"Not only is watching news going to put an out of proportion amount of negative thoughts in your mind, which will affect what you can achieve, it is also valuab

"Not only is watching news going to put an out of proportion amount of negative thoughts in your mind, which will affect what you can achieve, it is also valuable time where there are many amazing and meaningful things you could be doing" Well let's add to this then. What about time wasted sitting in synagogue or church saying the same prayers over and over again? To me that's even a bigger waste of time. What if people got together and actually learned something during that time (if together) or on their own. To me at least the sermons were always interesting (ymmv of course) but they were mainly filed under "entertainment" value. That said there is a value to main stream news depending on what your business or product is. It is important to have the beat on what others are watching and thinking to me it does have value. Some people say "who cares what the WSJ or NYT thinks"? But the truth is others care and carry that info out to people and it's a good idea to know what others are going to believe and think. That doesn't mean that you have to watch mainstream everyday, but I wouldn't go as far as saying the right approach is to stop watching TV totally as Joel says he has done. Or reading mainstream news.