Breaking News(feeds)

The news is like your shadow: you can’t get away from it and it is DARK. In this episode, we tackle wrangling our newsfeeds and ask “how do we stay informed without losing our minds?” We talk through how and why we pick our news sources, the boundaries we set around our news consumption (and whether they work), and how getting your news from social media is like reading the review before you see the movie. Colin suggests some aspirational rules for posting articles on social media. Anna argues that part of staying sane is not engaging with content that really upsets you even if it’s “newsworthy." I mean really, is The Bubble always a bad thing? In our Troubleshooting segment, we give tips for how to check the quality of your sources, stay mindful of how news affects you, and ways to make sure you’re getting your info from diverse viewpoints. Then as always, we end with some Internet Gold.

Connect with us at @themoreuscroll on Instagram & Twitter,  and check out our webpage. Have any internet sanity tips? Any topics you want us to cover? Email us at whatsup@themoreyouscroll.com 

Tips & hacks from our Troubleshooting segment:
Where do your favorite news sources fall on the Media Bias Chart?
Here are some tips for telling real news from fake news

Internet Gold of the week:
Anna: Writer/Humorist R. Eric Thomas
Colin: "Palm Springs" on Hulu

Transcript

ANNA (00:20) 
Welcome to THE MORE YOU SCROLL, a podcast about trying to stay sane on the internet. I’m Anna Van Valin

COLIN (00:27)
And I’m Colin Foy.  In today’s episode we’re going to talk about...the news.

ANNA (00:33) 
The news is like your shadow: you can’t get away from it, and it is DARK. 

COLIN (00:38) 
We’ll talk about where we get our online news, how we engage with it, and how we wrangle our newsfeeds to stay both sane and informed. 

ANNA (00:46) 
Then in our Troubleshooting segment, we’ll give you some suggestions to try out in your internet life. And as always, we’ll finish off the episodes with a couple pieces of Internet Gold.

COLIN (00:56)
We also want to hear your reactions, questions, or topics you want us to cover, so please connect with us on Instagram and Twitter @themoreuscroll (that’s the letter U), email us at whatsup@themoreyouscroll.com, or visit us at themoreyouscroll.com. And of course, we link to that in the show notes. Come on, guys. We are making a podcast about the internet. We know what we are doing.

ANNA (01:22) 
You ready to scroll, Colin?

COLIN (01:24) 
I'm about to GET ready...

MUSIC

COLIN (01:45) 
This week, we're talking about the news in the news, your news feed.

ANNA (01:50) 
We cannot avoid the fact of the news is a huge part of the internet, they've had become intertwined, they have the symbiotic relationship for better, for worse, they're changing each other. And when you look at all different parts of the internet, whether it's your social media or whatever else, there's a lot of news attached to it, so if we wanna have a healthy relationship with the internet, we gotta have a better relationship with the news.

COLIN (02:14) 
It's also a matter of taking control of our timelines, which we talked about a little bit last week, but the news is such a big part of your news feed, depending on who you follow and your social circles, but also if you follow any news or celebrities you're just gonna be confronted with articles.

ANNA (02:35) 
so my goal has always been, “how do I stay informed? Without losing my mind, right?” And there's two very clear parts of that, one is the staying informed part, one is making sure I'm actually getting real news, good quality news, not just opinion, not just bull****, not just fake news, and the other is not losing my mind, which is a glib of saying how do I engage in a positive way? You actually don't have to drive yourself crazy. But I think part of the reason why this is so top of mind right now, I was able to take a news break in January and February, I didn't look at the news at all, it was glorious.

COLIN (03:18) 
LUCKY!

ANNA (03:20) 
'cause we went on vacation on Christmas, and I was like, You know what, I'm gonna give myself for realsies vacation and not read the news, and I told my partner just like... Tell me if we go to war. Otherwise, I don't wanna know. And it was so great, I carried it till the end of February, and then... I couldn't because Coronavirus was happening and it was literally affecting... It was affecting where I could go and what I could do and when I had to wear on my face, and I think that that is something that's been a profound experience for me over the last few months, because the last three or four years have been incredibly difficult for us as human beings and especially in this nation, and something I could always do when there were deeply upsetting things happening, like putting babies and cages and the president is paying off porn stars while he's in office, we're leaving the Paris Climate accords, like all of those things that feels so huge and so overwhelming and made me feel so helpless, I could say. "Well, my life hasn't changed."

COLIN (04:15) 
Right.

ANNA (04:17) 
I can still do what I do and be with my people and I am safe, and I have that privilege to disconnect from a lot of those things, but that was the way that I stayed sane was to stop and say "What has actually materially changed in my life day-to-day?" I can't say that anymore.

COLIN (04:33) 
Right.

ANNA (04:33) 
You know what I mean? This has come to our doorsteps, so I think it's even more important that we talk about this now. 

COLIN (04:43) 
I mean, I've noticed that myself, I'm definitely checking in on coronavirus updates way more than probably ever followed a story. Which makes sense. It's my life, it's been wild to look up and stay engaged with Corona stuff, and then have the spill out from that too, of like, Oh, I'll find myself reading some other random article about so and so did this other thing just because I'm on the app.

ANNA (05:15) 
I think it is also so unique because nothing's eclipsed it, we have our little news cycles and something crazy happens, somebody says something insane or This... Unfortunately, like this school shooting, or this thing, or this thing, or this thing, and this is just here to stay. 

COLIN (05:30)
Well, especially after 20 years of just steadily speeding up the news cycle, like we just got done with a slow step on the gas over two decades where a story couldn't even last an afternoon right before Covid, and now it's just like COVID. COVERAGE. FOR. MONTHS!

MUSIC

ANNA (06:13) 
If we’re going with the goal of, “Staying informed without losing our minds,” let’s start with the first half of. Where do you get your news, Colin?

COLIN (06:23) 
I get my pop culture news from trending on Twitter, and so some national news updates from there, I try not to, and if I do find something there, I will go to a news source I trust it. That kind of thing. I read the New York Times, I read the New Yorker, and then I consume a ton of commentary, so I listen to tons of commentary podcasts, everything from Love It or Leave It To Chapo Trap House to... I listen to the Economist's daily news podcast, which is called the Intelligence.

ANNA (07:12) 
That's foo-foo. That's a little froo-froo.

COLIN (07:16) 
Yeah, I think The Intelligence is a good example of me trying to stay well-rounded with my news, 'cause the Economist is known to be more conservative, obviously, they're still moderate.

ANNA (07:31) 
Very highbrow.

COLIN (07:32) 
Yeah. Yeah, a conservative news source. Honestly, it's just way easier to listen to that podcast than to listen to one more second of Michael Barbaro's voice.

ANNA (07:43)
You don't wanna find out ...what you need.... to know today?

THEME MUSIC FROM "THE DAILY "

ANNA (7:55) 
I'm sorry. He's got one cadence.

COLIN (07:58) 
Oh man, and it's the...

ANNA (08:00) 
I think they recorded that once in 2013. And they use it every f***** day.

COLIN (08:08) 
Oh, man..., and then if a friend posts an article, I'll probably read it.

ANNA (8:14) 
Someone you trust.

COLIN (8:15) 
Yeah, yeah.

ANNA (8:16) 
So why do you like the commentary, what are you looking for interpretations of what's going on for people to add their own experience.

COLIN (08:33) 
So I follow a couple of people on Twitter whose commentary I really like. One is Benjamin Studebaker, he used to be on the podcast. What's left? And then I follow Matt Taibi, who used to write for Rolling Stone, and I just like their perspectives, and so either through reading an article or just absorbing it through being alive and being online a lot, I get the news. Right, but I find it really useful to have a few people I trust that can just say, Oh, I don't actually think that's very important, but this is really alarming. How about this? That kind of thing, because there's a lot of... With journalism, if you don't have that kind of sense built into yourself or in your community, in your online community, everything can seem really alarming, the words that a lot of mainstream news sources use these days, "so and so SLAMS so and so... "

ANNA (09:24) 
Oh my God, I can't. "Blah blah RIPS blah blah!" Come on, guys.

COLIN (09:29) 
Yeah, everything sounds like, Wow, these people are really shaking up their relationships with each other.

ANNA (09:35) 
Right. Whoa, there's a feud now, between that senator from Alaska, and that representative from Wisconsin, when really one was just like, I disagree with the lady from Alaska.

COLIN (09:48) 
It's not a big deal at all, and it turns out they've been disagreeing their whole careers, and this is just another in that string. Yeah, how about you? Where do you get your news?

ANNA (09:58): 
All of the places. So let's start with the most respectable ones I do, I subscribe to Washington Post, LA Times, The New York Times, and a good New Yorker have a robust, love-hate relationship with the New York Times. That will never be resolved.

COLIN (10:19) 
Yeah

ANNA (10:20) 
I use the Apple News App which is a good aggregator of local, national, and global news - and also between periodicals (magazines/newspapers) and just online sources. It also does a bit of curating because I can say I like or dislike a specific story, or tell it to suggest something more or suggest less or follow topics not just sources. I have a few 10 minute or less news podcasts on different topics like technology, world news, podcast industry news that I’ve made into a morning playlist for my Google Homes (aka robot house elves), then when I say “Good Morning” it’ll just play them.  Not on Facebook much but I do keep an eye on Twitter, because it’s not just breaking news, especially because since we live in the stupidest timeline now news actually happens ON Twitter. One thing I love is I will watch my favorite of the late-night shows in the morning over breakfast, so Colbert, Sam Bee, Seth Myers, Trever Noah. I call them my late-night boyfriends. 

COLIN (11:46) 
Yeah, that honestly sounds really nice, especially with the LA Times, because then you're getting LA specific news in with your national and world news, which is really good. That's a funny thing about the internet too, is that we get this very world-level, or at least national level focus with our news, because that's what goes viral and that that's what we're bombarded with multiple times on our timeline, whereas I only have one friend who posted about the LA city council member who blah, blah, blah. 

ANNA (12:26) 
Yeah, well, and also what happened on the LA City Council meeting is probably gonna actually affect you.

COLIN (12:30) 
Exactly, so I should really know about that.

ANNA (12:30) 
Yeah, I think it is really important to support local journalism and LA Times has a lot of its own issues, and problems, but they're the ones that are gonna go really, really deep on an issue that directly affects me or my neighborhood or something in LA... Just like in Milwaukee or in Buffalo or anywhere, it's your local news, that's really gonna do that Digging on thing, the things that directly affect you more often. In a normal situation, obviously, we're all very affected by what's going on nationally now, but on a day-to-day, it's that local s***. We’re talking a lot about reading or watching the news, but what does staying informed mean to you?

COLIN (13:14) 
It's a good question, but a really tough one, I think for me, it means being mostly aware of local news, semi-aware of national news, and a little aware of what's going on in the world... That's my ideal. I end up being a lot more aware of national news and local news. But yeah, that's kind of where I see it. How about you?

ANNA (13:40) 
So for me, staying informed means not just like knowing the ticker of the day of this person said this and this happened here in this law and this accident or whatever it is, but also, do I understand it? And sometimes that's simple 'cause it's not that complicated, and sometimes it's like I need to go down a rabbit hole and really understand what this whole Russian bounty situation is because I don't understand it, And what is the history of our relationship with Russia and Afghanistan and that whole f***** up love triangle. Another important element of staying informed to me is understanding an issue or event from the point of view of the people directly affected by it. That could be finding a source from a particular region or a specific ethnic group where I may not be the intended audience, but hearing from that point of view directly might give me a better understanding of the causes and outcomes of an issue than an article that is meant for general consumption by a major news outlet that isn’t that close to the subject. So when we’re talking about racially charged police violence, I’m going to make sure I look at TheRoot.com and listen to Code Switch I’m going to really try to get that perspective into my understanding bc sometimes it’s more than just a list of facts.  

COLIN (15:10) 
Yeah, I think of the New York Times, it doesn't matter how diverse their writers get, it's still a very white company...

ANNA (15:23) 
Oh, yeah.

COLIN   (15:23) 
From the top level. So it's getting filtered through white minds, and especially white male minds, there's all sorts of other perspectives you can get that aren't eventually going to be filtered through a white person.

ANNA (15:38) 
This brings up something that is like, top shelf, neon sign, must remember which is that no point of view is neutral. Especially people in dominant groups whose voices have always been listened to and trusted, we have to consciously recognize that no one kind of person is the default person. Everything is filtered through our experiences being in the body we’re in and other peoples’ reactions to the body we’re in. And it’s our individual job to have the awareness of saying, how many articles have I read this week that were written by women, or from a source owned by a person of color? Once you have that awareness, you can make choices. 

COLIN: (16:26) 
And of course, there’s the issue of, how trustworthy is this source? Just in terms of the facts…

ANNA (16:32) 
There's gonna be things that you need to be able to judge for yourself. I think that we all wanna think that we're not gonna fall for, fall for fake news or fall for bull****, but we might...When I'm thinking of staying informed and I want to make sure that I'm getting reliable information is, do I see the same thing in multiple sources? if you have a source that's kind of extreme are kind of limited. That's okay as long as you're also reading other sources that are gonna have a different point of view or not quite as extreme a bent, to then go read as much NaturalNews.net as you want. And one thing I say is like, if you agree with every single thing that your news outlet says, you need to read something else.

COLIN (17:21) 
That's a great rule.

ANNA (17:23) 
'Cause, it's just telling you what you wanna hear.

MUSIC

COLIN (17:45) 
Let’s move onto the “without losing our minds” part. Since we all have unlimited access to news, it’s super easy to get obsessive. It’s also easy to expose ourselves to things that we find upsetting or even traumatizing in an effort to stay informed. 

ANNA (18:00) 
And since we all have the ability to post and comment on everything, we end up getting our news packaged in the thoughts and opinions of the whole internet. 

COLIN (18:09) 
All of that can make it seriously difficult to have a healthy relationship with the internet.  

ANNA (18:14) 
I think the combination of internet news and social media has become so second nature to us that it’s easy for us to engage with it automatically, even compulsively. 

COLIN (18:24) 
I lived through a lot of that in college, and just right after college, I had this like, gotta get online, got a check Facebook first thing when I wake up and find the latest, whatever. And comment on it.

ANNA (18:45) 
The world needs to know what you think about that thing.

COLIN (18:48) 
Yeah, yeah. No, they don't. And they didn't care. And I mean, frankly, I don't care about my opinions back then, so it's not even long-lasting for me personally, but yeah, I went through a heavy phase of that, did you...

ANNA (19:05) 
I definitely went through a long phase of being part of the rage machine, If somebody posted something, I had to read it and then I had to post about it and no one's posting anything that's like, this is a really well-thought-out article, they're posting this thing because it's like, “RAHH!, did you hear what this person said?” And then you're sort of taking in that rage and spewing it back... Yeah, but I also have this sort of, I don't know, weird martyr masochistic thing where I feel like I have to know... I have to bear witness. So I have to know everything...

COLIN (19:38) 
Yes.

ANNA (19:39) 
That's going on all the time. I know things in movies that I can't watch... You know what I mean? Like I personally, I'm really sensitive to things like child abuse or sexual violence or racially charged violence, I can't watch that stuff, right. And I had to realize that I also can't read news about that stuff in great detail because it will upset me so deeply and I will lose sleep, and I will be so upset, and part of it is like how I could actually help in those situations is to be a sane, healthy person, and volunteer donate or something like that, not be super traumatized because I read a very in-depth investigative piece about the women who were kidnapped by ISIS and putting the sex slavery. I'm not helping those women...

COLIN (20:30) 
Totally. That kind of being informed, it begs the question, what kind of being informed is good and what is... Just not very useful. For example, I think it would be really great if there was a group of people who knew everything about Jeffrey Epstein's life. Right. But I don't need to be one of those people. 

ANNA (20:54) 
Yeah, preferably the Southern District of New York district attorney knows everything about him and all of the people that he had on Pedophile island. I mentioned I do have news in my timeline, I do follow some news outlets on my Twitter, but you don't...you try to avoid getting your news from social media...

COLIN (21:13) 
Yeah, mostly because it comes with commentary, the replies, it's so much easier to see the text in the tweet, scroll past the article and then see everybody's replies to it, then it is to click on the article I... And it's way more entertaining, even though, even though it's really bad for me, like to my core, it's like very unhealthy, it's probably taking years off my life just reading replies, If a news article is big enough and stays around long enough, I'll just mute keywords in the article, just so not seeing anybody's tweets about it, 'cause I just do not care. I would rather talk to all of my friends about that, then see, the 280 characters that strangers have to say about it.

ANNA (22:04) 
Yeah, that's really interesting. I hadn't actually thought about it that way until you talked about it, because you're right, it is sort of like starting with the comment section if somebody tweets an article, they've probably made a comment about it... and then you're getting the review of the movie before they see the movie. And that's gonna color what you get.

COLIN (22:33) 
I love that analogy of reading the review before you see the movie, 'cause we live in this time when... A lot of people really care about the Rotten Tomato Score a movie gets... And they haven't taken the time to find a movie critic that they agree with, which I think is infinitely more useful. Because if Most movie critics like a movie, it's true, I will probably like it, but I'll probably miss out on the movies that a lot of critics don't like, but I actually would like... So I have found my movie critic that I love, Amy Nicholson, shout out to Amy Nicholson.

ANNA (23:10) 
She was on my last show.

COLIN (23:11) 
Yeah, and same with news, if you're getting news from social media, it's kind of like you're going to Rotten Tomatoes for your news... And it's like, yeah, you're just gonna get a big glob of everybody's thoughts about it, and it's gonna be really hard to make it your own and have your own thoughts about it.

ANNA (23:30) 
And then I think it's important to understand what media styles are best for you, you know what I mean, like do you take in things best by audio, do you take them in best by text or by video, another thing to think about for things that might be triggering for you. And then the flip side of what’s triggering to you is, what brings you joy? Can you find ways to take in the news that you actually enjoy. That’s why I love watching the late-night shows, which I mentioned earlier. They give me a sense of balance because the comedy is putting the light with the dark. Laughter is a stress release, so if I can laugh while I’m taking in the news, it keeps that tension from building up. It’s satire, and satire has been around for as long as people have been telling stories. I wanted to bring up something that you and I have talked a lot about: the concept of The Bubble. The idea that we create these echo chambers for ourselves of only hearing news or points of view that we agree with, and we need to break out of it.  It's tempting to just stay in this echo chamber because it's comforting to just have all of your opinions.

COLIN (25:10) 
<echo chamber sound effect> Mmmm. It's so warm in here.

ANNA (25:13) 
It's so warm here in the womb of my... My confirmation bias… I have actually a controversial point of view on the Bubble, which is that it’s not necessarily a bad thing. Part of its function is to be a boundary against things that are going to upset you that you can do nothing about. You don't need to know what's outside your bubble, and I told you, I reset my news app and it was feeding me Fox news headlines, and at first, I was like, I'm gonna let it... Dear listener, I don't generally watch Fox News, it's not my thing, but was... I'll let it feed me these headlines, just so I'm informed, 'cause apparently 30% of our country only gets their news from this, and then after a few days, I was like, No, no, that was wrong. That was the wrong choice. Every time it popped up, I got a notification, it like filled me with rage.

COLIN (26:20) 
So it's fine to shut that off. It can be a health choice, it can be as simple as like, this is bad for my health. That brings up something I love to do with anything with the internet, is just check in with my body. Ever is in a while, and just... Okay, yeah. How is this making me feel... Is this like "I'm getting informed, I feel like I understand this thing more." Or is it just making you angry, and sometimes the news is somebody doing something that makes you angry and that's fine, totally fine, but if it's just your news consumption that's making you angry, then you can do things to change that. 

MUSIC

COLIN (27:11)
...Is social media like posting and commenting, is that part of your news consumption?

ANNA (27:17) 
less so than it has been in the past.

COLIN (27:22) 
That's my answer too...

ANNA (27:25) 
I try to stay away from posting a lot of articles simply because, I don't know, it's... my thoughts and my feelings are about it are feeling more and more my business.

COLIN (27:39) 
Yeah, I've definitely been feeling a lot more that way lately, and I think part of it is, as I get older, I just care more about my immediate community and less about this unseen blob of people that can see my tweets, and so I will frequently text articles to people.

ANNA (28:04) 
Yeah, I do that as well. I texted Lou an article from the other end of the couch...

COLIN (28:10) 
Oh yeah.

ANNA (28:11) 
I was like, Hey, did you see - I'll just send it to you.

COLIN (28:16) 
Totally. But if I do post these days, I have a rule that I got... I believe I got this from my wife, maybe I didn't, but.

ANNA (28:27) 
Give her credit.

COLIN (28:28) 
Yeah.

ANNA (28:28) 
It can't hurt.

COLIN (28:30) 
A rule I got from my wife: I do not share an article unless I have read every word of it.

ANNA (28:38) 
You are calling out so many people right now, Colin.

COLIN (28:40) 
It's a great rule.

ANNA (28:41) 
It's a great rule.

COLIN (28:43) 
I think if everyone followed this, if everyone followed this, I could probably stand to follow... Double the amount of people I follow, right?

ANNA (28:53)  
Well, I mean, it would cut the vast majority of article posting, I think... if you forced people to sit down, you know it would be better is if you weren't allowed to comment on an article unless you'd read the entire thing...

COLIN (29:07)  
Wouldn't that be amazing?

ANNA (29:09) 
It's dangerous.

COLIN (29:10) 
It's crazy.

ANNA (29:12) 
One of the reasons I slowed down in posting, was I started thinking about what my responsibility is when I post. And I realized because I was also posting with my own comments, I was putting out a lot of negativity that other people would ingest. And I knew how it made me feel when I read a ton of people’s rage posting and negativity, so I felt like I needed to stop putting that out there.  Actually, one of my New Year’s Resolutions for 2020 was I didn’t want to put out any negative posts for the whole year. But then...

COLIN (29:59)  
Whoaa I like that.

ANNA (30:03) 
But then 2020 HAPPENED so. 

COLIN (30:07) 
Yeah, yeah true. Fair point. 

ANNA (30:09)  
So that did not last. But the other thing was that every time I posted an article that was anything other than “kitten befriends pony,” I was opening myself up for people to come at me. There might be an article that I think that some of my close friends or my family might be interested in, but if I still have people who I took a scene study class with in 2009 in my Facebook, that all of a sudden I have to hear that guy's opinion on my article and I have gotten in some serious fights with people, commented on things that I've posted and I don't know this person... I'm never gonna see this person again. But now I have to take in their opinion, you know what I mean?

COLIN (30:58) 
Yeah because you’re saying, here’s my opinion so/

ANNA (31:00)
/Totally and/

COLIN (31:03)
/You’re also saying, so what’s yours?

ANNA (31:06) 
Yeah. Unless you turn off likes and commenting and even then people can slide into your DMs and make sure you know they disagree with you. And people are not kind on the internet when they disagree with you because they’re not looking at you face to face. So I can get all upset when someone comments something mean, or I can just pause.

COLIN (31:26) 
You and they will go to bed feeling the same. 

ANNA (31:29)
That is very very true.

COLIN (31:30) 
Having the same opinions as you would have if you hadn't posted.

ANNA (31:33) 
Yeah, I think in America we have a concept of what I call “Toxic Liberty” which is this idea that freedom means having the ability to do whatever you want and say whatever you want no matter who you hurt.

COLIN (31:47) 
Hmm yeah. Yeah. 

ANNA (31:50) 
Do you think that there IS space for actual discourse on social media?

COLIN (31:55) 
There's more space for discourse, the closer you are to the story, if it's a local story or if the thing affects you, then there's way more room for discourse, and if it is, I'll say presidential election and up, probably not worth any sort of social media discourse, it's like the more of people that have opinions on this subject, the less inclined I am to discuss it with anyone online.

ANNA (32:30) 
It is always interesting to me to see the people who compulsively comment, who compulsively reply. They just cannot/

COLIN (32:39)
/Guilty!

ANNA (32:40) 
They just can't let something pass by without registering their opinion on it, and you're like, What... Who are you? Why are you coming... You actually don't know anything about coal mining, but you have an opinion on it that you wanna share.

COLIN (32:57) 
Right, right.

ANNA (33:00) 
It's that double-edged sword of self-publishing, on the one hand, if everyone can publish, then all sorts of voices that have not been heard can be heard, and all sorts of people who would have had up until now, gone through all kinds of gatekeepers...those people can tell their stories, but the other, the other side of that is that people can say whatever the f*** they want, there's no filter.

COLIN (33:25) 
Yeah, the consumers become the filters, which is nice, but also a really hard job that I didn't totally know I was signing up for when I made a Facebook account in 2006.

ANNA (33:40)
Man…

TROUBLESHOOTING MUSIC

COLIN (33:46)
Next up is our troubleshooting segment, the part of the show where we offer some suggestions and solutions related to the news.

ANNA (34:11) 
Here are some things you can do this week to take control of your newsfeed:

COLIN (34:15)
Find a journalist, commentator, or pundit who resonates with you and follow their work.

ANNA (34:21) 
Check out the Media Bias Pyramid and see where your most frequent news sources fall on the chart. Are there any you want to drop, or new ones to pick up?

COLIN (34:29) 
Find two sources from a different demographic viewpoint and integrate them into your news routine.

ANNA (34:36) 
Think about all the ways you take in the news and which make you feel informed and energized: that could be listening to a news podcast while you take a walk. Or Watching a comedy show at the end of the day. Or just a quick scan of what’s trending on Twitter.

COLIN (34:50) 
No matter how you’re engaging with the news, make sure to check in with your body frequently. Notice how it’s making you feel physically, and adjust if you need it. 

ANNA (35:01) 
That’s a good one. 

INTERNET GOLD MUSIC

ANNA (35:15) 
Internet gold. Alright Colin, what is your internet gold of the week.

COLIN (35:20) 
Mine is a movie, but I think it counts because I streamed it. Its streaming on Hulu is called Palm Springs.

ANNA (35:33) 
I have not seen it, I believe I have heard of it, it's the Andy Samberg/Christin Milioti remake of “50 First Dates” or something like that.

COLIN (35:42) 
It's more, I'd call it a remake of Groundhog Day.

ANNA (35:46) 
Ah. And by the way, movies are only streaming now, so I think they're fair game.

COLIN (35:50) 
Megan and I watched it Friday And loved every single minute of it. Christin Milioti is magnetic, like insane. She's amazing in it, and so funny, and Andy takes a back seat and is not the total... Goofball comedy... That he usually is. Which is also really nice. They play with that same premise of What if you just woke up every day in the same day.

ANNA (36:23)
And that really hits home right now.

COLIN (36:25) 
It does, it's perfect timing for quarantine, and they do a good job of going deeper than Groundhog Day did, and they get a little bit more profound with it in some ways, and... I just thought it was so refreshing. I haven't seen a comedy that funny and entertaining and also making some good commentary at the same time in a long, long time.

ANNA (36:50)
Great.

COLIN (36:51) 
What's your internet gold?

ANNA (36:53) 
My internet gold is a writer named R. Eric Thomas. He writes “Eric Reads the News” for Elle magazine which is described as a “daily humor column which skewers politics, pop culture, celebrity, shade, and schadenfreude.” He also gives great twitter and has a lovely memoir called “Here For It: how to save your soul in America.” Which I’ve read. He’s fabulous and funny as h***, his Twitter is @OurEric. So you should check him out. Get some giggles. 

COLIN (37:44) 
Oh, I am so stoked. I just followed him. But I turned off his retweets. That’s what I do with celebrity accounts.  

OUTRO MUSIC

COLIN (37:59) 
Well, we gotta log off. Thanks for joining us for this episode of The More You Scroll. Please subscribe and stick around for the rest of the season.

ANNA (38:31)
To help other listeners find this show please leave us a 5-star rating and review on your platform of choice. Connect with us online @themoreuscroll and themoreyouscroll.com (that’s the word YOU), let us know what you thought of this episode, and tag friends you think would like it.     

COLIN (38:48) 
The More You Scroll is a production of Van Valin Productions and Lindenfield Studio. Our production intern is Emma Massey, our marketing intern is Elaine Oh. I’m Colin Foy. 

ANNA (38:55)
I’m Anna Van Valin. Scroll you next time…