News is bad for you – and giving up reading it will make you happier

[PaulinVA]

Not the bull-in-a-china-shop Trump or Truman type.

My 23-year-old daughter says that we’d really be in trouble if Trump were a smart criminal mastermind. I tend to agree.

And, yes, FDR tried to pack the Supreme Court and others have tried to do bad things. But, they’ve all backed down when confronted.

 

[EmilyAlexandra]

You’re free to disagree, but the Guardian has shown itself biased against Catholicism and against Christianity in general, so there’s a good basis for Catholics to dislike it.

Of course, The Guardian is not the place to go to for 100% unbiased news and comment. That is what the BBC is for. The Guardian is unashamedly liberal and left-wing and therefore it will sometimes disagree with the positions of relatively conservative religious people such as most Catholics. However, I don’t think it is fair to say that it is actually biased against Christianity in general or Catholicism in particular. It is more that it will disagree with some positions held by people of faith.

As you may know, The Guardian for a long time carried a regular column by an Anglican priest, the Revd Canon Giles Fraser. They would hardly have a weekly column written by a priest if they were biased against Christianity.

Loose canon | The Guardian

<p>Having resigned from St Paul's Cathedral, Giles Fraser has taken up a job as an inner-city parish priest in Elephant and Castle, south London</p>

www.theguardian.com

Regular contributor Adrian Chiles is a high-profile convert to Catholicism:

Adrian Chiles | The Guardian

<p>Adrian Chiles is a broadcaster and writer. His book <a href="https://www.guardianbookshop.com/the-good-drinker-9781788163590?utm_source=editoriallink&utm_medium=merch&utm_campaign=article">The Good Drinker</a> is published by Profile </p>

www.theguardian.com

This was a nice, positive story about people in the UK of various faiths, including Catholicism, during the pandemic:

Keeping the faith: religion in the UK amid coronavirus

Guardian photographer David Levene has spent several weeks covering the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on faith practice in the UK

www.theguardian.com

Plus, even apart from that I think it’s an average media outlet at best.

In terms of UK print media, The Guardian is, these days, about the best that we have. Broadcast media (specifically the BBC and Sky) are overall probably better.

My UK friends also don’t have much use for the Guardian.

Is that because they are Christians/Catholics, or just because they are not particularly left-wing or liberal? If they vote Conservative or support Brexit, the chances are that they won’t find much to like in The Guardian.

 

[meltzerboy2]

I don’t think it has to be an all-or-none situation. I like to be well informed about what’s going on in the world, but I also like to lead my own life without fear and anxiety by not obsessing about each and every new twist and turn.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Is that because they are Christians/Catholics, or just because they are not particularly left-wing or liberal? If they vote Conservative or support Brexit, the chances are that they won’t find much to like in The Guardian .

My UK friends are all atheists or agnostics, hate Trump, are against Brexit, and one’s a Communist.

I would modify my statement to say that one of them is okay with mainstream news sources such as Guardian, but that person is not a native UK dweller, lived most of their life in USA, and only moved there maybe 10 years ago. Compared to US sources, the UK ones are generally better than many or most, but still not great.

I like the BBC coverage of US news. Don’t like it so much for the UK news.