From time to time I like to scan Cnn.com to see what is going on in this wonderful world of ours. Remarkably, when I checked under U.S. News, I found my new favorite article headline of all time: "Ohio man seeks trial over getting DUI on motorized barstool."
This man decided it was a brilliant idea to attach a barstool to a lawnmower engine, and after downing around fifteen beers, took it for a spin around his neighborhood. After reaching speeds of around 40 mph, he apparently had a fairly rough crash and the police had to come to the rescue. By the end of the day, the guy got arrested and ended up with a DUI.
Now, I can speak for a lot of people when I say that this story is pretty funny. Almost immediately after I finished reading this story, I began to wonder why this guy even made his little invention in the first place. Was it so he could drive to a bar, have a drink, and then drive home without even getting up? Or was he simply tinkering in his garage when he noticed that he just happened to have an extra bar stool lying around?
Yet those points aside, how did this story ever reach CNN? People around the world will be able to log into this website, and hear about a guy from Ohio who drank one to many beers and decided to take his bar stool for a ride. There is nothing wrong with reporting on something entertaining for the sake of a good chuckle, but when this story rates as number three on today’s “stories most e-mailed”, you have to wonder what kind of news people are actually looking for. Sure people might get bummed out when they hear about a helicopter crash, or that North Korea is working on sending missiles into space, but isn’t that news a bit more pertinent?
I hate to talk about our neighbors on the other side of the pond, but the BBC has got articles on the current situation Hugo Chavez, on the new Israeli prime minister, and on top of that they’ve got the latest cricket scores as well. While cricket is not very high on the list of things that rev my engine, I believe the Brits do the news better. They leave the drama and the gossip for the tabloids, and deliver genuine news stories. Being that we as a nation are not very popular, I feel we should start paying attention to what is going on in the world, and by doing this maybe we can change a our global image.
-Stefan Slater
2009-04-07
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2 comments:
I totally agree with you, and this is why I don't just watch the news, I use news gathering websites and determines what's important to read. However, I found while living in Europe that the BBC or international CNN did a fabulous job of only reporting important news, therefore I didn't have to filter out stories like this.
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