I endorse this approach. Ever since high school (so for about 12 years), I have deliberately stayed ignorant of all politics local to my country and of local news. I absolutely never watch or read the news, and I rarely find myself discussing these topics with my friends.
News and politics are designed to generate outrage and promote anti-rationalism and epistemic dark arts. They also strongly select for bad and depressing news, and for non-representative surprising incidents. On the other hand, the value from my knowing about the news is very small (e.g. in terms of changing my behavior).
I suggested recently that part of the problem with with LW was a lock of discussion posts which was caused by people not thinking of much to post about.
When I ask myself "what might be a good topic for a post?", my mind goes blank, but surely not everything that's worth saying that's related to rationality has been said.
So, is there something at the back of your mind which might be interesting? A topic which got some discussion in an open thread that could be worth pursuing?
If you've found anything which helps you generate useable ideas, please comment about it-- or possibly write a post on the subject.