“I started reading the newspaper first thing daily instead of following the news all day on social media — and I’ve never felt better informed.
“Now, the risk for any of us in the news business is missing breaking news — which, these days, typically breaks on social media. But for that narrow period of time during the day when I am actually on live television and need that information, there are dozens of people behind the scenes whose job is and always has been to take breaking news — whether from newswires or Facebook Live — and make sure it gets transmitted to our viewers. They do that job exceedingly well, and I do mine better when I’m not distracted by constantly checking all these platforms myself.
“I’m still ‘on’ social media thanks to professional pages my colleagues like to maintain, and just by being in other people’s lives when they share that online. I still relish any and all feedback from viewers or readers, however it gets back to me. I may yet need to go back and ‘lurk’ on Twitter to follow the news.”