Writing Prompt #66
Feed Your Head:
I have an Unbalanced Diet
I feed my body well, but I often find myself consuming mental and emotional fast food, highly processed by the global news machine. With the current election news cycle serving up addictive headlines every day, I’m realizing it’s time to put on the brakes. However, I’m facing the prospect of curbing a lifelong habit.
I have been a news junkie since I learned to read. The first news story I remember was about Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. As a 7-year-old, I had no understanding of what they’d done or why they were being executed. I only knew that they had little boys. What was going to happen to the children? And could the government come in and arrest my parents?
My parents did their best to explain, and — I think to their credit — they didn’t prevent me from reading the news or from watching it when we got our first TV. I was a kid who wanted to understand how the world worked, and I haven’t changed.
Here, there, and everywhere
I’m not sure whether the news has gotten any worse since I was a child, but its volume and scope have increased, and bad news is available from everywhere in the world.
The motto of the news world is “If it bleeds, it leads.” And there’s a lot of bleeding. Some news…
