Is it wrong if I’m not particularly moved by Wayne Rooney’s sudden interest in leaving Manchester United? I know his tussle with Alex Ferguson is supposed to be … or rather, is big news, but really, how many dramatic transfers can happen before transfers just aren’t that dramatic anymore? In other news, Somali Islamist group Al-Shabaab cut off the hand and leg of a young school boy in Somalia. Maybe I’m just influenced by the order I read the news on any given day, but today, I don’t really care that Wayne Rooney is unsettled and wants to join a team with “ambition.” Maybe it will register tomorrow. But I hope not.
[...] Yesterday I didn’t care about the doom surrounding Wayne Rooney’s inevitable departure from Manchester United. Today, he’s signed a five-year extension and will presumably be staying at United. BREAKING: I still don’t care. I long for the past when a story wasn’t a story until it was a story. Rooney expressing a desire to find a new club isn’t enough of a story. We have to immediately begin speculating about where he’s going to end up well before any information is available. The world is whipped into a frenzy that fuels dramatic discussions about events with few publicly known facts. It’s a recipe for disaster, or if you are a newspaper, unmitigated success. All that remains is for me not to care anymore. I’ll try my best not be be sucked into a story just because someone wants to write about something. I probably won’t succeed, but dammit, I’m going to try. Who is coming with me? [...]