Speaking at a personal level, if you consume news media you're more likely to be depressed. For this reason alone you shouldn't read the news. After all, do you really need to know about every single legislative and political minutiae that's the flavor of the day?
The rest of planet agrees with me. News media is very untrusted (last I read it's somewhere around 60% untrustworthy), and the industry is rapidly dying.
Faced with impending doom, the journalists at the helm of those corporate monstrosities sought to double down on lies and clickbait. Open up the Network tab on any news website these days and you'll see all the tracking and advertising garbage they've resorted to as well.
By reading news, you're supporting this behavior and also (statistically speaking) doing yourself harm in the process.
I disagree that one should avoid any source of depression. In some instances, relevant bad-news which is also truthful ought not be avoided simply because it may exacerbate depression. The hard part, of course, is discerning what is relevant.
Of course it's unhealthy to consume an unhealthy amount of worthless news, but that's tautological.
I'll also note that 60% of the planet is not "the rest of the planet", and I'd bet that a large chunk of the 60% you reference merely believe that their "news sources" (I'm using this term very loosely here, such as sketchy blog posts, so-called alt-news sources, and 4-chan memes) are more reliable than the news sources they don't like. Similar to how, say... the body of Congress is the least popular branch of the U.S. government year after year, yet people reelect their Congressperson year after year because they don't necessarily hold the same opinion of their Congressperson. It's hard for me to really tease anything meaningful out of your second paragraph.
The journalism industry is not "rapidly dying", it's rapidly changing, as with most industries over the past few decades. Unfortunately it's going down the path of shitty clickbait, but shitty clickbait isn't exclusive to the mainstream media.
I believe the real tragedy isn't the existence/worsening of so-called mainstream media, but rather the growing focus on national/international news at the expense of strong impactful local journalism.
I'm curious to hear about your solutions to these problems, as well as where you go to get informed.
The rest of planet agrees with me. News media is very untrusted (last I read it's somewhere around 60% untrustworthy), and the industry is rapidly dying.
Faced with impending doom, the journalists at the helm of those corporate monstrosities sought to double down on lies and clickbait. Open up the Network tab on any news website these days and you'll see all the tracking and advertising garbage they've resorted to as well.
By reading news, you're supporting this behavior and also (statistically speaking) doing yourself harm in the process.