Looking for low-bandwidth news?

I'm not talking about your internet connection

In the last few days, two friends sent me the same TikTok video:

@babiesofsteeleCOOL COOL COOL

Tiktok failed to load.

Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser

The creator, Meredith Steele, says she was reading the news online and saw a link: “It said, ‘If you have low bandwidth, click here for simple news.’” But she didn’t get what she was hoping for: “It was like no graphics, no ads, no photos, just like the words of the news. I thought the news was interested in my emotional health and was like, ‘oh, hey, baby girl, I know your bandwidth is pretty low.’ Maybe there’s some cat photos in here or something.”¹

I think Steele is on to something — news organizations might serve their audiences better (and perhaps even grow their audiences) by finding less-intense ways to distribute their journalism. The news can feel like a never-ending barrage of death and destruction, something that deeply affected me when I was still working as a TV news producer.

I think anyone’s mental well-being would benefit from a more intentional, measured approach to consuming the news.² Until I convince some newsroom to let me create a the type of “low-bandwidth news” that Steele was looking for, we will all have to make it ourselves.

Here are my suggestions on how:

Embrace news round-ups: I read The Seven from the Washington Post every morning. The writers curate a well-rounded set of stories that will keep you informed about major national and international news. They often cover climate change and the economy, and there’s usually a fun or surprising story to wrap up the selection. Many news organizations offer something similar: NPR has the Up First podcast, and Axios has both morning and afternoon newsletters.

Turn off news alerts: I have found that a poorly-timed news alert can upend my relaxing evening or morning routine. You will still learn about significant news without news alerts (especially if you follow my previous suggestion). Nieman Lab published this great article over the summer, listing out the ways that people learned about President Joe Biden’s decision to not run for re-election. News got to people through text messages, overheard conversations, and baseball game announcers.

Act like you’re in the 1980s: News organizations function in a 24-hour news environment, but you don’t have to. Recreate the world of the morning newspaper and the evening newscast for yourself by picking two or three times a day to check the headlines. Watch or read for a while at those set times and then stop.

A few years ago, I had a conversation with my therapist about how the news felt inescapable. I was still working as a producer, and there was an expectation that we came into work informed. My therapist’s suggestion that I give myself some time away from the news felt both selfish and irresponsible. He asked me to try taking a break for one day and then see how long it took me to catch up on what I missed. Spoiler alert: I was fine, and I could often catch up on the news that I needed to know in about half an hour. So, if these suggestions feel like too much, I would ask you to try a news break — even if it is only for a few hours.

How do you manage the constant onslaught of news?

What that original link was actually about

Here’s a little background on low-bandwidth news websites, like the one that Steele came across:

Minimal or text-only sites are a great way to keep people informed, especially in emergencies. As Poynter explained in 2017, scaled-down websites are incredibly important in natural disasters, when internet access and cell service might be difficult to find. They’re also helpful for visually-impaired people who use screen readers to access information.

Finally tonight…

It’s a new semester, and you might be hearing from me a little more! One of my classes is about opinion journalism, taught by journalist and long-time media blogger Dan Kennedy. Part of the class is publishing regularly to our own newsletters or blogs. I’m hoping this class will help me move away from relying on inspiration to create this newsletter and bring in a little more consistency. If you want to see what consistency actually looks like, check out Media Nation by Dan Kennedy.³

1. We’ll come back to what the low-bandwidth news actually was.

2. Yes, journalists, this does include you.

3. We are not required to link to Professor Kennedy’s page, and I’m hoping that he doesn’t make me delete this link when he give me revisions on this post.