How often do you read the
paper or watch the news on TV? How important is it for you to keep up with
current events?
I don’t often get to read the
newspaper or follow the news on TV. The main reason would be the unavailability
of these two media at the university campus where I stay at 5 days a week. And
when I am at home for the weekends, at the most I would probably browse through
the papers until an interesting headline catches my eye. When my younger sister
was smaller, the TV was always set to play the news during dinnertime, and I
would let the voice of the newscaster wash over me as I eat (our TV is set
close by to the dining table). However, at her current age of 10, she has the
say over what is shown on TV as we eat (and most of the time it would be set to
cartoons—marathon runs of Spongebob anyone?)
The other reason is that for
most of the time, I am not really interested in keeping up-to-date with news,
especially since most of what I’ve seen involve politics, mindless
entertainment, war, scandals, politics, and more politics. The “debate” (though
it honestly strikes to me as kids’ tug-of-war) in politics irks me terribly as
I am not the type to be very politically moved. If it does not affect me
directly, I am more of the type to roll with the punches rather than debate my
views on an issue. The US Presidential Election? My reaction most of the time
would be just to shrug nonchalantly.
I understand that the outcome
of politics may very well change my lifestyle. However, I refuse to sit and give
hours of my week to pay attention to various sides arguing about who is right
and who is blackmailing and slandering the society. I am not interested in the
fluff in between, what I am interested
in is the conclusion. Barack Obama won the election? That’s good to know, but no, I don’t need the details of the catfight, thanks. As long as he doesn’t aim
a bomb to my country, I’m neutral with anything really.
The only type of news that I
try to be updated on when possible are pieces about health, murder, robberies
or any other violent acts. Facts published on the news about these issues very
rarely have a reason to be fabricated or written biasedly. I find it (in a
morbid sort of way) interesting to read an article explaining the murder of a
shopkeeper, for example. I would want to know the details, such as when or why
it took place, and what was the murderer thinking as he took a life (as opposed
to listening to sugared twisted words of politicians. Not to say that all of them do so, but with so many opposing "facts" of who said what, I'd rather just not listen at all).
Nowadays my news source tend
to be whatever online articles I come across. I find myself often going to
Yahoo! to browse through the newsfeed roll they have, though most of them are
still either mindless entertainment/scandals (oh my god, they divorced! Yeah, I
really don’t care) and politicians. My friends are a good source of news as
well, as they are able to filter out unnecessary drama relating to a particular
issue and just tell me the important parts.
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