I have something of a morbid fascination with canning. Every book or blog post you read makes it sound like a death trap, so the same way that true crime junkies listen to 911 calls or look up crime scene photos, I look up videos of outrageous canning accidents or weird things found in canning jars. I don’t do either of those things in this episode, but still…

In this episode of Was Is Could Be: The importance of canning in the industrial food movement.

In March 1974, a Japanese bookseller flew to the island of Lubang in the Philippines to order the surrender of a Japanese intelligence officer. The officer — Hiroo Onoda — was still carrying out his mission from World War II — nearly 30 years after the war’s end.

So why, 30 years later, were Japanese men still fighting in that war?

This is, actually is a story about information — how we get it, and what we choose to believe. But as I researched the topic of news history and the rapid changes we’ve experienced in the news, I think the more important question became this: is having a lot of news sources to choose from really all that bad? Could we ever go back to having less information at our fingertips? And should we? Or do we risk ending up like Hiroo Onoda - isolated in a jungle?

I talked to a news expert, a news junkie, and an expert on depression to find possible answers to these questions.