Bearing Witness Without Burning Out
In the wake of the U.S. strike on Venezuela, practical habits for consuming breaking news
Hang on, what happened to Wiczipedia and what’s The Wayfinder?! If you missed the news about my newsletter rebrand, catch up here. TLDR: Same Nina, new name, even more practical content to guide you through our toxic information environment. I’m so thankful to have so many of you aboard and for your excitement about the journey we’re undertaking together! 🧭
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Before I read a single headline about this weekend’s U.S. military operations in Venezuela, I saw videos of it: grainy shots of helicopters flying over a darkened city while plumes of smoke rose from targets below. At 6:30 ET, after my three year old climbed into my bed, the visual evidence of the Trump administration’s foreign adventurism far outpaced what scant facts the press could report in their live blogs.
It’s a familiar experience in our age of social media ubiquity. From Charlie Kirk’s murder to the January 6 insurrection, from Ukraine to Gaza, the technology that pervades every facet of our lives also allows us to experience disaster, tragedy, and trauma in real time. We tell ourselves that we doomscroll and expose ourselves to horrors in service of staying informed, in service of bearing witness.
But that’s a misguided intention. It is not the beleaguered populations of Gaza, Ukraine, or Caracas who benefit when we obsessively follow and engage online with the atrocities they’re experiencing, nor does it bolster democracy; it lines the pockets of the tech broligarchs and greases the wheels of the rage machine that brought Trump to power. Engaging more deliberately with our information environment, however, can keep you informed without dragging you down.
Trauma and Desensitization
The content that makes its way to us in the early hours of a conflict or tragedy is raw and unfiltered, often filmed and posted by civilians with a direct view of the harm. When we view content like this over and over again we risk “experienc[ing] emotions and personal responses relating to the traumatic event on [our] computer screens.” The risk is more acute for journalists, creators, and open source researchers, who are exposing themselves to this content as a part of their work. Increasingly, however, I see concerned citizens consuming levels of content that would rival my colleagues in the media space, and they’re doing it without proper training or awareness. If you’re finding that your online consumption is leading to:
intrusive thoughts or images
hopelessness
guilt
irritability
difficulty imposing boundaries on your media consumption habits
withdrawal from social activities;
unexplained fatigue
and/or other symptoms as explained in this report from First Draft News
...you may be suffering from vicarious trauma.
We also risk desensitizing ourselves to violence as we obsessively scroll. When you see images of bombings and terrorism and the human suffering that comes in its wake so frequently, they become normalized. You may feel compassion fatigue—disengagement with crises of human suffering—or information fatigue—being overwhelmed by data and sources on a topic, sometimes leading individuals to be less discerning with their consumption.
Engaging Means Enraging
Of course, this is all by design. Social media platforms have been specifically engineered to make us feel strong emotions; the most engaging content is frequently the most enraging content. While user generated content uploaded to social media platforms has provided critical evidence that allows institutions to hold modern war criminals to account, social media platforms see such content primarily as disaster porn, driving clicks and advertising revenue. (If they cared about the evidence preservation aspect their platforms provide, they would not delete large swaths of content without archiving it or allowing human rights groups to access it.)
Unfortunately, news organizations and creators also have the same monetary incentives; though their underlying intention—to educate and inform their audience—is noble, they also benefit from the high views and engagement that come from sharing traumatic content. Their content might be shown to more people if a traumatic video goes viral. For creators, if their content is monetized, they may be paid for it. It may drive up their subscriber numbers, leading to valuable partnerships.
I want to be clear: news organizations and creators are not at fault here. They’re fighting to survive in a broken system. But as consumers, we need to understand the motivations that animate all the actors in our information ecosystem.
The Trump Administration Plays the Game
That includes the Trump Administration, which exploits the symbiotic relationship between enragement and engagement better than any other government in the world. There is a reason President Trump (and his aides) keep sharing juvenile AI-generated images. There is a reason he—not a media outlet—shared the first photo of Maduro in custody on Truth Social. There is a reason his administration continues to include popular songs in videos of its shocking actions without permission of their creators. It leads to more rage and polarization, emboldening the MAGA base by projecting the idea that the administration is “owning the libs” while stoking both anger and feelings of hopelessness in the opposition. It also ensures that MAGA propaganda is landing at the top of your feed, whether you support the Trump administration or not.
The Veracity Crisis
Beyond the incentive structures undermining deliberate, responsible information consumption, we’re also contending with disinformation and AI slop. You want to stay informed, but can you even believe what you see?
Take a look at this thread of fact-checks on the events in Venezuela from the BBC’s Shayan Sardarizadeh: AI-generated images of Maduro in custody, misattributed videos of missile strikes and popular celebrations, a real video of a the U.S. strikes in Caracas manipulated with AI to make it seem more spectacular.
Why do people share such falsehoods? For power and for profit. It helps them amplify a narrative that shapes their worldview. MAGA influencer Nick Shirley (whose “investigation” of Minnesota daycare fraud led to a withdrawal of federal funding and violent threats against childcare providers across the country) shared a video of Venezuelans in Miami celebrating Maduro’s arrest, but claimed it was a video of people in Caracas. “Wait a minute the MSM media lied to us again?” he wrote on X, in a post with 3.5 million views. Shirley’s content on YouTube and X is monetized; he also launched a “creator coin” after his Minnesota video went viral, generating an estimated “$41,600 to $65,000 in creator royalties tied to trading activity.”
Tips for Navigating Breaking News Online
The realities of our information ecosystem may make you want to throw your phone into the nearest body of water, and I know it would be impossible to disengage entirely. You can still be informed and bear witness. You just need to do it deliberately.
In the early days of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a country I love dearly, I was online constantly. I needed to keep up with every development, as I was doing multiple media hits a day. I was also pregnant, exhausted, and deeply affected by images of Ukraine under attack. I knew I was close to burnout, so I changed how I consumed information to protect myself. I recognized that I was a better advocate for Ukraine if I were functioning than if I were catatonic in bed.
Similarly, developing better information consumption habits is a form of democratic resistance. It means you are actively making judgements about information quality instead of passively getting sucked into a feed curated to keep you scrolling, to rot your brain, and make you catatonic and obedient. You don’t need to be an expert on the information environment to be more deliberate about which information you consume, how you consume it, or why.
Be cognizant of whether you’re consuming the information passively or deliberately. Did you seek this information out, or has it been algorithmically served to you? If the latter, consider why it might have ended up in your feed. Who benefits from your engagement?
Watch with the sound off as a default. Particularly when we are viewing videos of atrocities or violence, sound can increase the likelihood of experiencing vicarious trauma.
Be patient. Recognize that verified information takes time to confirm. While both media outlets and influencers are incentivized to be the first to post or comment on breaking news, they’re often working with few verified facts. Be cautious in the early hours after a breaking news event.
Curate a list of trusted sources rather than doomscroll. While you may want to follow every update as it happens, you’re more likely to be sucked into a neverending engagement loop when you do. My solution is to keep a small, curated list of trusted sources I consult when news breaks on certain topics. It might include mainstream news outlets, reporters, outside experts, and in some cases, even influencers. If it’s a topic I don’t have a stable of go-to sources lined up for, I check out coverage from PBS, NPR, the BBC, or wire services like AP or Reuters. They’re not perfect, but they’re not owned by billionaires or incentivized to post hot takes. Wait for them to digest, analyze, and confirm before engaging.
Set a timer for engagement, take breaks, and touch grass. When you need to scratch the scrolling itch, set a timer. I often find myself mindlessly scrolling Instagram in bed, but I know I feel much better when I read fiction before sleeping. I give myself a few mindless minutes and then switch to my book before lights out. You can try to break your own doomscrolling patterns the same way. Spending time in nature (as Gen Z calls it, “touching grass”) is a great way to reset your nervous system.
There might be guilt that comes with setting these boundaries. I’ve struggled with it, too. You are (probably) not currently being bombed by a major military power, but you don’t need to make yourself suffer to prove you care deeply about the people who are. You’re more of an asset to democracy when you’re informed, engaged, and energized—all characteristics that are under threat in today’s information ecosystem. 🧭
Have a follow up? …or an uncle falling victim to online conspiracies? Submit a question to my monthly disinformation and digital harms advice column here!
One option: donate to MSF, Doctors Without Borders. They will send a quarterly paper “Alert” with enough bearing witness to last you until the next one. The Winter 2025 has a nice essay about MSF’s commitment to “temoignage” (excuse my French) or “bearing witness”, on the ground, where it is happening. As an NGO with responsible governance and commitment to moral purpose, and a presence on the ground, they are for me a trusted source of “ground truth” about conflicts with contested narratives. And notably Gaza. And it helps to help them help real people on the ground. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Keep saying this. Too many people don't realize that the "news" they read has been manipulated and not just reported. And the manipulators want it that way. You were an exceptional young voice alerting people to disinformation. A hard thing to do in a culture that has encouraged sensationalism for too long. Keep up the good work.