A pretty good alternative is to largely avoid consuming the kinds of media most prone to this, mostly newspapers and television news. If it's true that a facile understanding of the world is perfectly acceptable for most topics then it's also true that no understanding or awareness of those topics is also acceptable.
General news media is largely useless to actively harmful. For topics you actually care about, you're better off learning about them from specialist sources. For general understanding of the world you're probably better off reading history, science or literature. For plenty of topics you're probably better off not knowing or caring. If you think you're getting value from these types of media, it's at least worth a skeptical re-evaluation of what value they are really providing.
General news media is largely useless to actively harmful. For topics you actually care about, you're better off learning about them from specialist sources. For general understanding of the world you're probably better off reading history, science or literature. For plenty of topics you're probably better off not knowing or caring. If you think you're getting value from these types of media, it's at least worth a skeptical re-evaluation of what value they are really providing.