> No you don't need to read 10+ hours of news about the same story unless there's new information and it has an effect on you. I didn't make that point so I'm not sure what you're getting at.
The NSA story keeps coming back around as new information is revealed. The initial revelation was in May of this year and information is still tricking out. Following the news means taking in at least this much information on the NSA scandal.
> There's plenty people can do: develop a means to protect ourselves from the governments spying, activism, find out who was responsible at the top and try and get them removed.
The only means we have to protect ourselves is encryption (where possible) and keeping things offline. Ok - done (after the initial revelations, as noted). As a non-american I have no influence on the American political process so the other two are out.
> There's also reason to educate yourself about the world and culture without having to directly apply it. But that's another philosophical argument.
I agree completely, but news isn't education. Most of the information in daily news has a very short shelf-life (e.g. current events) so it's not even an accurate representation of the world after a few months. Science reporting in news media is notably terrible - big headlines around single studies and results that turn out to not amount to much later. This is in-fact the opposite of education, it's information pollution because you're learning things that turn out not to be true.
I have not consumed 10+ hours of information about the NSA revelations and I feel I have a solid understanding of the situation.
When we read something like the NSA reports, we don't just think of what we can do right now to protect ourselves, but about how we change policies for the future. We look into what we need to develop. We look at how to protect ourselves without sacrificing privacy.
News is education. If you consume news about Kim & Kanye I would agree with you and call it information pollution. Good journalism is educating us. There's plenty of good journalism out there. Whether we want to read it and support it is another thing.
The NSA story keeps coming back around as new information is revealed. The initial revelation was in May of this year and information is still tricking out. Following the news means taking in at least this much information on the NSA scandal.
> There's plenty people can do: develop a means to protect ourselves from the governments spying, activism, find out who was responsible at the top and try and get them removed.
The only means we have to protect ourselves is encryption (where possible) and keeping things offline. Ok - done (after the initial revelations, as noted). As a non-american I have no influence on the American political process so the other two are out.
> There's also reason to educate yourself about the world and culture without having to directly apply it. But that's another philosophical argument.
I agree completely, but news isn't education. Most of the information in daily news has a very short shelf-life (e.g. current events) so it's not even an accurate representation of the world after a few months. Science reporting in news media is notably terrible - big headlines around single studies and results that turn out to not amount to much later. This is in-fact the opposite of education, it's information pollution because you're learning things that turn out not to be true.