COLUMN: The world behind the front page
Over the last few months I’ve developed the habit of scanning the news each night before I go to bed. In doing so, I’ve learned a few things about both the world and myself.
First, the world is full of sick people whose minds have become so twisted and diseased that our only solution is to lock them up – forever. I’m talking about the media, of course, but this article is not about them.
Second, I shouldn’t read the news right before bedtime. Each new story of violence and depravity is another hole in the lining of my stomach. Recently, I’ve discovered a fifth food group, the antacid.
I’ve also discovered something else – there’s more going on in the world besides the things you read in the headlines. The real news, the pulse of the world, is not found on the sensation happy, above the crease, full color front page. It’s found in the pages following. It comes in the short picture-free text that’s wedged into nooks and crannies beneath the stock reports and around the underwear ads.
Take for instance the story about the schoolteacher from Canberra, Australia, who was recently banned from teaching. Her crime? Revealing to a class of 6-year-olds that Santa Claus isn’t real. Now this is scandal. Seriously. Can you imagine being 6 and having an authority figure tell you one of the most important people in your life is a lie?
In more Santa related news, for the first time in Internet history, the word “porn” has been bumped from its No. 1 spot in Danish search engines. What subject could be so important that it has usurped sex as the predominant thought on Web surfers’ minds? You guessed it, Santa. Let this be a lesson to our blabby friend in Australia. When something in Holland takes a front seat to sex, it’s just got to be real.
And finally, we turn to Tampa, Fla., where David Flood is suing to overturn recent legislation that bans the time-honored tradition of dwarf tossing. Dwarf tossing is a sport normally pursued in bars by drunken men who pick up dwarves (or little people) and fling them across the room onto mattresses. The ironic thing about Dave’s objection to the ban is that he is a dwarf. Dave, who also goes by the handle “Dave the Dwarf,” contends the legislation is unconstitutional and the government has no right to decide who should be flinging whom across the room.
I offer these tidbits of news as an alternative to the headlines and as a reminder that the news is not happening on the front page. Reading about the things that didn’t make the headlines can be much more interesting. Stories about Santa and dwarf tossing give us an insight into the real state of the world. The front page is just window dressing – a sales pitch designed to sell papers, or in the case of The Statesman, get people to take one out of the box and read it.
So if you ever tire of the Taliban, anthrax or the latest on President Kermit L. Hall, I encourage you to buy (or steal) your next newspaper, tear off the front page and immerse yourself in the rest of it. You just might discover the real world.