One can be wrong about events that you witness yourself. We witness things through physical limitations and the biased lens of our own minds.
IMO the correct response is not to reject the source but to give it less weight, add other sources and realise you'll only ever get an approximation of the truth at best.
> One can be wrong about events that you witness yourself.
So true. Back in the 1950s, a fighter plane off an aircraft carrier had its wings fall off and fall into the ocean. That model of aircraft had had a couple incidents before where the wings came off. Numerous experienced and educated witnesses were interviewed, including the captain of the carrier, who all said the wings fell off.
Except for one lowly seaman on the deck, who said the aircraft was intact when it hit the water.
The airplane was eventually retrieved from the sea floor, and it was proven the wings were on it when it hit the water.
The other experienced officers all (quite sincerely) observed what they expected to see.
I'll believe forensic evidence every time before I believe eyewitness accounts.
I've gone for months and years long periods of avoiding the news, including sites like this, and live has always been qualitatively better during those periods.
I'm not convinced I understand what purpose being informed of global politics or local dramas serves, other than maybe having something to talk about with friends and colleagues.
Serious question: What do you picture the long-term extrapolation of ignoring events around you looks like? Are you so independent of other people's actions that you can't imagine any events that would impact you in a way that you'd want to try to have a voice in, or at least be informed about? Isn't that how people end up in dead end jobs where 15 years later the industry has moved on and they no longer have skills companies are looking for?
There is a difference between following the news and being informed about events around you. That difference is in the specificity of the information you receive.
Most news coverage is relevant to someone, but utterly irrelevant for the majority. As a non-US citizen, the US presidential election can be summarized by who won and what changes they intend to make. I don't need 24-hour coverage of he-said/she-said style reporting.
On the other hand, it can be useful to subscribe to some industry-specific news source to be aware of general trends. But then you're not following the news in general, but just the tiny sliver that actually affects you, which makes it much easier (not less) to stay informed.
Most general news articles are actually much more useful once they are archived (and no longer news), since then you can just seek them out when their topic has become relevant to you, and it lets you make actual use of the constant recaps the news cycle tends to include for context.
> What do you picture the long-term extrapolation of ignoring events around you looks like?
You are basically asking what it would be like to live like most of Humanity before the advent of mass media. Did not seem they had far worse problems than we do or that they were incapable to adapt. I'd return the question to you, how was mass media improved your life in any meaningful way and can you prove it was not just noise?
To answer that I'll need to pick a media cut off point. Let's say before the printing press? Seems like a good place to start, although of course unwritten news traveled before. This might not be what you had in mind as "mass media" but I think it's a more useful cutoff point for modernity.
The printing press, like writing before it and phone/telegram/TV/internet after it, was a fairly transformational technology, but it's hard for me to imagine living without large-scale reliable distribution of knowledge. The concept of history as an accessible field of study for the average person is a pretty big one.
The ideas that led to modern democracy spread through a network that utilized the printing press and discussed the nature of existing society quite a bit. The general view of the vast majority of the pre-modernity era is summed up with well-known cliches like "dark ages" or "nasty, brutish, and short." There's some dispute about what the true "happiness" level was in early societies, but it's interesting to note that very few anti-technological movements achieved much of note, speaking to the definite appeal of technology.
My own personal talents never would've had a chance to flourish in a hunter/gatherer, agrarian, or feudal type society. So no thanks from me. I'm glad every day I was born where/when I was. Maybe a hundred years later would've been an interesting gamble if I could choose, but now's good. :)
Distribution of knowledge is not equal to distribution of lies and propaganda. I think that fear of missing "important" information from media is highly overrated. Besides, it's very hard to avoid this unless you live in the woods.
I don't read news and don't watch TV for at least 3-4 years and I became much happier person because of this decision.
Printing press availability and mass media are two distinct events in History. I'd say mass media pretty much started in the 20th century with Radio and TV. Paper was not something that everyone purchased before for news. TV/Radio made information pretty much free in that regard.
IMO the correct response is not to reject the source but to give it less weight, add other sources and realise you'll only ever get an approximation of the truth at best.