Every so often, a post goes around in tech circles about how news is bad and we shouldn’t pay attention to it. I think that’s ludicrous.

Today’s was a post from 2022 called The News is Information Junk Food. I think it’s a bad argument that could have poor consequences.

It was featured on Hacker News, so, gods help me, I commented there. Here’s what I said:

This is a pretty bad take.

For example, multiple studies have shown that in communities that aren't addressed by a robust local news outlet, local corruption goes up. Having a good newsroom does improve an understanding of what your representatives are up to, and a lack of information does allow them to get up to more behind our backs.

I think the biggest failure of this piece is to make all news equivalent. Yes, much cable news is junk; yes, many of the corporate newsrooms that churn out hundreds of articles a day are junk. They use engagement as a metric for success rather than finding ways to align themselves with impact and creating an informed, empowered electorate. That last thing - an informed, empowered electorate - is what it's all about.

Real journalism that is diligently undertaken in the public interest does make a real difference. (Should we know whether Clarence Thomas was taking corrupt bribes? Yes. Should we know how climate change is progressing? Yes. Should we know if the police are killing innocent people? Yes. Should we know that the police at the Uvalde school shooting hung around for over an hour doing nothing? Yes.) Telling people not to pay attention to the world around them results in an electorate who cannot meaningfully vote on real issues.

For those of us who build software, we need to know the factors that impact the lives of the people we're serving. We need to know the trends in the marketplaces and communities where we show up. The news is good for that, too.

Turn off cable news; pay more attention to non-profit news; go for long-form written journalism. Stay informed.

It's absolutely true that we take a psychic hit for doing so. I'd say that's more to do with the world than it is the media overall. Perhaps we should spend more time trying to make it better?

One user responded:

The key is to focus on local news: these are updates that a person can take action upon.

Seeing the latest tragedies on the other side of the world catches headlines, but rarely actionable by regular people.

To which I replied:

We all have foreign policies. For example, in the US, our government is heavily involved in Gaza and Ukraine. It's far away, but it's also highly relevant to how our representatives work on our behalf.

Should we give aid to other countries? How should we think about global society? Those things are all relevant, too.

The bottom line to my argument: Journalism is a key to understanding the world around us. We shouldn’t give ourselves excuses to look away.