As it all too often does, my day started with Twitter.
Scrolling through my Twitter timeline is not the best way to kick off the morning. I know this. But it is a great way to stall for ten minutes while I fantasize about cancelling everything on my schedule and never leaving my warm, comfortable bed.
For a long time, I used Twitter, in part, as a news aggregator. In 2020, for my own sanity, I’ve decided to try and separate the fun that can be had on social media from the anger and frustration often brought on by the news. As an experiment, I unfollowed or muted dozens of accounts a few weeks ago. While I still see some news or commentary on current events, my timeline is now mostly full of silly comments from friends, sports/entertainment content, great dogs, and a whole lot of Baby Yoda. It is bliss.
This is OJ. After safely evacuating, him and his family returned to their home in Wairewa, Australia yesterday to find it entirely destroyed by the fires. But amongst the rubble, OJ found his favorite toy had survived. 14/10 never letting it go again pic.twitter.com/gx3d0P5349
— WeRateDogs (@dog_rates) January 15, 2020
When I’m ready to know what’s going on in the world, I visit news sites directly. Over breakfast, I caught up on the previous day’s impeachment news and read brief profiles of the impeachment managers from NPR. I also enjoyed their list (and playlist) of 41 women who should be in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. From Wired, I learned that feral cats are making things worse in Australia. Linked in that article was an interesting video from CBS News about attempts to save endangered wallabies by airdropping food. I finished with a few stories about the Astros’ cheating scandal from The Athletic.
I didn’t interact with media again until lunchtime when I ate a salad with a side of Bon Appétit’s YouTube channel. I also checked Twitter again later in the afternoon.
Once I was free to unwind for the evening, I read a few more articles about impeachment, one about the potential illegality of withholding aid to Ukraine, and one explaining how we need to fix our recycling programs all from the New York Times. I also watched two episodes of Dollface on Hulu and listened to Apple Music.
My day ended like it started–with Twitter. I went to bed laughing at this attempt to explain the day’s baseball news via a clip from Mean Girls.
Of the news media I used, I consider NPR the most trustworthy. I am a longtime reader/listener who finds their content credible and informative. On a scale of 1 (least trusted) to 10 (most trusted), I give NPR a 10. Next up, both the New York Times and CBS News are a 9. These outlets have strong track records, though the Times has made some choices recently that I find frustrating. I give Wired and The Athletic an 8. Both do good work, but I only started subscribing within the past year and thus haven’t reached the same level of trust I have in other outlets. Lastly, I’d rank Twitter a 5. While there are plenty of credible people and organizations that share content on Twitter, there is also a lot of bad information to wade through.
