I am told that the World and Nation page is one of the most read sections in the Daily. It is also, I have heard, the main source of news on national and international events for many students.
For the final issue of the Daily, the new managing editor asked if I would write a short story on how the countless number of tragedies, discoveries, political coups, elections, natural disasters, lawsuits and humorous anecdotes from around the world get boiled down to what you read on the World and Nation page. The answer: I throw darts.
Actually, it is a little more involved than that. The stories come from the Associated Press wire service, and as the editor I select and cut and paste what I feel the University community would find interesting, important and occasionally funny.
The media has been labeled an agenda-setter. I would have to confer; that is how I see myself. Admittedly, I do have an agenda. It is to bring forward stories that let the readers know that beyond the vast and populous United States there is a world full of fascinating people doing remarkable things.
Sometimes horrible things, but as a pacifist, I like to select stories that extend beyond war, murder and death so as not to present foreign countries in a perpetually negative light.
The news should not just report events, but encourage dialogue. That is what I had in mind when I ran stories with issues related to women, racial inequalities and labor disputes.
There are lots of scientific discoveries, journeys into space, corporate takeovers and social issues that scream for attention — and the task of selecting from among them is never easy.
But diversity of country and content are my driving criteria. And even if the stories themselves didn’t interest you, maybe the geography lesson from the occasional maps did.
A small bit of biographical information: I am a Canadian. As such, I have always selected, whenever there was a story from the wire about your neighbor to the north — which was sadly not very often.
In case you blinked, there was a federal election in Canada last week, and the Liberals — a centrist political party — won by a slim majority. And for those of you who don’t know, we have a Prime Minister; his name is Jean Chretien.
I hope that through the stories that I ran, you have learned a little more about this big, communal place called Earth that we live on.
Well, with that I’ll sign off. This is my last story for the Daily before I hit the road myself to see some more of the world whose stories I choose.