media attention and money? And how can you create rituals around what you take in, when, and how you approach responding to it?

It seems like everyone is having a sort of come-to-Jesus with themselves about news consumption. Glennon Doyle and her crew are talking about “calm news.” Anya Kamenetz has a new series called “What Really Happened Last Week” in an attempt to protect her readers from all the sturm and drang. And The Harvard Business Review is worried about the elite getting overwhelmed.

I don’t have this all figured out obviously, but it’s something I feel really strongly about and have experimented with, so thought I would offer up my own hard-earned wisdom. I want to stay aware, focused, and whole in this time of profound overwhelm and disequilibrium. I’m guessing you do, too.

First and foremost, I want you to know that I am not actually all that informed and I’m not ashamed to say it. Yes, I see it as my civic duty to understand what is going on in the world accurately and somewhat urgently, but I do not consider it my civic duty to get swept up in every breaking news headline, particularly considering those headlines are curated by people working within a business model that makes money on compulsive, panicked addiction to news. Nope, I’m not going to let those people with those incentives shape my days.

It is not uncommon that I will be sitting at the dinner table and my husband and my mom will be talking about some recent spectacle associated with Trump’s administration and I will be absolutely clueless. Some may see that as a failure to pay attention on my part. I have made peace with it. The spectacle has a way of getting in one way or the other, so why not be late to the party and spend more of my time on things that nourish me?

Probably the best possible use of a newspaper, am I right?

When I am taking in the news, I try to really practice self-awareness—whether I’m reading a newspaper article or listening to a podcast episode—which means paying attention to my mood, my body’s signals, and my thoughts. In the simplest terms:

How does taking in this content make me feel?

I noticed, for example, that I would read The New York Times Sunday print edition and often feel sort of like I was in an abusive relationship with it. Some coverage was awesome. Some of the voices I read in the op-ed section invigorated me. But, too often, I was enraged by how much space was given to certain kinds of thinkers and topics. I wanted to yell back at the paper: “You’re missing so much!” But I kept reading it for months and months, as if I had no choice. But I did! When I went on my sabbatical, I cancelled my subscription, and it’s been about a year and a half and I feel solid about the decision. When something special comes out, I usually have friends who will alert me or run across it on social media and so, while I’m realistic that I’m missing a lot I would love and be enriched by there. (the obits especially!), I’m also out of an “abusive” relationship I had the power to leave—both in terms of my attention and money.

And this is the heart of it:

Our attention and our money are our power as media consumers.

(I am also a media producer, of course, and have loads to say about the way I try to use my power in that capacity, but that’s for another dispatch.) There is so much media clamoring for our attention and money right now. Who deserves it?

The answer is very personal for each of us, but first and foremost, the media that deserves your attention is that which makes you feel empathic, expansive, and smarter about the world. I would argue, way more of all of our media diet should be made our of solutions-oriented journalism, not because I want to avoid reality, but because I want to actually take in the full range of it (which includes lots of amazing people figuring out how to fix what is broken on both small and large scales). For me, the alchemy of taking things in and noticing how they impact my mind, heart, and ability to be responsive to the world, have led me to feel like certain sources are deserving of my precious attention and money right now.

Some consistently generative sources you might consider:

Publications: The Christian Science Monitor, Next City, The 19th, Orion, The Sun

Individuals: The White Pages - Garrett Bucks, The Window - Twilight Greenaway, The Ann Friedman Weekly, Tangle News, Tressie McMillam Cotton’s, Prentis Hempill’s, and adrienne maree brown’s instagram feeds (which are basically like live newsletters)

A special note on newsletters: holy moly there are a glut of great publications you can subscribe to, right? (I hope, this one included.) I find that I don’t have to get caught up in the drama of too-many-newsletters if I pay attention to my own natural inclinations. Which are the ones I consistently read when they show up in my inbox? Which are the ones that I think I should read but never really get around to?

Cull your newsletter diet of too many shoulds. Some might be okay - a sign that you are trying to stretch beyond your comfort zone. But there is enough content out there that your body naturally wants to read that you don’t need to spend your days chastising yourself for not reading something that you think you would want to read if you were a better person. You’re you, now. And that’s great as long as you’re staying curious and challenging yourself with new voices and information along the way.

Another note on newsletters: pay for what you naturally and consistently read. It’s the right thing to do. Most of these folks are freelancers, trying to make a little bit of their precarious living off of the newsletter they’re producing. It means a lot to them if you pay for it (it certainly means a lot to me). When someone becomes a paid subscriber, I know they really find what I’m doing unique and useful, and we are this truly symbiotic relationship. That’s such a good feeling in an economy that is otherwise so distorting for writers and their natural audience.

Podcasts: Death, Sex & Money, The Ezra Klein Show, On Being with Krista Tippett, Wild Card with Rachel Martin, Wow in the World and Smash, Boom, Best (with my kids)

I don’t listen to straight-up news podcasts much at all. I listen to podcasts for culture and a broader view of politics.

TV: I’m not a big TV news watcher, but if I were, I think I would gravitate towards The Daily Show, Democracy Now, Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes on MSNBC, and CBS Sunday Morning.

Now that’s the what.

What about the how?

I use a “read-it-later” platform called Instapaper that helps me get things out of my inbox and/or prevents the dreaded nine million tabs open on my browser. You can read things later, either on your computer or your phone. This is a great alternative to scrolling through social media for me. When I have a moment to chill out and catch up, I already have a place to go for my curated list of things I want to read.

I do not have any social media apps on my phone. I use Instagram on the computer, which is awkward and unsatisfying. That’s how I want it. Create as much friction with your social media usage as possible. You’ll still get the mind and heart expanding content that is the hallmark of the best of these platforms, you’ll still get the baby pictures and the cathartic laughs, but just way less of them.

I do not start the morning by reading the news. Hell no. I start the morning by snuggling with Stella and talking about very random shit or exercising. I don’t really take in outside news until at least 10am, and I would prefer later. I am most creative in the morning, so my platonic ideal is to work on my own writing and care for my people, to spend time in nature thinking without a podcast playing in my ears, at the top of the day. The news will wait.

I try to (and I want to do way more of this) spend time every single week hiking and driving without listening to anyone else’s ideas/opinions and, instead, trying to listen to my own inner voice. In these moments, I find that lots of connections get draw in my otherwise flooded brain. I notice my breath. I notice what my body is aching for (water, movement, to shake out etc.). I remember a friend I wanted to check in with. I think too many of us are consuming the wrong stuff at the wrong times, but we are also just consuming too much. Period. (This, by the way, is sort of my version of Dumbledore’s pensieve in the Harry Potter series. When the wizard is overwhelmed by his own thoughts, he extracts them from his brain in the form of little strands of silver and puts them in a machine that holds them for him until he’s ready to take another look.)

I devote myself to books, not bites. Books are inherently slower, more metabolized, and therefore wiser, than anything else I take in via the internet. Books talk to one another across years and generations, not 60-second attentions spans. Books are sacred. How do I read so many books? Almost every single night I read before I got to bed, at least a little bit. (I keep my phone in my bathroom, not at my bedside.) I also let me kids watch one hour of TV every Saturday and Sunday morning so I can read.

You can stay expansively aware of what’s going on in the world without taking action on every single thing. The more you have a sense of what you, in this season of life, are focusing on taking action on, organizing around, being locally engaged with, the less you will feel like you are driving from a fire hose when you read the news. You will be grounded in your own action practices.

I sometimes wonder if we are overwhelmed by news because we are underwhelmed by our own civic and community-oriented action.

If you’re feeling that way, get away from the screen and go do something, join others, dig in locally. Even if you’re less informed about every little thing happening, you will be more impactful and more mentally hearty.

Right now, for example, I know that I am focusing on elder care as—not just my personal experience—but my political action. I am organizing with other families doing elder care in a broken system. I am learning about how power flows at the state level around day programs for elders, about Medicaid, about ownership models within assisted living. I am not taking direct action on a million other issues that I care a lot about. My friends are doing that, and I will pile on to their efforts where a non-expert voice, dollar, body can be helpful. But I am under no delusion that I can take meaningful action on all things, so when I read an article about something important that is not elder care, I don’t expect myself to take immediate action as a result of what I’ve read.

So I guess in that way, I’m saying:

Read widely. Take civic action consistently and narrowly.

Pick your organic focus for this season in your life and spread the word to others and mobilize them when you need them. Likewise, follow the lead of friends and neighbors working on a variety of urgent issues. If you don’t have friends and neighbors working on a variety of urgent issues, that’s your charge! Devote your precious energy to making that happen. It’s way more important than staying informed of current events.

Okay, in sum, here is how to stay intentionally aware. (Add your strategies, favorite sources, and confirmations and/or complications of these recommendations in comments, please please please!)

Don’t feel obligated to the spectacle.

Take in less media. Hear your inner voice every week.

Notice your body, mind, spirit when you do take in media.

Devote more energy and money to that which makes you feel empathic, expansive, and smarter about the world. Devote less to that which doesn’t.

Pick your issue for this season.

Follow the lead of friends and neighbors focused on other issues.

Don’t consume news first thing in the morning.

Take social media off your phone. Don’t keep your phone at your bedside.

Read books.