Insanity-Inducing Headlines

“It’s a rare week, these days, that you don’t encounter some new, extreme plan for staying sane in a world of insanity-inducing headlines. 

“People used to recommend one device-free day a week, or the occasional ‘digital detox’ retreat. But in recent months we’ve heard from the journalist who switched to a print-only news diet; the writer who’s lived tech-free since 2016 (his handwritten article for this paper was typed in by an editor) — and Erik Hagerman, an Ohio man profiled in the New York Times, who lives on a pig farm with no access to news, and who pumps white noise into his ears when he visits his local cafe, so he can’t overhear stray updates. 

“One day, . . . such schemes may go too far, leaving Hagerman and his ilk in the position of those Japanese soldiers who fought the second world war until the 1970s. When Trump gets impeached or defeated, or dies of a Doritos overdose, how will they ever find out?” 

—Oliver Burkeman, columnist, “Headlines making you anxious? Delay reading them,” The Guardian, April 6, 2018.

• Editorial Comment: Weekly World News, of course. So much easier to swallow.

peezpix by Ted Pease

Buddy

FREE! Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email This free “service” is sent to 2,000,000 or so subscribers around the planet more or less every weekday morning during WORD season. If you have recovered from whatever illness led you to subscribe and don’t want it anymore, send “unsubscribe” to ted.pease@gmail.com. Or if you want to afflict someone else, send me the email address and watch the fun begin. (Disclaimer: I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“I don’t think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard