The first thing I do in the morning is turn on NPR so that Soterios Johnson on WNYC‘s Morning Edition can inform me about what’s happening in NYC and around the world while I sip my coffee and get ready for work. Each day for the past couple of years, hearing the number of people that were killed yesterday in the Middle East due to an explosion or car bomb attack, has been part of my morning routine. It shakes me to hear this every day, but as long as it is going on, it should make me uncomfortable and I want to be reminded of it and not grow complacent.
On the subway train, I read the New Yorker, not necessarily to catch up on current events, as much as to catch up on hot topics of discussion and debate — like this article on the renovation of the Greek and Roman galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Occasionally, on my lunch hour (or more accurately, my lunch-5-minutes), I scan the NY Times online, to get filled in on any of the stories I heard on the radio in the morning, or to learn what’s happened in the past couple of hours — like this article detailing climate change or this review on The Year of Magical Thinking, which I just saw on Broadway the other night.
And then at home in the evening, I check out Gothamist.com — to read about all the small-scale local news that never makes it on to NPR or the NY Times, like this piece about guerilla art on the subway, or this one about Jesus Christ walking across the Brooklyn Bridge this weekend.
All in all, I feel pretty informed, but never as informed as I wish I could be. How about you? What’s your relationship to the news? You can read what others say about this topic here.
I don’t think it’s all that healthy to be over-informed (in response to when you said you’re “never as informed as I wish I could beâ€). It sounds like you get both national, international, and local news in various forms. If you inundate yourself with too much, there’s no time to focus on the regular, day-to-day stuff. :)
I start my day with NPR also.
I love paging through a fresh newspaper.
Sunday’s are the best.
Glad I found your blog.
I would be lost without Soterios Johnson. When my husband told me he wanted to move to Pennsylvania to be closer to his family, my loudest objection was the loss of that comforting morning voice. What? WHYY? Never have it. Not going anywhere without Soterios.
……wait, something just registered. Jesus Christ walked across the Brooklyn Bridge this weekend? How did I mis [i]that??[/i]
How lucky are you to see Vanessa Redgrave in Year of Magical Thinking! Sounds like you have an interesting variety of sources for your news.
Hoping you’ll write a post about “A Year of Magical Thinking†for those of us who are about 3000 miles west of Broadway.
I guess there is such a thing as too much news. That was very interesting.
I like reading online as well. I have the book, The Year of Magical Thinking but haven’t got it read yet.