What Is News?

(Source)

As opposed to "What's new?"

I like to stay abreast of what's happening in the world around me, locally and globally. The former because there may be something which impacts me directly, such as -

Main thoroughfare through downtown to be closed for construction on Monday.

This impacts me because I might need to take an alternate route if that's a road I use. (Where I live there are two main thoroughfares through town. Just two, I live on a peninsula.)

What if the weather is going to be bad? In the winter that's something to pay attention to, where I live it's kind of important during the rainier times of year as well. I've seen rain so heavy that you literally couldn't see much past the hood of your car.

News of new town ordinances and taxes (usually the two go hand in hand, the latter pays for the former) are also useful news to me.

A house fire on the other side of town? While it is news, it doesn't impact me directly. Unless I know the people who live in that neighborhood.

Now on the national and world level, there is a lot of news which doesn't effect me directly. Sometimes there's an indirect effect, like when the NORKs act up and start making threatening noises. Well, more threatening than usual. I have family in Korea, I have family (and not a few friends) onboard a certain aircraft carrier diverted from a visit to Australia back to the waters off the Korean peninsula.

So there are varying levels of news. I find most news interesting, what I don't find interesting is the opinions of people regarding the news. Especially from carefully coiffed people sitting in front of a TV camera telling me "what it all means."

While I have no problem with people expressing their opinions, it's when they take on an air of "trust me, this is the gospel truth I'm telling you" that gets my back up. Let me know that it's your opinion and I can accept that. Make me think that you know more than I and that what your selling is slanted in such a way as to make it unbelievable and not a bit unpalatable and yeah, the TV is off.

I don't watch the network news any more. There have been too many instances of them contradicting what I knew to be the facts, if not outright lying about it. I just don't trust them. They lost my trust back during the Vietnam War.

During the first Gulf War, we had CNN dialed in at my shop, it was on all day. A lot of what they reported was factual. A lot more was theatrical. Trying to sell air time, I get it, but for crying out loud don't lie to me.

I learned long ago not to rely on single source intel, unless that single source had always been accurate and reliable in the past. Multiple sources. I read a lot of stuff on the 'net, some of it seems credible, some of it seems nonsense. Those who report what appear to be the facts without pontificating as to "what it all means" get my attention.

The recent flap on that United flight springs to mind. Sure there were cell phones out and recording what was happening, but where were the cell phones at the gate? Where were the cell phones at the security desk? My point is we only saw half the story, if that much.

The news.

I take everything with a grain of salt these days. You have to.