Current events

I'm getting a number of questions about current events on the quiz and how to "study." It's a tough one to answer because I don't know that you can study for them. I try to come up with questions that you would be able to answer if you have been reading a newspaper, checking out a news Web site and watching or listening to a broadcast news show every day. My daily mix usually includes a full run through the New York Times and Wisconsin State Journal in print and the Washington Post online. I browse the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Chicago Tribune online, as well as checking out headlines on Google news, Yahoo news and CNN Interactive. I watch about a half hour of CNN during the day. I receive breaking news updates via e-mail from the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN and Fox News. I also read at least one magazine story a day from Newsweek, TIME, the New Yorker, Madison Magazine, Harper's, Atlantic, Sports Illustrated, Slate or Salon. Finally, I subscribe to e-mail newsletters in areas of interest to me (media ethics, marketing, tech news, etc.) and Google news alerts for specific topics and people I should be updated on, such as prominent alumni of the J-School.
How, you ask, does she have time to write those scintillating J202 lectures??? ;)
My media diet benefits from a big buffet, but I'm never eating everything on it. I suffer from abiding "New Yorker guilt" because I have not made it fully through that magazine in four years though it arrives right on my doorstep. I once insulted a prominent editor by telling him if he wanted me to read his paper in full every day, he was going to have to put better stuff in it. And I've been known to say, "I don't read the news. I raid it."
What I'm trying to do with daily consumption is give myself a minimum base of information on what's going on in my city, state, nation and world. I'm never "fully informed," and I doubt you can be either. I know a heck of a lot about Iraq (I think it's the story of this age), but I'm undercovered when it comes to developments in science. I love law, so I know a ton about crime and courts each week, but I don't pay all that much attention to celebrity news (just enough to make cheeky comments in class about Britney Spears on the VMAs).
Your diet will differ from mine. To keep us standing before the same buffet, each week I'll post some "what I'm seeing in the news" items on this blog. You should reply with comments about what you're reading. And then if we all update ourselves on what's being noted, quiz scores will go up (oh, and you'll be better informed ... which is why I have the silly quizzes in the first place!)