Further Confessions of a News Junkie

I’ve taken the first step in beating my addiction; I’ve admitted I am addicted to the news and helpless in the face of it.

I’m willing to turn it over to a higher power, but I don’t know who or what could keep me from my daily, even hourly fix. I thought when the election was over I could sleep through the night without scanning my phone or snapping on the news, but when nature calls I get up, despite how cozy I am, and I can’t go back to sleep until I’ve checked to see if something even more egregious than trying to subvert democracy or killing another quarter of a million people has happened in the midnight hours.

I’ve skipped a few steps in the 12 Step program, like making amends to everyone I’ve bored, exhausted or pissed off with my fixation on the news. I’ve ignored my family, monopolized all conversations that don’t have to do with the current and next Presidents, the risks of another Civil War, and even the latest terrible surge of the Corona virus, whose only silver lining is that at least I won‘t have to share a Thanksgiving holiday with that benighted Trumpster relative who somehow sneaked into the family when I wasn’t looking.

I’ve cut the cord with Comcast, so all I can stream is CNN Go, which offers an 8 minute preview of what’s happening now before they cut you off. For a while I could get both CNN and MSNBC live – or a half hour later, which is the standard streaming delay—but Advance, the Roku site that hosted them, abruptly terminated those channels this summer. Roku does provide one somewhat live news…