Bad News Fatigue
On getting burned out on scandals
Patrick Miller recently opened a can of Twitter worms (birds?) by criticizing the top 20 most read articles at Christianity Today in 2022. Which got me thinking about the way modern readers of news and commentary can so easily get fatigued by bad news or negative opinions, and that fatigue can then turn into distrust or animosity towards publishers, journalists, and commentators.
I’m not saying that Miller’s argument is driven by fatigue. I can’t know that. And I’m not interested in wading into Miller’s can of Twitter birds. But I do think that readers in general struggle to separate a reasoned critique of news coverage from an emotionally taxed annoyance that we’re still reading these same stories.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to You Are Not Your Own Substack to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.