Broken and distrusting: Americans are pulling away from the news

The Reuters Institute revealed last month that 42% of Americans actively avoid the news at least some of the time because it grinds them down or they just don’t believe it. Fifteen percent said they disconnected from news coverage altogether. In other countries, such as the UK and Brazil, the numbers selectively avoiding it were even higher.

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“In the United States, those who self-identify on the right are far more likely to avoid news because they think it is untrustworthy or biased, but those on the left are more likely to feel overwhelmed, carry feelings of powerlessness, or worry that the news might create arguments,” the institute said.

The Reuters Institute said that alongside the rising number of people avoiding news is a drop in trust in reporting in the US to the lowest point yet recorded at just 26% of the population.

All of this rang true to Amanda Ripley, a former Time journalist and author of High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped – and How We Get Out. She confessed in a Washington Post column that she was embarrassed as a reporter to admit that she has “been actively avoiding the news for years”. Ripley said it left her “so drained that I couldn’t write”.

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