In general I usually just disconnect from the Internet when I need to get stuff done. Phone goes in a drawer too. It's very relaxing.

Realistically, most of "news" isn't actually stuff that's happened, but just opinion and speculation. The remaining fraction will reach you if it's important.

I've also found that most of my procrastination is from not knowing what to do next and sort of hopping back and forth between things I think needs to be done, so something like GTD or just a todo.txt-file has been amazing.