I have only recently started reading my news online. There is an abundance of newspapers on campus, so even working at the Evergreen, instead of surfing the internets for my news I would just walk to a nearby building and grab a paper. In part it may be that I hoped my resistance to internet news would somehow save the print industry.
But because all my efforts to resist advances in technology have proved fruitless, and because internet news is nothing if not convenient, I have started reading the news on my computer before I leave for class in the morning. One of the problems I have discovered, however, is that there’s no way to fool myself. I can’t pretend to be an intellectual who forgoes reading entertainment news and instead keeps up to date on real, actually important issues. I have to consciously pick the links I want to read, making what news I am interested in undeniable. It’s not like reading the paper where you glance at every page and can pretend to be interested in the third health care reform story from that day’s paper.
Still, being forced to admit to what I actually want to read and what I don’t care to hasn’t bothered me too much until today. The darn New York Times just had to have the link Baby Mongooses!. Nevermind world and U.S. news, there were baby animals. I tried to resist and continued reading about Gabon, China and North Korea, but then I gave in. I included Baby Mongooses in my precious amount of news reading time this morning. Completely worth it, but I am slightly ashamed and worried that some day this interest in not real news will lead me to USA Today.
1 Comment
September 5, 2009 at 5:26 pm
once you get started on gawker, jezebel and serious eats, you’re effed on knowing about pakistan