Just to prove that there are no issues so complex that they can’t be reduced to factoids Time Magazine produces 50 ‘Top 10’ lists, covering everything from ‘Top 10 Medical Breakthroughs’ and ‘Top 10 News Stories’ to ‘Top 10 Fleeting Celebrities’ and ‘Top 10 Fashion Faux Pas’.
Interesting browsing to see everything reduced to its reducible minimum, regardless of importance and everything else elevated to world news, regardless of its mundanity (which I wasn’t even certain was a word before I looked it up).
Not to be outdone, Newsweek provides 26 ‘Top 10’ lists of its own. This is a part of its 20/10 – The Decade In Rewind retrospective. Yep, each list is supposed to cover the last ten years. Again, the listings seem a little quirky, but are very focussed on the USA. The ‘Most Important Dates’ includes the December 26 Indian Ocean Tsunami as the only non-US event. The ‘New Thought Leaders’ does not seem to include anyone from outside the US. The ‘Cultural Moments’ list will probably make you break down and weep. Apparently this is some peculiar definition of ‘culture’ that is taking root.
This is how the (US) news media sees its country and the rest of the world, folks.
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