Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>News is generally considered to be a good thing, and staying informed is an essential expectation for participating in public life. Yet we are also surrounded by a variety of voices telling us not to use news. We are told to steer clear of news for many reasons, including that it is full of bias and fakery, that its negativity impairs our well-being and mental health, that it promotes harmful stereotypes of marginalized communities, and that it is uninteresting and unimportant. Discouraging the News focuses on who creates boundaries around what’s good or bad, useful or useless, indispensable or tainted and why they do so. Delving into the discourses and practices of news discouragement strengthens our understanding of key debates involving what legitimate ways of knowing should look like, whether cultural and political pluralism is possible, what our individual responsibility to the collective should be, and ultimately, who has the authority to tell us about the world we share.</jats:p>