The Guardian | Why more and more people are tuning the news out: ‘Now I don’t have that anxiety’
The MJC's Ben Toff speaks to The Guardian about his research into news avoidance.
The MJC's Ben Toff speaks to The Guardian about his research into news avoidance. There's a big difference, he says, between regularly withdrawing from the news and putting boundaries around one's news consumption. “We live in a world in which you can access news 24/7 and be inundated with information at all times. But that doesn’t mean you should,” he told reporter Josie Harvey. But, he added: “The more you disengage, disconnect from the news, the harder it becomes to try to make sense of what’s happening on any given story."
Associate Professor Benjamin Toff is the Director of the Minnesota Journalism Center (MJC), where he leads research focused on understanding changes in the local news ecosystem as well as applied projects partnering with local news outlets to test the effectiveness of strategies designed to rebuild relationships with the public.