It's amazing to me, since I'm still working (though only part-time) at a newspaper, just how little I know about current news.
My old job, and most of my jobs before that, included doing a little bit of everything that an editor does at a newspaper. Through the job I was able to keep with local, national and international news even if I didn't particularly want to. I was always reading stories, writing headlines, laying out pages, etc. etc.
But my new job is not like that. I have a much more limited job as far as the tasks I am expected to perform. I'm a page designer. I no longer write headlines. I don't edit stories. Heck, I don't even have to READ the friggin' stories. I just have to get the stories and photos on a page and make sure the page looks good. I don't even have to decide where stories and images are placed on a page, let alone deciding for the whole newspaper.
So, my new job isn't about keeping up with the news.
Oh, if I wanted I could still scroll through the wire every day and keep up on events, but honestly ... I've found I don't care. I feel I'm constantly bombarded with news anyway, from TV to radio to the Internet to late-night talk shows. And most of that news isn't all that important.
So, after being a news junkie most of my life, I've kicked the habit. Maybe that's a bad thing to say, especially considering the state of the world, but in a lot of ways I feel liberated.
1 comment:
I neither watch the news nor read the front page of the newspaper nor read magazines outside of WWII history or the genres within which I try to write.
This is from whence I receive my news: I read the sports page only for NFL news and the metro to do the crossword. I have a My Yahoo! home page where I have listed multiple headlines from several news sources but very rarely need to read more than the title and the small blurb that appears with it to know the jist of the story. I receive a daily Wall Street summary by email that's quite well produced and informative in my opinion. I get my updates - the real news - about the situation in Iraq and the war on terrorism via emailed newsletters from Sgt. Grit and www.grunt.com and a few other means of contact with active-duty people who are currently involved in these specific situations and not just sitting here in the States in air conditioned or heated offices with their feet up writing smack because they can.
And that's the extent of my news intake. I work in a position that every day allows me to hear about all the crap that takes place, first in this city, and second in people's lives. I don't wanna hear no more. So I rebelled against media overload and overwhelmingly bad, biased, and bald-face-lying news-mongers long ago!
Amen! Whew! Thanks for the chance to rant. ;)
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