News By Linda Stowe
I have followed the news all my life, not only because I want to know what’s going on but because I love to read and there are some great journalists out there. Over time I have changed the sources I followed, sometimes because my tastes changed, sometimes because their content changed. Of course, all my news consumption is now online rather than in print and it comes from varied sources. While I enjoy all the options available and still perk up when I hear of the debut of a new source, I can feel a deflation of my enthusiasm about journalism in general. Too often the stories are little more than clickbait. And often when there is some depth, it’s not new. It’s just a rehash of what we already know with headlines aimed at emotions rather than intellect.
Metaphorically I think of that line in the Coleridge poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”: ‘Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink.’ So much news, so little information.
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Polly here.
I couldn’t agree more.
‘Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink.’
We are inundated with news stories. And, as Linda said, so much of the time it is nothing new.
I’ve always loved reading the news, ever since I was a little kid and could read. I would spread the newspaper out on the living room floor, lie on my belly, and read through all my favorite parts of the Dayton Journal Herald. Every day, the stories were new. Every one of them.
Back then, it was quality over quantity. But as I recall, there were plenty of stories each and every day.
Today, we get quantity and more quantity. I wish it were the other way around.
