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1/(Thread) This is one of the biggest moments in my life: we just launched the membership campaign for The Correspondent (thecorrespondent.com/?ref=a209c285), a movement for unbreaking news. News is a health hazard, and it’s time to break the habit. In this thread I'll try to explain why: 
2/So, imagine for a second you’re locked in a room. All alone. No people to talk to, no windows to look out of. The only thing you hear about the outside world is: the news. Then, after 10 years, the door opens and you can go outside. Would you?
3/Most likely: no. Because consuming nothing but news ruined your world view. It destroyed your faith in humanity, it sold you vile prejudices, it made you fear the most negligible dangers, it robbed you of all hope for a better world.
4/Because: news is an endless string of sensational, depressing, divisive events. And research shows: it will leave you cynical, mistrustful, stressed, prejudiced, and most of all, misinformed.
5/News is to the mind what fast food is to the body. It briefly satisfies your appetite for spectacle and diversion, but ultimately leaves you unsatisfied and uninformed. Because it’s mostly empty calories too.
6/Think about it: name one news item you consumed over the past year–out of boredom, habit, or a sense of civic duty–that actually gave you a new, valuable insight into how the world works. Hard to name even *one*, isn’t it?
7/And yet we’re massively addicted to news, as individuals and as a society. Just like we are to fast food. That hypothetical room this essay began with? It isn’t entirely fictional. Our societies have become news bubbles and we’re all trapped inside.
8/The average adult spends almost *an hour* every day consuming news. That’s nearly *three full years* out of a human lifetime. And it isn’t time well spent.
9/Because the news is constantly reinforcing all kinds of myths. Not because the news is “fake” or because the media are waging “a conspiracy” to mislead us. No, it misleads us in way more subtle and complex ways.
10/Because news pays more attention to the sensational, exceptional, negative, recent, and incidental, we’re losing sight of the ordinary, usual, positive, historical, and systematic.
11/News is about what happens today, but rarely about what happens *every day*. So actually, and ironically, the news tells you how the world *doesn’t* work.
12/Luckily, the news doesn’t need to be this way. Together, we can change what news is about, how it’s made, and how we pay for it. Together, we can *unbreak the news*.
13/Today, I’m asking you to join The Correspondent, our movement for unbreaking news, based on 10 founding principles: thecorrespondent.com/principles. Amongst them: shift the focus from the sensational to the foundational.
14/By becoming a member, you’ll get a year of in-depth stories delivered right to your inbox — stories that help you understand how the world works, and what we can do to solve the problems our societies face all over the world.
15/To be as inclusive as possible, you can choose your membership fee yourself. Because we believe in the power of solidarity: if some pay a little more, others can join for a little less.
16/As founding members, you’ll be in great company: The Correspondent is already supported by amazing people like @NateSilver538, @RosanneCash, @JuddApatow, @CaricevHouten, @deray, @baratunde, @CameronCRussell and many, many more.
17/And there’s not much to lose either: if we hit our funding goal of $2.5M, you’ll get insightful journalism in return; if we don’t, we’ll refund your money in full.
18/Together, we can unbreak the news. I’m in. Are you? You can join here: thecorrespondent.com/?ref=a209c285
19/And you can read my full essay ‘What fast food is to the body, news is to the mind. Time to break that habit’ here: medium.com/de-corresponde… Let me know what you think! 🙏
