You're right, it's the wrong book for the OP. Let them be warned:
Greg Egan's Diaspora is diamond-hard scifi. If you aren't well-read in a variety of scientific concepts, aren't comfortable doing on-the-fly physics thought experiments while reading a novel, or won't be comfortable reading an extremely high vocabulary, then Greg Egan is not a good fit.
But if you can read it, the reward is great. Magnificent, alien, profound. It made me realize I don't like soft-scifi.
I no longer read the NYT, Washington Post, Fox, CNN, etc.
Reuters is my main source of financial and world news, and it's mostly for productive reasons. On Twitter I try to follow people who are knowledgeable in their domain, and I frequently get exposure to current events through them. Bonus points to follow two experts in the same domain who think differently, and see what they say about the same thing. For random political stuff, I like Snopes and factcheck.org.
Overall, I care much less about the news than I used to. There are many societal issues that interest me but I have learned that keeping up with minute to minute noise is a waste of time. I can read in-depth things that describe broad trends and useful facts, and prefer that to my old addiction to the news. It's not just to avoid getting influenced by biased stuff, but to avoid wasting time.
I block myself from all sites that Media Bias Fact Check has on any of their lists of biased sources. It has greatly improved my experience of the internet, similar to hiding YouTube comments. I'd rather waste a few seconds clicking an unreadable link, than waste a few minutes reading something I don't want to be influenced by.
Greg Egan's Diaspora is diamond-hard scifi. If you aren't well-read in a variety of scientific concepts, aren't comfortable doing on-the-fly physics thought experiments while reading a novel, or won't be comfortable reading an extremely high vocabulary, then Greg Egan is not a good fit.
But if you can read it, the reward is great. Magnificent, alien, profound. It made me realize I don't like soft-scifi.