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1-Page Summary of The News
Overview
Not long ago, people would gather around the radio or TV to listen to the news. The news was delivered by a man like Walter Cronkite who told stories from around the world and into our homes. Nearly everyone tuned in.
However, that is not the case today.
The news has lost its importance in people’s lives. It doesn’t seem to be as important as it used to be, but how can we bring back the importance of news? Let’s find out.
In this essay, you will learn the following:
Why we get bored with news;
How to be empathetic towards tragic figures and criminals in the media;
How news reinforces what we already believe about a topic or event rather than informing us of something new.
The importance of context in journalism and how it impacts readers’ perceptions of events, people, etc.;
Big Idea #1: Political news headlines don’t engage readers because they fail to provide context.
Many people have the same problem with reading newspapers. They try to read them from front to back, but they don’t make it through all of them because they get bored and distracted. But you’re not alone in this problem, so don’t worry about it.
Many people today feel that they don’t have any control over what’s happening in politics. They are also confused about the political issues going on and how it affects them directly.
In 2013, the British Broadcasting Corporation ran a headline stating that tenants who had been paid directly for their housing instead of landlords were not able to pay rent. This was interesting because they ended up having more trouble paying their rent than before this policy was enacted.
This article is not very good. The headline makes it sound like a boring topic, and the article doesn’t even try to explain why the issue is important in social terms.
When communicating serious issues, they should be presented in a broader context. If only given part of the story, people will not understand or care about it. You can’t expect someone to read a paragraph from a masterpiece without any background and then appreciate why it’s so great.
In the novel Anna Karenina, there’s a description of a man sitting in the waiting room of his lawyer’s office. It seems like an insignificant detail until you realize that he’s there to ask for a divorce because his wife has fallen in love with someone else and society will shun her if they get divorced.
The news could take a tip from novels. The way to engage readers is by giving them context and telling them how the story fits into the grand scheme of things.
Big Idea #2: World news is badly presented and fails to bring attention to the universal values of its stories.
It’s interesting that people can spend hours watching a fictional drama, yet if they watch the news, they get bored.
People are not interested in news because it doesn’t affect them. They only care about what’s happening to them right now. However, this is a simplistic view of things. For example, let’s say you’re talking to a friend and tell him about the Italian government from ten years ago (when they had problems with their budget). You explain how old alliances between politicians broke up and new ones formed.
Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar has fascinated people for centuries. It continues to captivate people because it touches on universal values that everyone can relate to, such as politics and death. News stories tend to focus on trivial matters that are less interesting than the universal elements of a story like Shakespeare’s play.
Julius Caesar does contain various conflicts, such as the war between Caesar and Pompey. It also includes lengthy discussions about how to overthrow the emperor.
