Stop Reading the News

A Manifesto for a Happier, Calmer and Wiser Life

By: Rolf Dobelli, Caroline Waight

Narrated by: Keith Wickham

Length: 2 hrs and 50 mins

Publisher's summary

News is to the mind as sugar is to the body.  

In 2013 Rolf Dobelli stood in front of a room full of journalists and proclaimed that he did not read the news. It caused a riot. Now he finally sets down his philosophy in detail. And he practices what he preaches: he hasn't read the news for a decade.

Stop Reading the News is Dobelli's manifesto about the dangers of the most toxic form of information - news. He shows the damage it does to our concentration and well-being and how a misplaced sense of duty can misdirect our behaviour.  

From the author of the best-selling The Art of Thinking Clearly, Rolf Dobelli offers the listener guidance about how to live without news and the many potential gains to be had: less disruption, more time, less anxiety, more insights. 

In a world of increasing disruption and division, Stop Reading the News is a welcome voice of calm and wisdom.

©2020 Piper Verlag GmbH (P)2020 Hodder & Stoughton Limited

Critic reviews

Rolf Dobelli writes clearly, intelligently and convincingly (Gerhard Schroder)

Rolf Dobelli offers plenty of food for thought, and writes clearly - stimulating, amusing, brilliant (Dr Christoph Franz, former CEO of Lufthansa, Chairman of Roche)

Rolf Dobelli's works are informative, insightful, and accessible. In an age of celebrity ignoramuses, he is a true public intellectual. (Lou Marinoff, Professor of Philosophy at the City College of New York)

Very important

In an age where information is a commodity and the media is losing its importance for good and reliable information, this book is the ultimate reason to stop reading news that no longer informs, but only misinforms and tries to make you look in the right direction. wrong on purpose. Journalists don't just want to inform. They want to change the facts. It even turned into something dangerous.

Worth Listening To

Minus the Darwinian apologetical inserts, it was a very informative book. Lots of good food for thought.

The art of thinking vacantly

This book could be half as short and twice as effective. What ruins it are the subjective comments that show there are more serious, better qualified authors on this topic.

Some choice quotes:

“The war in Palestine is getting boring after all these years.” Oh really?

‘If only journalists had more time.’ Sure.

‘News ad spend is down’ He means newspapers.

‘Don’t be ideological.’ Oh really?

‘My friends read The Economist features.’ Ha Ha Ha… thing is unreadable. What was that about ideology?

Great cure for NEWS Virus pandemic

I have to say this book saved my life. I wish I could have read it earlier.

Refreshing take on news

A must read about news in the world and how it affects us. Enjoyed this book. Narration and book length were just right.

Not sure books this short really justify a credit

The book is pretty good, no doubt. A big issue is a book that is under 3 hours long (Closer to 2 hours for me as I listen to them at 1.5 speed) is the same price as other books that are far longer. Quantity doesn't always mean quality, I know. That being said I did enjoy the book even though I'm far from a "news junky" myself, it's interesting to hear from the perspective of someone that was once.

Very helpful to me in reducing Anxiety

I was anxious following news on the pandemic. After minimising news, I sleep better, enjoy going to supermarket again. Enjoy walks, cooking easy meals.

Good stuff and well argued

I have already stopped reading the news for a week now, or should I say listening to the today programme, watching ‘politics live’, endlessly checking the guardian and listening to PM and watching channel 4 news plus reading the times and telegraph and watching you tube clips. I knew I had a problem and this book has put the argument for leaving the news media cycle into a succinct and mostly well reasoned set of principles. Well worth reading even if you decide to carry on reading the news! He offers alternative ways of being informed and actually taking action rather than endlessly consuming news media and being a passive recipient.

A Need Text

I have known that The News and Mass Media are terribly unhealthy for quite a while now. This book just clarified why so. It's really a must read.

Interesting and makes total sense.

Will only tailor to those who are not living in a bubble. No sheep required here !!!

Good insights but too much preaching

I am half way through this book and I think I understand the main ideas. With some of them I agree, however there is also plenty to dispute. The author briefly describes his path to the epiphany of abandoning the news and follows up by calling the reader to follow on his footsteps, listing the benefits of saving time and using it to read proper staff, such as books and in-depth analysis.


While I agree that most of the news are largely irrelevant to one's personal life, it doesn't mean that on a rare but important occasion the information conveyed won't be crucial, specially if you live in a large city. There might be an attack or a riot with the epicentre in your neighbourhood. A new computer virus might have been just discovered or a cloud of chemical waste blown towards your city. The stock market might be tumbling. Yes, you'll eventually hear about it from your friends (if you have friends) but it might be too late.


There is also entertainment value in the news. A person who ate a can of worms in Arizona is a far away freak, but he is still entertaining. Not everyone wants to work constantly on self improvement by reading scientific journals. Some people have plenty of time to spare on nonsense.


Most news is the brightly coloured rubbish sweets, the noise, which the book is convincingly demonstrating. Yet, the author assumes that his reader is a silly child in a sweet shop, while many of us are already adults with some concept of healthy eating.