I don't think "keeping up with the news" is really the problem. The problem is that "the news" is primarily about entertainment, not information, and so it isn'

I don't think "keeping up with the news" is really the problem. The problem is that "the news" is primarily about entertainment, not information, and so it isn't actionable. If you care about being informed about actionable information, then your good sources of information are RSS, long-form articles, books, etc.