How Matt Taibbi reads (or rather, doesn’t read) the news

Someone wrote to gonzo journalist Matt Taibbi about how he stays sane in a sea of crazy news. Here is how he responded:

See, what I’ve done, and you all can try this yourselves, is to simply avoid reading the news as much as possible. I read old books and the only periodicals I even look at lately are NFL draft guides. I’ve read Nolan Nawrocki’s draft booklet like 400 times already. To me he’s the greatest novelist since Waugh. That does wonders for my general sanity, but then I’ll have something happen like last Friday, when I went into 30 Rock to do a hit on Cenk Uygur’s show and saw him talking about a poll that had Donald Trump leading the field of prospective Republican candidates. Donald Trump has 26% of the Republican vote right now? What the fuck?

If it weren’t for the fact that my job requires me to be on top of world events, I’d be very tempted to follow his lead.

7 thoughts on “How Matt Taibbi reads (or rather, doesn’t read) the news”

  1. It is a good prescription. I read the news in NE Asian online newspapers because it is something I must do for my job, and I read the opinion pages, but I’m never much interested in any local or other media stories. I figure if it’s important somebody will be talking about it at lunch.

  2. “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing”

    It may seem hackneyed but it is still true.

  3. Man I am so afraid of Donald Trump being our next President. Whenever I bring this up with friends, they just laugh, because even Fox News doesn’t give him any credibility as a candidate. But do you know how many Americans write letters to Donald Trump (or Bill Gates, or Warren Buffet) asking for advice on keeping up their mortgage payments? As if they have a personal relationship with the man? Worse yet, do you know how many Americans leave comments on news articles about Donald Trump as if he has written the article and will personally respond to their comments? It is really very sad. There’s a lot of ignorance floating around out there, people who just have no idea how the world or the internet works, how many layers there are between themselves and someone like Trump.

  4. On that point, when you have your Trumps, Palins, Huckabees running for president and people actually considering them as an option, you know that the whole thing is winding down.

    In a sane universe, such people just could not be within the scope of consideration to lead a country.

    Myself, I am a sucker for the latest headlines on guardian, zero hedge, counterpunch and alternet (anything non-murdoch and non-zionist conspiracy oriented) but I could guess the news and write the headlines mysefl – I am sure most people could – the rich and the strong continue to subjugate the poor and rig the system to suit their needs, using force to ensure that events go in the direction that they want to

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