The Not News

There is nothing new about this critique. In fact, it’s worn out, but wow, the news is just terrible these days. And, as bad as the news is, the audience is worse.

I suppose this is a bit of a chicken and egg dilemma but someone is driving the quality of content into the ground. Furthermore, the news items that don’t matter, that frankly shouldn’t be news items, are being given incredible prominence.

It’s possible news organizations and rags started this trend, but unfortunately, I think audiences are driving content these days. Online tracking of most viewed articles is surely a great tool to increase revenue but it’s just killing the quality of news sources. Newspapers are giving the people what they want and what they want is crap. There really is no debate; the decline into global idiocracy is well underway.

Case and point, my CNN news feed on my igoogle page and The Times of India’s list of most popular stories.

This morning CNN’s top stories were: “Blackout brings Giants-Cowboys game to brief halt,” “Iran developing long-range radar, upgraded missile defense,” and “Haiti cholera death toll passes 900.”


Holy smokes, a brief blackout during a football game makes the top three list, much less beats out the staggering news of a cholera epidemic in Haiti! Infuriating. Absolutely infuriating.

Now, the top stories from The Times of India. I’m not even going to bother typing the titles out. I’m too busy knocking over chairs and shaking my head. Just look for yourself.

The Paper Route

Waking up at 5:45 in the morning to go the gym is a terrible idea. That said, I’m doing it. I have found these early mornings bearable – in large part – because of the walk there. Shaking off the stiffness of sleep in the cool and relatively clear, morning air, when most of Bangalore hasn’t yet woken up, is remarkably refreshing.

When I step out, the streets nearest to the apartment are almost completely deserted except for the neighborhood’s exceptionally faithful Muslims who have already prayed at the Mosque. They tend to wear all white, don prayer caps and have red, hennaed beards. Of that group, a select few also wear Kohl, which seems to be devotional black eyeliner. If I have taken a keen interest in their garb, I can only imagine what they think of my t-shirts, white tennis shorts, black mid-calf socks and white Adidas running shoes.

Once onto Brigade Road and past the Johnson Market, the sidewalks are generally clear except for a few sleeping beggars and stray dogs. While I had walked Brigade Road dozens of times before I started my early morning trips to the gym, I didn’t actually “see” the street until the chaos of the day’s traffic was pealed away.

Even though I’m half asleep, I find myself chuckling at wonderfully Indian signs, Jerry-rigged patches of sidewalk (usually precariously placed granite slabs covering holes) and almost unimaginable tangles of wires. Or, I shake my head in disbelief as a single rickshaw will speed by, driver honking his horn at no one but simply out of habit.

My favorite part of the walk comes just a few blocks before the gym. Outside of a Times of India newsstand, paper boys and paper men work furiously to stack and tie bundles of the day’s paper for delivery (everything in India seems to happen a little later). Perhaps it’s because I can’t see a newspaper without thinking of my father, but this moment always stops me in my tracks. It has been repeated in hundreds of thousands of villages, towns and cities the world over, every day, for time immemorial. Some things should never change.