News of the hour!

https://www.npr.org/2024/04/13/1244580444/sydney-shopping-center-stabbing-attack

Why is the “top story” of the NPR News of the hour that there was a “stabbing incident” in a mall in Australia where a couple people were inured and one was shot by the police?

It’s a big world. Did no one get their foot run over in India? Did no one slip in the bathing in Kenya?

It’s so bizarre that in a world of billions of people that’s the top news story. It’s like a spoof. WTF??

I wish NPR will explain. Perhaps when they won’t, my annoyance will be their news of the hour.

What is “news” about it? It’s like attention spam. My list of top 1000 things that have utility for me to spend one minute on, and are current events related or transient or of societal interest, would not include anything of such low impact unless it was a signal for a highly impactful causal relationship. If that is the case here it isn’t obvious to me and wasn’t mentioned. It barely makes sense that the local news in a big U.S. city reports a murder or a missing child or a heartwarming lost dog returning home.

There is nothing newsworthy about one mentally ill or criminal person in Australia causing a bad day for several people.

This must have happened hundreds of times today.

It isn’t newsworthy for an American news-of-the-hour audience.

Frankly, it’s worse than that. Because any plausible account of why it’s newsworthy that I can think might be on the mind of the NPR News editors seems likely to be racist, ethnocentric, and tribal.

So it’s not just that I’m baffled that anyone gives a shit. But I’m pretty sure it is a sign of something awful.