In the News

I try to stay on top of things happening in the world by reading online newspapers each chance I get. I prefer this method as news items are updated almost instantly and most times the news items are current. I can remember growing up when Grandma would make it a point of her day to listen to the news on the radio at 6 (or was it 7 pm) on what was then RJR or JBC. Or sometimes she would watch the news on the television. She couldn’t turn it on but she would call someone to turn it on for her so she would watch the news.

Fast forward to today and I stay in touch with the news via the internet. I am not sure why Grandma was so hooked on the news but personally I find it depressing. I read a variety of online newspapers and news websites, from the local Sun-Sentinel here in Florida, to the Jamaica Observer, to CNN. Most times the news items are so ghastly that I wonder why is it that I read knowing that there is either going to be some gruesome report of crime or some real tear jerking tragedy. For example here are some news items that I found today Thursday September 27, 2007.

Palm Beach Post: Baby stabbed to death by Great-uncle

Palm Beach Post: Child struck by hit and run driver

Sun Sentinel: Boat crew missing, hijacking/piracy

Sun-Sentinel: Man shot in head in Riviera Beach

Jamaica Observer: Four die in car crash

Jamaica Gleaner: Student stabbed for cell phone

CNN: Security forces open fire in Myanmar

CNN: Angry father questions police over son’s death

Those are lead stories from some of the news sources that I read today. Depressing? Certainly. But interestingly I have come to expect these things reading the news nowadays. I would like to think that I am not becoming insensitive to these happenings that take place in my back yard, in my homeland Jamaica, within the US or half way across the world to some country I would probably never even visit if the trip was free.

(The Observer story above is similar to another story where 6 people were killed days earlier again in a car crash. See story here. )

With these stories now common place, I wonder if Grandma would still listen religiously to the news today as she did back in the day. I will still read the news because she taught me a long time ago that it pays to be aware of what is happening around me and around the world.

Not sure how it pays but I will still heed her advice. No matter how painful it is.