The best way to begin this little rant is by confessing that I’m from DC and I studied political science in college. Just to be clear: I’m from DC.
So, it is with great pride that I say that I’m a news junkie. I keep npr on all the time, I have CNN or Fox on whenever I’m near a tv, I read 4 newspapers everyday (LAT, NYT, WaPo, W$J), my home page is Google News, and I regularly check my phone to see “what’s going on in the world”. In fact, I would regularly piss off a specific lady friend in the morning when I was more interested in watching the news first rather than fool around. The one time I did choose to ignore the news was, of course, the day the US captured Saddam.
I digress. So, in the next technological step, I sign up for email news alerts from CNN, ABC and NYT. In the past week or so, thanks to my email alerts, I’ve learned that a) Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Phillipe have broken up, b) Senator Clinton doesn’t approve of Kerry’s dumb-ass remarks, and c) Madonna spoke with Oprah about an adopted child.
In the past three days, North Korea has decided to rejoin the six-party talks, Harvard scientists have discovered that substances in wine can possibly extend life, Panama gets the UN Security Council seat after 50 voting sessions, and, oh yeah, there’s apparently an ELECTION going on in the US in a couple of days.
NYT alerts are actually somewhat helpful. When the small plane crashed into a building in NYC, I knew about it 10 minutes after the event. ABC, on the other hand, told me about it a DAY after it happened. Thanks, ABC—by the way, it’s not an alert if it’s been on the news for 24 hours and it’s been printed in newspapers.
So now I get stupid emails from CNN, ABC and the like telling me that Reese Witherspoon caught Ryan Phillipe cheating on her, or the exact moment when the 300 millionth American is born (and by “exact” I mean “6 hours later”...way to stay in the game, ABC!) But the worst part is with my weird news obsession and the fact that I’d freak out if there’s a slim chance that ABC will break a story and send out something actually relevant. So I stay subscribed to ABC, CNN and NYT email alerts and wait anxiously to learn who won the 2006 World Cup.