Personally I can understand the desire to not watch news/opinion but still be willing to read news/opinion. I find that my annoyance factor only goes over the top with tv news. Written articles just aren't able to trigger me the way video is. My job moved to a new office about 6 months ago and we now 1) don't have assigned cubes/offices and 2) have giant tv's on the walls all over the place tuned to CNN and MSNBC all day (with the volume turned down but closed captioning on). I can't focus on my work if any of the screens are in view so I choose my daily workspace accordingly.
I also remember reading in the months/years after 9/11 that research was showing that people who obsessively watched tv news after the attack were at a higher likelihood of exhibiting PTSD type symptoms than were people who mainly got their news from other sources. I didn't own a tv at that time so I didn't see more than little bits and pieces of tv reporting.