Control the Input

A guest contribution from Johannes Koch on how to get better news from your social media feeds

Photo by Markus Winkler, available for free under the Unsplash License

I am delighted to be able to hand over control of this week’s column to my friend and colleague Johannes. A talented and thoughtful journalist, he has also written a couple of great books on breaking into the industry and what non-journalists can learn from news reporters. In today’s column, he will teach us how to improve the quality of the information we see on our social media feeds - Rupert

By Johannes Koch

When reading the news online in an uncurated form, it competes with a variety of other (sometimes) more tasty snippets of entertainment and fun. News articles are wedged between baby pictures, selfies and videos of the latest and most amazing athletic feats.

In this attention-seeking world, the volumes of information that come at you from sources you haven’t selected nor approved is exorbitant. News, like many of those other morsels, is commodified to get you hooked and often isn’t really news at all. The way out of this cesspool of garbage? Control the input!

Become aware of your sources, think before you share and curate all your feeds. I won’t spend hours extolling the benefits of a clean news pallet but you’ll be calmer and won't be overloaded by unnecessary information (input fatigue, as I like to call it). 

More importantly, if you know your sources and curate the input you’re going to be less susceptible to fake news, conspiracy theories and most of all, have full control of what goes into your noggin. Here are a few ways in which you can get tactical about managing the news flow and how to control the input.

Step 1. Cut all the news that is being fed to you, especially the bite-sized news you didn’t ask for on your phone.

Your mobile will have a news feed provided to you by Google or Apple. Make sure you turn that off (here some simple instructions for Android) Why? That’s news that is being fed to you by an algorithm designed to keep you glued to the screen and most of it is, quite frankly, junk.

Generally, never go for anything that is being “suggested” to you. Trim as much of that fat as you can, which takes me to…

Step 2. Curate or eliminate your social feeds.

This is tough. I tried curating Facebook and Instagram but failed, so I’ve just turned them off completely. I’m a sucker for YouTube, so get roped into that but avoid the algorithmic suggestions and search what I want, when I want it. I’ve subscribed to channels that are in line with my interests and I’ve turned off all notifications and don’t “hit the bell” sign.

Twitter is a great resource and my go-to for news, commentary, community and banter. Think about the 100 most important people in any chosen area to start. I’m still working on putting together a curated feed which is relevant to my varying interests and regularly use Tokimeki Unfollow, to prune my Twitter feed of unwanted follows.

Step 3. Build your news ecosystem and control the frequency.

Choose legacy media, like The Guardian, or pay for something bespoke like The Economist, which is in depth, once a week and has a two-page summary of the most important global events that happened in the past week. Do you need more?

Pay for the journalism you want. It doesn’t have to be much but a little goes a long way if you have the means. Look how much you pay for Netflix or Spotify, or some other service per month. Great journalism is affordable compared to some of those expenses and delivers high-quality reporting and content.

I’ve opted to read The New York Times digitally on Sunday because I’m interested in US politics and share the account with my wife, who’s an American. It’s about $8 a quarter. Meanwhile, I access the German weekly news magazine Der Spiegel via my digital library card. That’s free and has a similar weekly rundown of major global events with a German slant, a bit like The Economist.

I’m suggesting you choose legacy media because trained journalists and editors are curating for you. Like many institutions they have stood the test of time and there is merit in that.

Beyond that, you should know your publication’s bias and commitment to serious reporting by checking it on Mediabiasfactcheck.com. The New York Times rates “high” in terms of serious reporting but also has a clear left-leaning bias. Get a serious left-leaning paper and a right-leaning rag to balance things out (no offense, it's just “rag” alliterated so nicely with “right.” They do exist though, like this one here).

If you’re relying on your Facebook feed and Google for news and sense something is off, use Snopes.com to check out its validity. You don’t necessarily need to do this with the baby pictures! I’m thinking more of outlandish-sounding statements about the long-standing Israeli/Palestine conflict, for example.

Finally, if you want to get a snapshot of news on an issue - like climate change policy in India (the more specific the better) - then set up a Google News Alert with key words and have it delivered daily (for work) once a week (for general interest) to your inbox.

By controlling the news you access, making sure you know its source and become aware of its bias, you’ll snuff out fake news because it simply won’t come your way. If it does, you’ll either skip it because you’ve controlled the input, or you’ll know where to go to check out its validity

As a news consumer, you’re the problem but also the solution. You vote with your time, your likes and your shares. If you start to control the input you’ll also control the output, ultimately culling the cheap fair and fake news from the menu. 

Are there any services you use to manage and curate your news feeds? Let me know, I’d love to hear about them. Look me up @jar_ko on Twitter.

As journalists, we are trained to parse information and sort fact from fiction. If you want to get a better understanding of how journalists operate I penned the book Behind the Scoop: Why You Should Think and Act Like a Journalist which you can pick up here. The greater the awareness about how journalism is produced, the more readers will strive for better, higher quality journalism that matters. That’s my hope, at least.

Finally, thanks to Rupert for letting me share this space on Sharpen Your Axe with him today.

Sharpen Your Axe is a project to develop a community who want to think critically about the media, conspiracy theories and current affairs without getting conned by gurus selling fringe views. Please subscribe to get this content in your inbox every week. Shares on social media are appreciated! If this is the first post you have seen, I recommend starting with the critical-thinking rabbit hole.

[Updated on 10 March 2022] Opinions expressed on Substack and Twitter are those of Rupert Cocke as an individual and do not reflect the opinions or views of the organization where he works or its subsidiaries.