On 18 April 1930, the BBC's news announcer had nothing to communicate. "There is no news", was the script of its news bulletin, before piano music was played for the rest of the 15-minute segment. This would be unimaginable today.
Today, the news is everywhere; we can’t stop checking it constantly on our screens, but what is it doing to our minds? The news occupies the same dominant position in modern society as religion once did, asserts Alain de Botton – but we don’t begin to understand its impact on us.
De Botton has written the ultimate manual for our news-addicted age, one sure to bring calm, understanding and a measure of sanity to our daily (perhaps even hourly) interactions with the news machine.
He raises questions like: How come disaster stories are often so uplifting? What makes the love lives of celebrities so interesting? Why do we enjoy politicians being brought down? Why are upheavals in far off lands often so ... boring? Maybe it's true that no news is good news!
The bad news is that there is no free online copy of the book, but you can always buy a beautiful hardcover version for around $15 on ebay.
