I guess it helps if you NEVER watch this stuff. I can honestly say, I have NEVER watched TV news on any kind of regular basis. When I was a kid, at 6pm, when my parents watched the "news", I took a break from TV, instinctively. I would never watch it.
I have never watched any nightly newscast. I've only rarely watched any TV news source at all, and it had to be some extremely special circumstance that made me take the time to watch it, even then. I watched minimal TV coverage of 9/11, of Desert Storm, of ANYTHING. I have watched a few election results come through on CNN in the last 20 years.
I went without commercial TV altogether for about 5-6 years, at two different times in my life. I had a TV and a VCR, and I watched movies.
My 83-year-old stepfather is glued to MSNBC, CNN and Fox whenever he's not working. I just don't get it. You have no control over it, and they beat dead horses all the time. It's the one thing I hate when we get together as family at holidays.