Goodbye, TiVo

Okay, I'm going to come clean about my most serious addiction.

I am a news junkie.

For the past decade, it has been building. It started with PBS: The News Hour, the year George Bush defeated Al Gore. An evening ritual for me was watching it when I returned from work. I'd relax, have a glass of fruit juice or sparkling water and maybe a snack, while I watched Lehrer and colleagues. When it was over I'd make dinner. After dinner, I watched The Daily Show if it was on. Yeah, I know it's not "news." Comedic commentary became part of the addiction equation early on. Another was the periodic scanning of Google News headlines, about four times a day.

As the Bush administration settled in, news seemed increasingly important. From the beginning, the new administration seemed a slow-motion train wreck. I couldn't peel my eyes away. After 9/11 I felt it important to broaden my perspective. I added the BBC World News to my nightly lineup.

The BBC came on early, though. Frequently I missed my fix. When, just as I took on a second job, a friend suggested getting digital recording capability, I went for it. I subscribed to TiVo. Evil TiVo. I do think it's evil.

"Time-shifting" was lovely, even if the TiVo is an inexact device. It misses its target nearly as often as it succeeds. Even so, that "on-demand" quality is seductive. I succumbed; slipped deeper into my addiction.

I started scanning other news services, briefly checking Fox to see if it was as bad as its reputation (it was) and, less briefly, CNN, to see if it lived up to its reputation (it did not) before settling, finally, on the VERY interesting MSNBC, just as Keith Olbermann started offering Countdown. That led me to Anderson Cooper and Chris Matthews and eventually, half-a-dozen more interesting points of view. I was taping the weekend shows, too: Tim Russert and George Stephanopoulos, The McLaughlin Group.

During my convalescence from surgery in the beginning of 2008, I started listening to talk radio. Thom Hartmann and Randi Rhodes; later Stephanie Miller, who has become a lasting staple since I returned to work. Eventually, I was watching more than four hours a day watching news, and countless more with the radio and the Internet, chasing news and commentary on news.

One of the attractions of the Peace Corps was the opportunity to radically alter the mediated experiences of my life. I hope to spend much more time face to face with people, and much less time face to screen. We'll see. Meanwhile, I am taking steps to reduce the screen time.

Or at least, I've been working towards thinking about the planning steps for eventually carrying that plan out. See the evasion in that sentence? Yeah. I'm still working on it.

But I'm hitting the wall of reality now. With all I have to do to get ready, I simply do not have the time to follow the news with this intensity. Lately, I've been realizing that the addiction is comprised more and more of habit, and less and less of any genuine passion. So it should be getting easier. As my service approaches, I find myself caring less and less about the minutia of current events. Now it is the force of habit that remains the only barrier.

So my latest goal is this: I am canceling the TiVo before the next billing cycle. I am cutting cable back at least to Basic, and if I can figure out how to get PBS without it, may cut it out entirely. Before the next billing cycle. A friend will take away the TiVo machine, gratis. I will return the cable box and be free of that expense. More importantly, I am going to reduce my viewing back to the one-half the original level: I will limit myself to The News Hour (forgoing The Daily Show).

Before June 9, I will have canceled the services, leaving a one-hour commitment to the screen, as much Stephanie Miller as I can hear before I leave for work in the morning, and the browsing of the Google News.

Step by step. Cold turkey is a nice, clean method, but I will ease myself out of this cloud of news slowly.