The art of watching bad news...or not

The cascade of bad news, human-generated and otherwise, has been pretty overwhelming lately. The two main Dylan songs going through my head lately are "Everything is Broken" and "World Gone Wrong."

Today I ran across some useful information that might help in dealing with bad news in the media. For one thing, being glued to the set while ill **** is going down can cause serious and acute stress. One study conducted in the wake of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing found that the stress reactions of news junkies glued to the TV were as bad or worse than those of people actually much closer to the real event.

A good guide to dealing with breaking bad news can be found in the On The Media blog's resource, The Breaking News Consumer's Handbook, which starts with the reminder that early news reports are likely to get things wrong. Among other points is a warning to be skeptical of anonymous sources and hoaxes. There's also good advice about not uncritically retweeting or otherwise posting information that may be unreliable.

Finally, here are some suggestions from the American Friends Service Committee's Media Uncovered project.. Here's one suggestion: "Turn off the TV, put down your phone, and do something else."  The bad news will still be there. But rather than being glued to the set (or phone) it might be good to take some time to reflect, to spend time with those you care about, consider taking positive action, and send your best to those suffering from the crisis at hand.