Things in the news, thoughts about "news"

[heliopausa]

News generally - I was going to moan about standards of journalism slithering downhill - but I won't, because how depressing that'd be. Instead here's two quotes about news, and two news-stories I liked this week.

From the appallingly elitist (amongst other horrible things) Evelyn Waugh, in Scoop: .
"News is what a chap who doesn't care much about anything wants to read. And it's only news until he's read it."

From the ancient David C. Simon webcomic, Crimson Dark:
"I like watching the news; it's like a mystery series. There's so much fun to be had trying to figure out what's going on, piecing the clues together: comments taken out of context, hidden agendas, flat-out lies..."

and the stories? Well, I liked very much the news story about Tutankhamen's dagger being made of meteorite-iron.
The rock that fell burning from the heavens! Fell from the sky!! Of course it's magic metal, and of course if it could be made into a knife, it had to be for the king. Lovely!

and I liked the story about the oldest British dated document, too. Wonderful, wonderfully trivial records of day-to-day living in early Roman London. :)

(They're not exactly "news", are they? :D)