There are three kinds of news, just as there are three kinds of people: good, bad, and indifferent. In any profession, about 15% of people excel, 15% underperform, and 70% are mediocre. While the bad may stand out, mediocrity is harder to spot. We hope to rely on the best professionals \u2013 doctors, electricians, teachers \u2013 but that doesn’t always work out as planned.<\/p>\n
The same goes for the news. Some stories lift our spirits\u00a0 \u2013 medical breakthroughs, acts of kindness, peaceful resolutions. Other reports cover wars, disasters, and injustices. Fake news, which is often misleading and negative, also falls into this category, but thankfully, many can spot the lies. Then, there’s vague news: insufficient information that leaves us in the dark. It\u2019s not necessarily bad, but it\u2019s incomplete, leading us to believe we\u2019ve in the know\u00a0when we aren’t.<\/p>\n
Gossip is one form of vague news\u2014rumors about celebrities, politicians, or royalty, often unverifiable and irrelevant to our lives. Propaganda also fits here, telling us what to think without offering detailed or balanced information. Manuals or product\u00a0descriptions,\u00a0leaving\u00a0us just as confused after reading them, can give us that same sense of frustration. Even when dealing with institutions, we often encounter vague, unclear communication.<\/p>\n
If 70% of the news is vague, where does that leave us? How can we determine if something is true, fake, or indifferent? In this information age, we are bombarded with endless details, and it\u2019s easy to feel overwhelmed. Perhaps the answer lies in leading a life\u00a0where we’re not glued to screens, consumed by things we cannot influence. It\u2019s not wrong to care or get involved, but we shouldn\u2019t let ourselves be bogged down by information we don\u2019t truly need.<\/p>\n
Wishing you a peaceful and unburdened start to the colder months.
\nYours,
\nSusanne G. Seiler<\/p>\n
P.S. You’ll find us at the gaiamedia lounge<\/strong>, in the back yard of\u00a0Hochstrasse 70<\/a>\u00a0(behind Basel’s SBB station, tram stop Peter Merian), every Thursday afternoon from 14 – 18 h. Welcome!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" vague news There are three kinds of news, just as there are three kinds of people: good, bad, and indifferent. In any profession, about 15% of people excel, 15% underperform, and 70% are mediocre. While the bad may stand out, mediocrity is harder to spot. We hope to rely on the best professionals \u2013 doctors,Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17,5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gaiamedia.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3233"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gaiamedia.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gaiamedia.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaiamedia.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaiamedia.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3233"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaiamedia.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3236,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaiamedia.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3233\/revisions\/3236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gaiamedia.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaiamedia.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaiamedia.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}