I'm with you that disengaging from the news can be a good idea and make one happier, but I strongly disagree that this is owing to journalism having gotten worse. I think that the point of journalism should be to find things that make people outraged, and while this may not be so healthy for an individual, it is healthy on a societal level. This is how scandals are dug up and the powerful held to account. The print news industry isn't inherently less scandal-oriented than digital (at least if you compare apples to apples), it just isn't as fast.

I had a similar reaction reading Aaron Swartz's post on why he hates the news[1]. I'm sure Thoreau would have had the same view of the news in his time. Sure, you are unquestionably better off and probably happier learning Japanese or PDE instead of the daily newspaper. But it still has an important function.

[1] http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews