"All free men fight, all fighting men are free" - A look at the news industry and politics

This post was written in response to @getonthetrain 's excellent post on watching the news, you'll want to read that blog first:
Why You Need To Stop Consuming The News

Everything that he says about the news industry itself is true. and I'll add another point:
The news is propaganda, to the point that sometimes what is "published" is a flat out lie. I think we are all used to news sources omitting details or editing comments to fit within a certain narrative, but over the last 12 years, we have seen the news industry actually editing video and audio tape and inventing facts on an increasing level.

And here is where I will disagree with you.

”Why do you NEED to know about it?”

The old Germanic tribes had a saying..."All free men fight, all fighting men are free". In our system, political power is still determined by the vote IF the level of voting is strong enough to overcome the corruption.

Voting for one politician or another, or even not voting at all, is a power choice which is determined by information. The news industry does provide information, even when it is lying in how it presents that information.

In my opinion, the narrative presented by the news industry is driven by an alliance of leftism and globalism, neither of which is happy with the idea of a free America. The bulk of that narrative is pushed by bad information.

Filtering out good information from bad requires critical thinking; I have a four-parter on critical thinking starting here:
Human Governance and Critical Thinking, Part 1

I will move back into agreement with @getonthetrain on this point:
The news depresses the hell out of you. For the cynical, there might be a claim that this in intentional. On my part, I think the industry is motivated by the combination of sales and ideological pursuit.

But any activity which sustains you also wear you out: hunting for food requires effort; building shelter requires effort; thinking hard to decide your own political future requires effort - the effort to overcome the negative feelings associated with listening to the news, as well.

You may forget about the politicians in an effort to avoid these negative feelings, but we know the politicians don't forget about you.