Here’s what I’m talking about today.
1. Jesper Jenset: I came across this artist on Soundcloud and I just assumed that everyone knew who he was. (Apparently not!)
His name is Jesper Jenset, he’s from Norway, and this song is straight 🔥🔥🔥
Here’s what I’m talking about today.
1. Jesper Jenset: I came across this artist on Soundcloud and I just assumed that everyone knew who he was. (Apparently not!)
His name is Jesper Jenset, he’s from Norway, and this song is straight 🔥🔥🔥
By afternoon, the pictures come – first of plane parts, then bodies.
Next, links to graphic Russian news streams, airing passports of children and AIDS researchers.
The news stream is also dotted with memorial posts to some actress I’ve never heard of.
Then come the flares of Israelis entering Gaza, and a White House lockdown due a suspicious package.
My favorite German tabloids quickly switch from soccer coverage to assigning blame. More gory pictures follow.
German Tabloid blaming the Russians for the MH17 crash.
It’s also a huge waste of time. I should have ignored the news and just gone to a horror movie during lunch – it would have accomplished the same thing.
Tim Ferris describes going on a “news diet” in one of his books. Ferris boosts his productivity and stays focused by skimming daily headlines instead of getting lost in stories.
The rationale for this news diet is that “news” – especially international news – is just a form of entertainment for most of us.
In this sense “entertainment” is akin to watching a horror film, documentary, or particularly lurid reality show.
Americans typically pay attention to international stories when there’s an element of tragedy or sensationalism. It’s a form of morbid entertainment.
Sure, it is more socially acceptable to be preoccupied with a foreign tragedy than the legal problems of a Bravo Housewife, but these events are equally irrelevant to the lives of most Americans.
I followed play-by-play coverage of the Crimea invasion from my computer screen. I also read endless coverage about suicide bombings in distant lands, drug cartel murders, substandard labor conditions, tax fraud, poor Emmy dresses, and celebrity meltdowns.
No article, picture, graphic live stream, or amount of “informed outrage” on my part is going to change the course of these events or have a meaningful impact on my life.
It’s a form of work day distraction.
It’s entertainment.
I’m acutely aware that I’m “goofing off” when I’m on TMZ or Buzzfeed during the day. Maybe it’s time for me to start considering trolling Reuters, BBC and Politico as the same type of behavior.
One of the great things about Twitter is that you can watch news stories break in real time. Simply create a “list column” of reporters in Tweetdeck and you’ll see a steady stream of retweeted photos and links.
Twitter is how I watched the Boston Marathon attacks unfold.
The problem is that vast majority of these Twitter reporters aren’t on-scene. Breaking events are an echo-chamber of unverified sources, theft, rumor, and doctored images.
Sifting through the crap is a highly entertaining exercise, but I don’t really gain any more information than I receive during the 5 p.m. MPR News recap on the way home from work. It’s just an educated way of goofing off, and probably something I should stop.
Last week I was at the Starbucks in downtown South Miami, reading on the second floor balcony, when I heard a helicopter. I briefly looked up at the chopper which hovered behind the mall across the street. Hm. Okay.
I looked up again when I heard the second chopper.
I put my book down when I heard the third chopper circling the mall.
All of us on the Starbucks balcony had a collective “wtf” moment and then got on our phones.
I called the dorm front desk then another RA. No one knew anything.
When I got back to the dorms later that evening I searched the local news websites.
Nothing.
I finally called the Coral Gables police, asked to be transferred to the records department, and then asked the elderly lady who came on the line to look up what the choppers were used for by US-1 and Red Road.
Yes it was that serious. 3 choppers warrant a news report.
Turns out the freaking bank across the street was robbed. “It looks like a stick the tell up and run job” the lady told me.
I was annoyed that 1) there are still old-wild-west style bank robberies in the middle of the day, and 2) that no one bothered to cover it.
After a little more searching I realized why: Bank robberies are freaking common in Miami. Four banks were held up by The Big Boy Bandit this year, there was a bizarre “I have a bomb” robbery in Miami Beach, and a rash of robberies up in Hallandale Beach.
What the hey? I’m curious why the tellers aren’t behind bullet proof glass, or, even better, why they aren’t armed.