News Inside-Out

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One of the more mind-twisting aspects of my job is the sensation that I am reading yesterday's headlines in today's letters.

Which, of course, leads to a completely new perspective when I read the news. I've written to people who have the out-sourced jobs. I've read pages from a boy whose father and brothers were killed on their way to school because of an African conflict. I've gotten the flurry of letters from friends and family of the high school football hero, now paralyzed. I've held in my hands a request from a man five times a murderer.

Is it any wonder that today, when I read a headline about suicide and depression in the Indian army, I read the article with panicked attention, hoping that I didn't recognize any names?

I sometimes forget that even though it may seem that I get letters from all 6 billion people on this planet, most of the people I write to will never make the six o'clock news.

Comments

caedmonstia said…
I know what you mean. I used to purposely avoid looking at the TV in other people's houses around lunchtime, because that is the time of the "Carga Pesada" show, which translates into "The Blood and Guts Murder News Hour with Insensitive Coverage and Commentating".

Well, lately I have found myself unable to divert my eyes since that is the show that covers all the women murdered by their husbands. I have met literally hundreds of battered women this year, so I have this awful grim sense that at some point I might see someone I know on Carga Pesada...
5:08 AM
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