Switching to In-Depth News

A little over two weeks ago, I embarked on an experiment to change the way I consume news. As most of you know, I retired from the military a little over a year ago. I was used to receiving and consuming a lot of information in various forms, and as the news junkie that I am, I was pretty happy.

Now, I have a huge vacuum, and I was trying to fill it by watching the news and reading highlights in the Associated Press and other internet news media platforms. But I just got tired of listening to and reading the same stuff every day, so I decided to change that.

I know that a lot of people don’t read the news and are happy to consume whatever is available on Facebook, Twitter/X, or are glued to their televisions or phones watching Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, or Newsmax as they bombard their audience with the same stories all day long, catering to the Left or Right side of the political spectrum. I’m really tired of all that. I’m not really sure when this switch from good investigative reporting to rating-based reporting happened, but it’s definitely not helping anybody. To me, it’s just brainwashing, and we need to push back on that. I know that there are other countries that are worse than us in the information domain, where media is controlled by the government and weekly 3+ hour speeches from their Presidents on those controlled media are the norm, but we are a democratic country, and we should demand better from our news outlets.

I don’t know how we can change that, but I decided to stop watching the news and focus instead on reading in-depth analyses of things happening around the world. For my experiment, I decided to go, for now, with The Economist, a weekly newspaper in a magazine format. I’m not going to talk about this newspaper because I don’t want to sell you the product. As a matter of fact, I was also looking into Foreign Affairs Magazine, but it’s published every two months, and I really needed something published on a weekly basis, so I went with The Economist.

In the military, I learned an analytical process called PMESII-PT, which stands for Political, Military, Economic, Social, Information, Infrastructure, Physical environment, and Time. Of course, I’m not in the military anymore, but I look at events through this process. The current U.S. news media do not fill my PMESII-PT itch because all I was hearing and reading about was President Biden’s age, what former President Trump said in a rally, what Vice President Harris said 20 years ago, about mass shootings, inflation, blah, blah, blah. Don’t get me wrong, those discussions are necessary, but all day, every day? I don’t think so.

So here is how I’m conducting my experiment. The Economist has about 73 pages, and I’m reading about 15-20 minutes in the morning while eating breakfast and drinking my coffee. Those 73 pages align perfectly with a 7-day week, so I’m done reading it by the time I receive the next edition. But, of course, I don’t want to miss any breaking news, so I set up alerts on the Associated Press and local news mobile apps to receive them.

This new process is working perfectly so far. Here are a few things that I’ve learned since I started reading this newspaper:

  • A lot of good in-depth analysis on the upcoming U.S. election, the Israel-Palestine conflict, and the Russia-Ukraine war. There’s too much to cover here, so I’m not going to bore you.
  • Venezuela: A lot of good background information about opposition leader María Corina Machado, how the Venezuelan government disqualified her from running for office for 15 years, and the opposition’s decision to go with Edmundo González, a 74-year-old former ambassador.
  • How el Mercado Común del Sur (MERCOSUR) or Southern Common Market, a trade bloc consisting of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay, is being used as a political tool instead of an economic one as intended.
  • How India is trying to keep good relations with the West, Russia, and China in what’s called “a multi-aligned foreign policy.”
  • How social media is changing the political environment in Japan. Apparently, during the elections for Governor of Tokyo, Ishimary Shinji, a 41-year-old politician, received 42% of the votes from people aged 18-29 compared with the 27% received by winner and incumbent governor Koike Yuriko, who is 72 and has been governor since 2016.
  • How PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) test scores are in decline in several countries, including Australia, Canada, France, Finland, Germany, Netherlands, and New Zealand. This is apparently due to a combination of smartphone use, school teaching standards, and overall lack of good policy. The problems in the United States are similar to those in other countries.
  • Good background on the newly elected President of Iran, Massoud Pezeshkian.
  • How RuWiki is trying to replace Wikipedia in Russia.
  • A discovery of a polymer that turns blood into a gel, which could pave the way to leak-free periods.
  • How financial markets are adapting to global threats and staying resilient.
  • A beautiful quote from a Post-doctoral fellow in response to an article about Artificial Intelligence being used for scientific peer reviews. Here is the quote: “In science, writing and thinking are intimately connected. The writing process provides the creative space for new ideas and interpretations to emerge, change shape and in some cases die. Only by putting pen to paper can scientists fully flesh out arguments, detect logical errors, and discover new lines of research. Antoine Lavoisier, an 18th-century French chemist, wrote that ‘We think only through the medium of words. Languages are true analytical methods.’”
  • How salmon farms are affecting wild salmon. When a farmed salmon escapes and breeds with wild salmon in open waters, the result is a fish that lacks the distinctive genetic inheritance that every river system requires.
  • Politics in Peru: How crime and poverty rates are increasing while some people in government are getting rich.
  • Illegal Bitcoin mining in Paraguay and how it affects their power grid and infrastructure.
  • How Romania is becoming a hub for international medical students due to the low tuition cost and quality of education.
  • How this year marked fifty years of division in Cyprus. Since 1974, Cyprus has been divided between Greek Cyprus in the south and Turkish Cyprus in the north. Apparently, the status quo will remain.
  • Apparently, England and Wales are running out of space in their prisons and need to build more or change the law to free low-level criminals after serving 40% of their sentences. According to the article, there are only 700 free places left.
  • How Africa is not able to take advantage of Artificial Intelligence due to the lack of fiber optics infrastructure and heavy reliance on cellphone signals currently operating on 2G or 3G networks. The impact is that African countries are not able to create movie animations, run sophisticated weather forecasts, train large language models with local content, among other things to improve their economy.

Regarding the breaking news alerts that I set up: Well, I didn’t receive that many, so I guess the news outlets in the U.S. are still talking about Biden, Harris, Trump, Vance, mass shootings, inflation, blah, blah, blah.

By the way, I’m watching the Olympic Games, so I’m all caught up.

51 thoughts on “Switching to In-Depth News”

  2. Every media outlet comes with a bias. This is just as true for thoughtful, long-form, in-depth reporting as for shallow, headline-driven, click-bait reporting. But with long-form reporting, the presuppositions tend to come out more clearly for the reader’s evaluation.

    The Economist is a good publication, but it tends toward a free-market, laissez-faire understanding of world events. The Guardian offers a good counter-balance with its emphasis on social and environmental responsibility. Unexpectedly, another excellent source, if you account for its bias, is the WSWS (World Socialist Web Site) — stay with me here! Their agenda is pretty obvious, but their take on world events is a very hard-nosed “realpolitik” one that can be quite instructive. Their site is worth a look at least.

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    1. Thank you for your thoughtful comment. You’re absolutely right that every media outlet has a bias—after all, we are all human and far from perfect. I always double-check the information I read when I notice a strong bias on a particular topic. I use other sources including The Guardian for that. Sometimes I read a book on a particular subject just to fully understand it. I was just tired of the 1-minute talking points cycle on TV news, which, in my humble opinion, creates confusion and contributes to brainwashing. So, I switched to reading articles to stay informed about what’s happening in the world instead.

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  4. I so agree with you and it’s tough not to take in the sounds bites. When you figure it out, give us your synopsis but I want digestible, true, easy to understand info whether it’s from you or a reliable source.. there should be one out there somwhere, I would hope. 👏

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  7. It is the same around the world (sigh) – journalism has all but disappeared and been replaced by clickbait. My husband is scathing about the change, I’m just dissapointed and see it as part of a wider cult-of-celebrity ‘brainwashing’ as you mention. I get my fill of quality reading while I’m researching (lots of blind-peer-reviewed journal articles etc) and when I resurface and open the newspaper on my laptop, I’m shocked by spelling mistakes, sensationalism, and blatant rubbish… I’ll have to follow your lead and give The Economist a try, thanks for the tip, Linda xx

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    1. Thank you, Linda. I’m glad you mentioned the “spelling mistakes, sensationalism, and blatant rubbish.” So true. I have been noticing a lot of mistakes lately, from including the wrong pictures in articles to misspelled words and incorrect information, forcing news outlets to issue updates or clarification notes. Just sad.

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  10. Thanks for this information. I appreciated learning about your analytical process PMESII-PT. We’ve been trying different news sources as well, NPR, BBC, AP, Reuters… Might have to give the Economist a try.

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  11. Bravo, Edward! Outstanding post and message. Except for PBS and BBC, I avoided TV news when I lived in the States, and also used to subscribe to The Economist and HBR. Since I moved to Portugal, though, I’ve been watching TV news here — CNN, Euronews, and the local news channels — as a language-learning tool. While this has helped my Portuguese listening comprehension, it is also mentally and emotionally exhausting. I’m going to check my Libby library app for The Economist. I love your plan. Thank you for the tip!

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    1. Thank you so much. Oh yes, TV news is an excellent language learning tool. I remember watching TV news (CNN) 26+ years ago to improve my English at the Defense Language Institute; it was their tool of choice. They were very good back then.

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  12. Great article, Edward! Mind-opening and inspiring toward positive change in life! It’s very important, especially these days, to be aware of what we are consuming through social media. News and others are often misleading and brainwashing. Beneath the mind programming software runs a “subtle” extension meant to instill fear. And fear is the most effective of controlling the masses—be it through economic, armed conflicts, or medical concerns. The more we detach from it, the more we see it clearly. And you are already seeing the benefits of being more cautious and selective. I don’t watch news or television (I don’t have one for almost 2 decades now). I am also very selective on the contents I follow in IG or FB; they are mostly spiritual and inspiring. Am I missing something? I don’t think so. I prioritize my well-being and personal growth. Thank you for shedding a light on this subject; very important indeed! *Sending lots of light and blessings, my friend* 

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  13. This is excellent, Edward. I used to love to read the old newspapers that included articles on topics such as you listed instead of the same handful of stories the gatekeepers allow all media access to. Now, I look at a number of sources. The Economist has been brought up to me a few times. I need to check that out.

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    1. Thank you, Mary. I tried the regular newspapers (NY Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today), but they didn’t work for me. Maybe it was the combination of the daily format and the not-so-in-depth reporting.

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  14. Welcome to the world of The Economist, Edward. We’ve been subscribing to it for a few decades. I mostly get my news from The Economist and online from the Guardian. They both cover American news in depth, but from a somewhat more objective perspective. Also, they cover news right around the world, every day. It’s not so much more encouraging, but it’s an important reminder that all countries are part of a much bigger world.

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    1. Absolutely! We are part of a bigger world, and reading about what’s going on across the globe is important to keep the right perspective. I should have subscribed to The Economist years ago. I guess better now than never. They definitely do a great job with their reporting. I really like the letters that people write in response to the articles. They are amazing.

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  15. Edward — I’m envious! Oh how I wish I could clone myself to be able to research that much!

    Love the PMEISII-PTT method. I’ve not been in the Military. My Ex was Army Reserve, but highly doubt that he’d ever absorb the idea of research. I too have a methodology, but not as structured and I can’t get to all of the places you’ve been reading about. The Economist and AP News are two of my go to news sources. I also signed up for Military.com newsletter just to get the millitary view point on issues.

    Any other aps you can suggest?

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    1. Google News has potential, but it probably needs to be set up to get the right kind of news reports. Also, through LinkedIn, I learned about the Institute for the Study of War. They have some great analysis there.

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    1. It’s good so far, and I’m probably going to stick with it because you can actually read an article and really connect the dots about an event and its implications, not only for the U.S. but for other democratic societies as well.

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  19. This is very important. The constant drone of news and one-sided politics can be very emotionally and mentally draining. I get tired of the in-fighting as well. I think it’s good to monitor how much consumption of that we have day in and day out.

    “I decided to stop watching the news and focus instead on reading in-depth analyses of things happening around the world” – this is very smart, and something people maybe should do more often instead of just taking in what’s being programmed out to them, and thinking outside the box

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