The News: A User’s Manual

A book review 

I recently read the book The News: A User’s Manual, by Alain de Botton. The book is an exercise in practical philosophy: de Botton treats the news as a serious topic worthy of investigation and shares his deliberations and conclusions.

To start with, the book is well written. The prose flows quietly and it’s easy to sit down in the couch and devour page after page. The argument is not heavy and the reading feels more like reading a novel than it does a philosophical essay. More like Rousseau, less like Kant.

Alain de Botton looks at some of the biases that we often ascribe to the media. He emphasizes the disproportionate amount of coverage given to one-time spectacular events—often grim or violent events. What is normal is not considered interesting and so it is not covered. Taken from the book, here is a headline you’ll never see:

Man abandons rash plan to kill his wife after brief pause.

Normality has little place in the news. So reality can seem strange if you look at it through the distorting lens of the news. De Botton goes on to conclude that the news should not only show us the abnormal and dark side of reality, but also help us in facing it:

There is a task for the news here: not only to remind us daily of society’s worst failings, but also — sometimes — to train and direct its capacities for pride, resilience and hope. National decline can be precipitated not only or principally by sentimental optimism, but also by a version of media-induced clinical depression.

De Botton also discusses the boredom that can come from reading “serious” news. And on this, I think he is spot on. A lot of serious news is in fact boring. Numbers and facts and a lack of narrative will tend to get boring after a while, no matter how interested the reader is.

To this predicament, de Botton recommends two things. First, journalists should not be afraid to romanticize their story. There is a way to narrate something true in an interesting way. This is a major turn from dry objective reporting but he deems it necessary. Second, journalists have to place their story in a broader context. The fall of a dictator in Africa will mean little to us if we don’t know anything about the country where the event took place. Thus, news outlets should come back to the same themes over and over again (even if it means covering normal everyday life) so that when something does happen, we already have a bit of context to recall. And of course each story should carry some of the context within itself: How did the dictator fall? Why now? What can be expected in the coming days and weeks? Random events picked out and thrown onto the front page are boring: we cannot relate them to anything we already know and we cannot easily empathize with victims we know nothing about.

Throughout the book, de Botton looks at different types of news and asks himself “What should be the role of this type of news?” and “What would the news look like if it did try to live up to that role?”

For political news, he recommends that the news should build a rounded version of reality, without over-emphasizing the negatives. Political news should discuss the entire national situation, not just the bribery convictions. Scandals are attention-grabbing, but they might not be the bottleneck of our political lives.

For world news, he recommends taking a leaf out of travel writing and offering a view of the world that helps us empathize with strangers.

For economic news, he recommends decreasing the focus on “investor news”, and discussing business and corporations in full, including life stories from employees.

For celebrity news, he recommends that the news emphasize what we can learn from famous people. The news should not offer us fame as the ultimate goal. In fact, the news should remind us that a desire for fame is not the healthiest thing.

For consumer news, he recommends that we focus on true happiness and satisfaction, instead of focusing on comparing the features of the brand new models. The consumer news section should never hint at the idea that spending money is enough to make you happy.

In this way and many others, de Botton believes that the news should play a more therapeutic role in our lives. It should help us empathize, it should help us forming a complete and rounded image of reality, and it should calm our consumerist and paparazzi instincts.

Some parts of De Botton’s arguments might sound trivial. Perhaps they are. In fact, in conversations with friends, I have found it hard to explain the arguments of the book without sounding tart. I suspect the beautiful prose of the book sometimes serves as decoration on top of trivial assertions. Still, the arguments are interesting and worth considering.

What would this review look like if I were to heed the advice of the book?

I should make sure that the book is worthy of attention before discussing it. So far so good: I believe it is.

Also, I should probably place the book in a broader context. The rest of this review is my attempt at doing that.

This is an important book. It is an experiment in practical philosophy. De Botton chose a topic that is contemporary and easy to relate to. And he is using the tools and habits of philosophy to dig deeper. We need more of that kind of philosophy. Should you truly agree with even a partial version of the argument laid out in the book, you will have to change your behavior. You might choose to read less news, or less news about situations you cannot change. Or you might choose to read more weekly news, and less daily news. You might refuse to consider breaking news as essential. You might switch to other news outlets that fit more nicely with the therapeutic role of the news.

I believe the overall topic of the book is vital. News consumption is occupying a lot of our time and we should try to figure out the ways in which the news shapes us.

De Botton’s angle is somewhat new. It contains echoes of Neil Postman or Marshall McLuhan but de Botton discusses the news media in particular, not so much television or advertisement. He also includes the internet and social media in his analysis, which is new.

Finally, the philosophizing of the book is accompanied by a practical experiment. Should you be curious what the news that de Botton has in mind looks like, you should turn to The Philosophers’ Mail, a news outlet made to embrace the arguments of the book. But don’t try and access that site on the weekend or you will be told off. An automated message will tell you: “too much news is bad for you”.

In fact, this is how De Botton concludes the book:

A flourishing life requires a capacity to recognize the times when the news no longer has anything original or important to teach us; periods when we should refuse imaginative connection with strangers, when we must leave the business of governing, triumphing, failing, creating or killing to others, in the knowledge that we have our own objectives to honour in the brief time still allotted to us.

We could all use a little help becoming better consumers of news. This book is a step in the right direction.