This is a posting that makes me think ignorance is more than bliss. It might make sense in some cases. But let’s look at why so many folks ignore the news and the news media. I also offer a great tool to make news gathering easier and more enjoyable.

 

Michael is one of my business referral sources. He’s a salesperson who deals with major companies around the world. You would think he’d be up on all the news that’s happening. But he floored me when we had coffee the other day.

 

“I stopped reading and watching the news,” he told me. Before I could respond he added, “And my business has gone through the roof.”

 

He told me that he removed everything negative from his thinking and concentrated on the positive. As a result, his clients are buying. I don’t doubt Michael. He’s good at what he does and he’s honest. So, there’s no skullduggery here.

 

I understand his thinking. Plus, it’s hard to argue with his success. And, in part, I agree with him. The news is depressing and, worse, the facts are wrong. Take our financial crisis. Who do you believe?

 

Certainly not our government. Treasury and The Fed can’t get it right. First, we won’t bail out major Wall Street firms; now as I write this the breaking news says the bailout of firms holding bad mortgages will be close to $700 billion.

 

You can’t believe Wall Street. They helped get us into this mess. The top five investment banks were given enormous latitude to increase their lending ratios. Three of those five have either failed or needed rescue.

 

You can’t believe the media pundits. Why? They don’t know the answers either.

 

To be honest, no one does. The new financial instruments are so complex. But a failed regulatory system that stretches from Wall Street to Main Street along with a lack of economic education among the masses have helped put us in this mess. The next weeks, months, and years will be very revealing about the future of ours and the world economy.

You certainly can’t trust the politicians – especially our two presidential candidates. Check out FactCheck.Org and you will see a listing of false claims and outright lies from both sides.

 

Here’s what’s so amazing. Go to the Tax Policy Center to learn about the economic plans of McCain and Obama. The Tax Policy Center has to break down the plans into two reports. Get this! One report tells what the candidates and their surrogates have said on the campaign trail while the other report describes what the candidates have written on their websites. In other words, they’re telling you two different things. And do the mainstream media pick this up? No. So who knows where they stand? No one. In short, we will vote on gut.

 

No wonder Michael has stopped paying attention. Don’t you negate or block out compulsive liars? My long-time friend comedy actor John O’Hurley parodied a frustrated voter during the 1980 election, “I’m not going to vote. I don’t want to encourage any of them.”

Following the news and dealing with the distortions can be depressing. Frankly, there’s very little positive news these days.

 

But let’s put this into perspective. Michael and all of us still need to pay attention to the news.

 

First, apply some filters when watching the news. First, remind yourself that the news is not supposed to be uplifting. It’s supposed to be informative to help you live your life safely. It’s like going to the doctor for a check-up. It’s not fun, but necessary to staying healthy.

 

Second, don’t believe everything you hear and see on the news. Not that they’re purposely deceiving you, but news stories are just a snap-shot in time. What seems big now becomes trivial or an after thought in days or weeks to come. We have a tendency to get all worked up for no reason. Occasionally, the media gets it wrong. They’re human, too. Make sure you’re the most important journalist in your life; do as journalists should do, get confirmation from more than one source.

 

Economically speaking, this knee-jerk reaction to everything we hear could be dangerous. A lot of the selling on Wall Street earlier in the week was based on fear, not fundamentals. So, as grandma used to say, take it with a grain of salt. See if what the news reports say fit with the reality you see in your life and business. Obviously for Michael, much of the news reality runs counter to what his business is doing.

 

However, here’s where I disagree with Michael. Paying attention to the news media will help him know what his clients are hearing and thinking.

 

A good example was during this past historic financial week. One of my portfolio managers was reviewing clients’ portfolios while also watching CNBC. Normally, we tell folks to ignore the knee-jerk info you hear from the cable business network; not because the info is wrong, but their info speaks more to day-traders rather than long-term investors that we rep. However, my portfolio manager knew clients would be glued to the TV, so he wanted to hear what they were hearing so he could reasonably answer their questions.

 

I was not able to tell Michael this at our meeting. To be honest, I was more interested in how successful his sales efforts are. But I did tell him this. He needs to at least turn on local TV news in the morning for safety reasons. TV news does a great job of warning us about physical danger whether it’s the weather or a man-made catastrophe. At worse, you’ll avoid some early morning hassles.

 

In addition to that early morning TV news blast, you need a few minutes each day or at least every other day to scan the news.

 

This is where an RSS Feed is so valuable. All the stories you want come directly to your computer and you can read the synopsis or the first five paragraphs and move on to the next story. This way you can read four newspapers in 15 minutes.

 

Here’s how to do start an RSS feed for free.

 

Go to www.sharpreader.net. This is a news aggregator.

 

 

Click “Download Installer”

 

Click Run

 

The news aggregator will download to your computer. Across the top you will see buttons that say: Refresh, Subscribe, and Address.

 

Create another window and go to www.nytimes.com 

At the bottom of the New York Times home page, click on Add New York Times RSS Feeds.
 

You will see a listing of the RSS Feeds. They are rectangular orange boxes labeled XML. They cover many topics.

 

Let’s get the business RSS Feed. Go to the Business RSS Feed and right-click on the orange XML box, and then click on copy shortcut.

 

Go back to the page where you downloaded the news aggregator.

At the “Address” box at the top of the page, right-click and hit “paste” then press “Enter” key. The RSS Feed address for all the New York Times business stories should be there.

Then hit “Subscribe”.

 

Find other RSS Feeds you want.

 

Go to other publications and find their RSS Feeds

 

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