It’s hard for journalists to switch off the adrenaline rush of news. That’s what happens when you spend years positively drenched in it, your daily routine driven by whatever latest development happened with whatever person or whatever company. And it’s even more addictive when you’re on the inside, privy to tomorrow’s headlines.
Reading the Economist every week, multiple newspapers every day, and checking websites hourly was the norm long after I left daily journalism behind. There was a persistent need to simply know stuff, as though I was terrified that if someone asked “do you like Sarkozy?” I may embarrass myself by replying I’d never actually done that with a woman.
The irony, of course, is that being a news junkie is futile at best and destructive at worst. No journalist—working or recovering—has control over the news cycle. As the saying goes, you’re doing little more than writing a first draft of history that will soon line a litter box. Or wrap fish and chips.
Then came Donald Trump.
His presidency was the longest, most terrifying, most infuriating, most debilitating four years of my life. Every day was a firehouse of shit; the rantings of the most incompetent, unqualified, unserious person to ever sit behind the Resolute Desk. Describing it as a slow-moving car crash doesn’t do it justice. It drained me mentally, affected my sleep, made me angry, depressed, and forced me to question every decision that led me to build a life in a country fundamentally flawed enough to have elected him.
It also cured my news addiction.
It’s one thing to know in the abstract that you have no control over what happens in the world. It’s quite another to be reminded daily. The Trump Presidency—already universally regarded as the worst in the history of a country with, let’s face it, some genuinely shitty presidents—was the crazy uncle you can’t shut up; the smarmy fucker who keeps getting promoted while constantly reminding you the rules don’t apply because he’s the boss’ son.
So, I quit. I mean, I quit being obsessed with the news. I think it’s the basic responsibility of any citizen to be informed; to know what’s happening in the world around them. There are important issues being debated and stands to be taken. But drinking from the news firehose? As dead as Trump’s hippocampus.
Which is why I didn’t watch last night’s presidential “debate.” Why bother? Anyone who claims to be undecided is, at this point, unfit to vote. Or lying. And I didn’t bother because no one watches to have their thinking challenged by well-reasoned arguments, willing to acknowledge the other side may have a point. Everyone watches to have existing prejudices confirmed: Biden’s old and doddery (panic!). Trump is incoherent and dangerous (really panic!).
I’ll read the write-ups, filtered through the infuriating lens of a US media that continues to insist on treating both candidates as relatively stock-standard equals, with all the faux objectivity and deference that demands (“Scientists debate merits of Trump’s recommendation people drink bleach”). A quick prediction: any stumble from Biden will be cast as heightening fears over his age, even though he’s barely older than Trump, vastly more coherent, and actually competent. And anything from Trump vaguely resembling a normal human being will be pitched as a triumph.
Looked at through that lens, it’d be relatively easy to dismiss debates like last night’s as a sideshow. Unfortunately, I know it’s not. Perception becomes reality here, fueled by uninformed citizens, a national obsession with reality television, and the waning influence of an already neutered national media that has been supplanted by digital conspiracy theorists, crackpots, and plain fraudsters.
Twenty years ago, an utterly failed nepo baby who’d squandered hundreds of millions of dollars of his father’s money—and was universally regarded as a joke by anyone actually in business—managed to convince the American public he was rich and successful. Today, a competent, historically consequential president is painted as a senile old man by someone just two years his junior with a family history of dementia and a more recent history of spouting utterly inane nonsense.
I mean, it’s enough to make you cry. But not from laughter.
A note about whatever this is …
After writing a few thousand articles for newspapers and magazines, I spent a long time trying a bunch of other stuff. I guess I figured what came (relatively) easily must by definition be less valuable, so I wandered in the corporate wilderness, becoming increasingly frustrated and doing work that felt increasingly lousy.
Sometimes with age comes wisdom, and I’ve realized finding something (relatively) easy ain’t a bad thing. So, this is a space where I’m resurrecting writing for myself, on topics weird and wild and wonderful.
Posts will appear when the mood takes me, but I do try to be consistently inconsistent—sometimes it’ll be a couple of days between drinks; sometimes a week. But if you subscribe, you’ll get a email letting you know I’m ranting. Again.