News is bad for you. It leads to fear and aggression. It hinders your creativity and makes you sick. We should stop consuming it, says Rolf Dobelli, who's abstained for years
The Growth and Impact of Cable News
Cable news has had a tremendous impact on how people consume news. We discuss the growth and impact of cable news including the good, bad and downright ugly.
Five Things You Notice When You Quit the News
I grew up believing that following the news makes you a better citizen. Eight years after having quit, that idea now seems ridiculous—that consuming a particularly unimaginative information produ...
Following news on social media boosts knowledge, belief accuracy and trust
Many worry that news on social media leaves people uninformed or even misinformed. Here we conducted a preregistered two-wave online field experiment in France and Germany (N = 3,395) to estimate the effect of following the news on Instagram and WhatsApp. Participants were asked to follow two accounts for 2 weeks and activate the notifications. In the treatment condition, the accounts were those of news organizations, while in the control condition they covered cooking, cinema or art. The treatment enhanced current affairs knowledge, participants’ ability to discern true from false news stories and awareness of true news stories, as well as trust in the news. The treatment had no significant effects on feelings of being informed, political efficacy, affective polarization and interest in news or politics. These results suggest that, while some forms of social media use are harmful, others are beneficial and can be leveraged to foster a well-informed society.
Illusion of knowledge through Facebook news? Effects of snack news in a news feed on perceived knowledge, attitude strength, and willingness for discussions
Research indicates that using social network sites as a source for news increases perceived knowledge even if, objectively, people fail to acquire knowledge. This might result from the frequent repetition of topics in news posts caused by multiple news outlets posting about the same news topics and the algorithm that favors similar postings. These repeated encounters can have a positive effect on the perception of knowing more, even if actual learning hardly occurs. An experiment (N = 810, representative of German Internet users) tested these assumptions. Participants were assigned to one of four groups and received a news feed with no information, few news posts, many news posts, or a full-length news article. Results indicate that many news posts increased perceived knowledge that is not paralleled by a gain in factual knowledge. Perceived knowledge mediates effects of reading many news posts on more extreme attitudes and the willingness for discussions. Even if participants who read the news article gained factual knowledge, they did not feel more knowledgeable than participants who were exposed to a news feed containing news posts. The results emphasize the meaning of engaging with full news articles, both for learning facts and for more accurate knowledge assessments.
The future of news is happening where no one is looking
"In 2026, more news organizations will understand that people don’t always want an article. Sometimes they just want clarity."
You couldn't create a more anti-news internet if you tried
What behavioral economics can add to the story of news decline.
Changes to the Facebook Algorithm Decreased News Visibility Between 2021-2024
Platforms, especially Facebook, are primary news sources in the US. In its widely criticized "War on News," Meta algorithmically deprioritized news and political content. We use data from 40 news organizations (5,243,302 Facebook posts, 7,875,372,958 user reactions) and 21 non-news pages (396,468 posts; 1,909,088,308 reactions) between January 1, 2016 and February 13, 2025 to examine how these changes influenced news visibility on the platform. Reactions to news declined by 78% between 2021 and 2024 while reactions to non-news pages increased, indicating targeted suppression of news visibility. Low-quality sources were especially suppressed, yet the 2025 end to "War on News" increased user reactions to news, especially low-quality ones. These changes do not reflect decreased news supply, Facebook user base, or interest in news over this period.
How we decide what news is important, and why that process maybe flawed
Have you ever thought about the type of news that populates on your Facebook feed? Where does it come from and how is it specifically…
Join The Onion
Don’t just read the news. Feel it. Be among the first to feel the news.
Join The Onion
Don’t just read the news. Feel it. Be among the first to feel the news.
Sharing news you didn't read can feel like expertise
Social media sharers believe that they are knowledgeable about the content they share, even if they have not read it or have only glanced at a headline.
About — Crackdown Podcast
Garth Mullins—Crackdown’s Host and Executive Producer—is a longtime activist and drug user as well as a member of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users and the BC Association of People on Methadone. Crackdown was born out of the idea that journalism can be rigorous, fair, and meet the expectations enumerated in the Canadian Association of Journalists, while also containing a clear and transparently-stated point of view. We believe that journalism can and should seek to serve the public good. We believe that journalism need not be produced by people who are distant from the topics and communities they are covering. And we believe that - rather than hiding behind a mask of “objectivity” - journalism is most truthful when it clearly communicates its point of view to the audience.
Q&A: Robin Berjon on freeing journalists' feeds.
The AT protocol and “long-term, lifelong, sustainable protection against enshittification.”
Seven Takeaways on Convenience and News - Nieman Reports
In “Against Convenience,” Nieman Fellow Gabe Bullard delves into modern media consumption habits
I do think this is a kind of novel problem with our current media environment - Serious people aren't good at making content, they have other things to do, but content is what drives attention. Tastemakers used to highlight the serious people but they're gone, replaced by content creators.
