Entertainment Instead of News

There’s really no good reason to get your news from TV; doing so is more likely to turn you into a macadamized spectator than it is to equip you to be a healthy participant in the public sphere. Even TED talks are just highbrow forms of intellectual candy—macarons, say, to broadcast TV’s tootsie rolls.

These media privilege entertainment rather than contemplation. Isn’t there a place for amusement and relaxation, you might ask? Sure, but so much of what people do under the rubric of unwinding or self-care doesn’t actually re-create or restore; it scratches the itch of our restless…