trition and workout. When you feel disrespected [by
a newscaster], your blood pressure goes up. It’s not
healthy for you.” Some 500 to 600 irate members
called in to complain about the move, but Akradi,
with help from his vice president of corporate com-
munications, contacted each customer. Today it’s a
nonissue. The Life Time screens in clubs are tuned
to Bloomberg or CNBC, which cover financial news,
or the Discovery Channel. Members who want to
watch Fox’s Sean Hannity or MSNBC’s Rachel Mad-
dow can do so on their personal devices, via Wi-Fi,
or on machines with individual screens, says Akradi.
Other businesses have followed in Akradi’s foot-
steps. About 10 days after the Life Time announce-
ment, Steamship Authority, a Massachusetts ferry
line that connects Martha’s Vineyard, Cape Cod and
Nantucket, banned cable news networks from its ves-
sels and terminals, citing complaints from passengers.
More recently, in April 2019,
Army & Air Force Exchange
Service, a retailer that operates
convenience stores and food
courts on military bases in more
than 30 countries, emailed loca-
tions recommending that they
steer away from news and tune
in to sports. “As a federal entity,
we remain neutral on political
issues. News channels should
not be shown on common area
TVs due to their divisive politi-
cal nature,” the note read. In a follow-up email, Army
& Air Force removed references to news and politics
but stuck to its message that sports were OK. (CNN
did not return emails requesting comment for this
story; MSNBC and Fox News declined to comment.)
tHere Have been other periods in U.S. history
when news events and the media’s coverage of them
were sources of stress. The 1960s, for example, were
a famously turbulent decade. In addition to political
assassinations, the war in Vietnam and racial unrest,
young people defied the establishment, protesting
the war and marching against inequities. At the time,
the Fairness Doctrine—a Federal Communications
Commission requirement that broadcasters provide
both sides of a controversial argument—was still in
effect and on-air personalities strove to give both
the government and protesters a say. For the most
part, viewers accepted the point of view of network
news anchors such as Walter Cronkite (known as
“the most trusted man in America”), David Brinkley
and Chet Huntley.
But public perceptions of news coverage changed
in 1968 during the Democratic National Convention
in Chicago, when Mayor Richard Daley sent national
guardsmen and police to violently break up protests
outside the convention center. CBS, NBC and ABC
covered the events as they unspooled, prompting anx-
ious objections from the public. Telegrams arrived
throughout the night, attacking the networks for how
they covered the violence, according to media-s tudies
scholar Heather Hendershot. Among other things,
they were criticized for calling protesters “young
people” and “protesters” instead of “terrorists” and
for not showing that the protesters deserved to be at-
tacked. At the time, “[CBS Evening News] somehow
accepted that something had gone wrong in Chicago
and that the problem was the news
media, which is bizarre,” writes
Hendershot. “I can’t explain it.”
Surprisingly, stress overall
in the U.S. has actually declined
since 2007, according to APA
data. That’s the year the organi-
zation began asking participants
in its “Stress in America” survey
to rate the stress levels they expe-
rience compared with what they
think healthy stress levels should
be. (The topics that give people
the most anxiety typically are some configuration of
money, work, health and, more recently, the nation’s
future.) In 2007, respondents reported stress levels
hovering around 6.2 out of a possible 10 (10 being
the most stressed), a number that has ticked down
over the years, hitting 4.9 in 2018.
The exception to the trend, though, is notable.
In November 2016, following the presidential elec-
tion, stress levels jumped from 4.8 to 5.1, what Wright
of the APA characterizes as “statistically meaning-
ful.” Though the levels have since returned to the
4.9 range, Wright adds that people are reporting
more symptoms. She believes people have simply
become acclimated to being stressed, calling it “the
new normal.”
Ducharme, the Connecticut psychologist, says
even she has experienced news stress. Returning
home recently after a tough afternoon with patients,
she turned on the television to unwind. She flippedThe constant
pinging of breaking-
news alerts causes
anxiety, as do
efforts to reduce or
ignore them.