I never watch any form of broadcast news, and I typically don't read mainstream news websites either. Once in a while though something pops up and I end up on a news website reading something I probably didn't know about. It's almost always something I could (should?) have skipped.
About 3 or 4 months ago there was that big bridge collapse, don't remember where exactly, maybe Minnesota? Clearly it didn't leave much of an impression, I don't even know the state let alone the city or any specific details. Anyway, I had no idea it had happened, literally knew nothing about it. That day I was at lunch with some co-workers and they were talking about it. Completely lost, I had to ask for clarification and their reaction of pure shock was quite amusing. The three of them were genuinely stunned that I knew nothing about the bridge collapse. How could this be? We have computers to keep us informed of every little thing! Who doesn't know about the bridge collapse?!, they seemed to say.
But if you think about it, aside from being on the news why else would I know or care about a bridge collapse?
I'm much more interested in reading about the continuing conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea, and how many tens of thousands of people have died fighting on both sides. Or maybe that the French President is all chummy with Qaddafi and doing multi-billion dollar business deal selling planes and other stuff to the Libyan goverment. If a bridge collapsed in Libya and CNN wasn't there to tell you about it, would you care?
After my wife sent me an article about the tiger that just ate a guy in San Francisco, I went to CNN.com and took this screenshot of the current front page. I added emphasis to show the general theme.
