blogger profile

Cory Bordonaro

Journalist

Cory is the editor of skirt! magazine in Birmingham. A University of Georgia grad, she moved west to Alabama in pursuit of her journalistic ambitions. Cory had aspirations of working in magazines from a young age. Her first title, Cory's Story, printed on college-rule (using Crayola), was published...

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In Other News

Cory

My name is Cory Bordonaro and I have a problem. I am a celebrity news junkie.

In attempt to become a more informed citizen, I’ve added  several newsy website subscriptions to my google reader. Apart from the impending elections, I know that an inescapable part of growing up requires knowing what the H is going on in this city, country and world.

Why is it, however, that I’m magnetized towards the fluff story headlines? As I scroll through the headlines, nine times out of ten, I’m more likely to click on and read an entire story about a celebrity than I am about Obama’s overseas visit.

But, I’m a recovering fluff-o-holic. I’m in therapy. As part of my “decrease ignorance” campaign, I’ve committed to an accountability partnerships with another friend in the same ill-informed situation. She and I will chose a handful of news stories each week, read and summarize them, and use the information to prepare questions. By exchanging our findings each week, we hope to be able to flush out some of misunderstandings about our current state of affairs.

I completed my first assignment last night. I sort of felt like I was back in school, fishing through the internet to find a current events article for Social Studies. But, I honestly enjoyed the process much more than I did back in the fifth grade.

Ironically enough, one of the articles I chose was a criticism of Time Magazine’s recent piece entitled “Boogyin’ with Barack.” The 24-page feature story was heavy with factoids from Obama’s personal life. His favorite ice cream flavor, his early romance with Michelle. The article was dogging on the journalist for focusing on the irrelevancies of the candidate rather than the issues. Twenty-four pages, for crying out loud.

It all comes full-circle. It’s natural tendency for us to be drawn towards these human-interest featurish stories. We like reading about what kind of cereal our favorite movie stars eat every morning. Why? Beats me, but reading about the quotidian details of famous people humanizes them.

I’m a recovering silly-news-o-holic, and I have a long way to go.