Top 10 news stories of 2011

[center rising]

Descending order

10, Gabrielle Giffords shot
9, Occupy Wall St. protests
8, Fiscal showdown in Congress
7, Gadhafi shot to death and toppled in Libya
6, Penn St. sexual abuse scandal
5, US Economy
4, EU fiscal crisis
3, Arab Spring
2, Japan's triple disaster in March
1, The killing of Osama Bin Laden

Those are the top ten stories as picked by the news directors and editors of the Associated Press!!!


Agree/Disagree???

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/17/killing-of-bin-laden-vote_n_1155384.html

[NJCher]

1. some of these stories are really one story

Instead of OWS as 9 and Arab spring as 3, I would consolidate them and broaden them as well. I would say "world uprising against established powers."

First would be Japan's triple disaster, then the above as two. I'd really like to make them equal, but if there has to be a 1 and there has to be a 2, then that would be the way I'd do it.

So many of these are interrelated, like Gadhafi is a subset of the revolution one.

Sheesh, I can't believe these news editors put bin Laden as the number one story. That might make number 10 in my book, if it made the list at all.


Cher

[lpbk2713]

2. I'd have to put Fukushima at number one.

Three calamatous events happening in rapid sequence is more than the odds would allow.

We all knew OBL would go down. It was just a matter of time.

[PDJane]

3. Disagree.

The top story is one that hasn't been given news treatment remains the environment: Carbon emissions have increased more this year than at any time since the indistrial revolution. Methane Plumes in the arctic. Fish kills and flammable water due to fracking. The tar sands and the pollution it is causing in an area that covers a sensitive environment. The disaster that the xl pipeline will do do the aquifiers in both the US and Canada.

Japan's triple disaster I do agree with, as I do the Arab Spring.

My next top two have to do with systemic problems in the US military; about 1/3 of women who have served in the military have been raped and/or subjected to harassment, and More Iraq veterans committed suicide lat year than those on active duty died in combat.

Then comes the economy in Europe and in the US; the punishment of those who caused it remains an unlikely thing.

The wealth disparity is just now becoming an issue, but the number of children and adults in poverty is absolutely astounding.

The showdown in congress isn't the story; the lockstep stupidity of the GOP is.

The Occupy protests are important; the fact that they seem to be changing the public discourse is the issue, as is the police overreaction to the protestors. Is there a musical number to go with "It looks like a Police State from here?"

Gabby Giffords is as good as anything to end the list with, although the real story is the way that guns are so readily available to all and sundry, and the fact that the US is a manufacturer and trafficker in weapons.