Swapped from skimming headlines to reading full Reuters reports after that 2020 election night mess

I used to just grab the top lines from Google News or Twitter and think I had the story, but after that 2020 election night where everyone jumped on bad calls, I started digging into the full wire reports myself. Now I read the actual Reuters or AP story from start to finish, especially on anything with a big dateline like Washington or Kyiv. It's crazy how much context you miss in just the lead paragraph... has anyone else noticed how the fourth or fifth paragraph usually has the real key detail?

3 comments

3 Comments

troychen1d ago

Same deal with movie reviews - everyone talks about the plot twist but nobody mentions the small scene 40 minutes in that actually sets everything up.

evan_davis1d ago

Reminds me of a book where one random line early on ended up being the whole point.

corah751d ago

You ever read something and then feel DUMB when you realize the author was basically screaming the answer at you the whole time? @evan_davis I did that with The Great Gatsby - that first line about not judging people literally sets up the whole book and I was like "oh, that's what you meant" only after finishing. Those little details sneak up on you like a crowbar to the head, except the crowbar is your own reading comprehension. I swear the next book I pick up I'm gonna highlight every other sentence just in case.

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