How Journalists Can Have a More Balanced Media Diet

Writers, journalists—or anyone reading news—often break their fast first thing in the morning. While the first thought of which fast is broken is one of food consumption, the one we’re talking about, media consumption, might be more of an afterthought.

With a busy schedule, it is undeniably difficult to not have your morning news with a side of breakfast when browsing through your phone. Of course, it’s important to not be out of touch with the world, but it can easily teeter on over to an unhealthy diet of news consumption that ends up muddling up the brain, just as greasy food would, and most of all if there is conflicting information that you are coming across.

Thankfully there are some ways to reroute into a healthy and balanced media diet.

Practicing Mindful “Eating”

Just as mindful eating is all about being specifically aware of everything you put into your body, it is also necessary to do the same when consuming media. Drawing hard lines on when you choose to read media online can do wonders for portion control. If a journalist is trying to catch up on news at random periodic points throughout the day, it may feel like they will forever be unable to keep up, as if they were trying to get everything they can from a constantly spewing watering hose.

Not breaking it up will inevitably lead to “doom-scrolling” which has no limit. One way to go about this is to spend perhaps the first hour of a workday, or whenever is best within your own day, to simply “nibble” at the news for an hour and then move on. It could also be beneficial to subscribe to weekly newsletters as opposed to daily ones.

Balancing Emotional Eating

Social media companies and publishers often specifically put out their content to elicit strong emotions that make people want to recirculate—it helps them get more clicks. It is important not to get wrapped up in the fear-mongering way that this content may be conveyed. This type of content, often known as clickbait, is all designed to have a higher likelihood of going viral, not focusing on what would give you the most accurate representation of reality.

It is always a good practice to double check the sources, including articles by that same source, and see if they are characterized by overblown headlines and inaccuracies or inconsistencies. If so, try seeking out another source and stick with them if it seems more grounded in reality and factual, not sensational.

Knowing When to Push the Plate Aside

For a journalist’s own sanity, it is important to know when to skip or when to call it quits in terms of following media online. It is even more difficult to find this stopping point when getting your news from short form and easy to digest apps like TikTok and Instagram. There is a feeling of guilt or feeling of missing out (FOMO) once deciding the moment has come to “push away the plate,” but at that point, feeling behind on the news is not an indication of failure, as much as it may feel that way. Sometimes it might even be better to catch that same news a few days later as a fresh take. Further articles may add extra nuance anyway, so it is best to push away the need to grab at every bit of news right as it arrives. 

Recognizing when to push the metaphorical plate aside is crucial for maintaining a journalist’s mental well-being. In the end, fostering a mindful and balanced media diet is not only about staying informed, but also about protecting their mental clarity to ensure that they will engage more thoughtfully with the ever-evolving world of news.