Stop the Presses!

How big a role does the news play in your life? Is being well-informed an important part of how you think of yourself? It was for Edward McCann, a Canadian lawyer and university professor, who died in April at the age of eighty-four. “He found joy in watching and coaching sports,” his obituary read, “spending time with his wife and daughter, and staying informed about the latest news from around the world.”

The nineteenth-century philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel saw staying informed about the news as something akin to a secular religion. “Reading the morning newspaper is the realist’s morning prayer,” he wrote. Whether one is praying to God or reading the paper, after finishing, “one knows how one stands.”

I can relate to that. I’ve been reading the morning paper my entire adult life. My day doesn’t feel started until I’ve completed at least one section. My own obit might well include the words “news junkie.” But I am also a dinosaur. If you’re...