I will not engage with my usual effort to avoid naming certain events with the thought that they have garnered enough attention and do not need my own. Instead, I wish to name and shame the royal wedding in the UK this weekend and how certain news outlets dealt with the event. Throughout this post I do not wish to dampen the joy and fun that people gained from the event. If UK citizens wish to celebrate this wedding they are within their full rights to do so and it is always a good thing to see a country unified in joy.
It is not, however, acceptable for this particular news story to absolutely block out the rest of the world. One site in particular caused me a great deal of frustration. This site frequently live blogs on certain events. I have often left their live blog on middle eastern politics open in the last few weeks as it is both informative and updated frequently. On Friday, however, there was a blog devoted to everything that was not royal wedding related. I skimmed through this blog and found entries on Libya, riots in Bristol and other big events happening throughout the world. It was, in short, a blog of the news.
When did the news become the secondary factor of a news website?! The media itself has been quick to point out that this wedding was a massive reality television show on a huge stage. Yet surely with this self-awareness, these outlets need to consciously address the balance when relating news. If people wish to submerge themselves in royal wedding 'news' for the whole day then a royal wedding live blog would have been a brilliant way to do it and would have allowed people nonplussed by the whole affair to equally, avoid it.
Allowing oneself respite from the harrowing events of the world is understandable but that should not lead to a wider ignorance of the world.
-The English Student
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