Fast News is Like Fast Food

I remember when news
wasn’t quite so new –
it was events from yesterday,
the day or even weeks before.
Reporters sent telegrams
and pigeons from far away.
We waited for news
of births, deaths and wars,
read a newspaper over
a cup of tea or coffee,
ate fish and chips from it,
smothered it with salt and vinegar.
Nowadays, fast news is like fast food –
you need alcohol to wash it down.

Kim M. Russell, 19th May 2019

My response to Imaginary Garden with Real Toads Weekend Mini-Challenge: Oh, the (Poetic) Irony!

Magaly tells us that she loves satirical humour. She also consumes the news unfiltered and doubts that she would be able to survive if she couldn’t count on irony to lighten up her heart a bit.

For this weekend’s prompt, Magaly invites us to write new poems using one or more of some satire-rich cartoons from The New Yorker. She would also like us to say which cartoon(s) we chose.

If we are feeling extra-inspired, we can write narrative poems, which tell the stories taking place in the illustrations and/or the captions.

I chose “Remember when we drank coffee with the paper?”

25 thoughts on “Fast News is Like Fast Food”

    1. Thanks Rommy. I’m glad you call them ‘alternative facts’ – I detest the expression ‘fake news’ and all its connotations, it makes me feel queasy!

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  3. I love reading old news papers. My favorite parts are the personals, classifies, and announcements (all the parts taken over by Facebook and email, it seems). It’s love to sip my coffee to that. Today, like your poem suggests, one can barely digest the any of the news without something ready cutting to wash down the horrors. And still, it leaves most of us with indigestion.

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    1. I only get The Times on Saturday, when I can have a leisurely read. I start with the main news section, move on to the weekend section , which is about health, holudays, gardening, that sort of thing, and then I go on to the reviews: art, booms, theatre, film and TV, finishing with the fiendish sudoku. I save the magazine for later in the week, beginning with Caitlin Moran’s page. I couldn’t do that in-line because I’d be constantly interrupted by pop-ups and breaking news. I like to read the obituaries too.

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      1. I read the obituaries as well! When I have long medical procedures (for which I get to stay awake), I read them aloud to the nurses. Those who don’t know me tend to leave the room, driven away by my creepiness. 😀

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  6. Such an exquisite use of metaphor here, Kim! ❤ I sometimes wish we could travel back to simpler times. The fast news is giving me indigestion.

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  9. Can’t be fed the news even if you wrap it around fish and chips. But washed down with something that makes reading it a little easier. For the most part fast food isn’t good for you and the comparison gives you the feeling that neither is the news.

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  10. This was enjoyable, Kim. We take Wednesday thru Sunday. I read some online and try to print screen Monday’s and Tuesday’s really easy Soduko and cut the others out if I don’t get to them. I also screen what goes to recycle for cutting out of things I really would like to read.
    We were in Bordeaux eating at a sidewalk cafe. The waiter made wine suggestions for Mrs. Jim and our daughter. I had to ask for his reco to go with my hot dog. He told me, “Sir, with the hot dog I’d have a beer.” French hot dogs are to die for. Better even than those at Bubble Dog.
    ..

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  12. This really is a bit nostalgic… my mom waited for weeks and months to hear news about WWII… and her brothers (one was a pilot and captured by the Japanese). Well done!

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    1. Thank you for sharing, Margaret. It wasn’t easy waiting for news during the world wars. I can’t imagine what they would have been like with the media we have now.

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