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Biggest news stories of your lifetime

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Dick Whitman, Dec 19, 2012.

  1. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    I think we've done this before, but after Newtown, it's probably fair to revisit.

    I'd say this ranks quite high.

    My top five, top of my head:

    (1) 9/11;

    (2) Election of President Barack Obama (2008);

    (3) Newtown tragedy;

    (4) Oklahoma City;

    (5) Penn State.

    These were the stories that had a huge impact on me, so stories of more recent vintage are weighted higher than ones from when I was a child, for example. These are my remember-where-I-was moments.

    Honorable mentions:

    Hurricane Katrina
    Fall of communism
    Iraq and Afghanistan wars
    Columbine
    Virginia Tech
    O.J. Simpson
    Challenger
    Rodney King
    Asian tsunami
    Monica-gate/Clinton impeachment
     
  2. blacktitleist

    blacktitleist Member

    What Dick said.

    Plus, I'll add the death of Len Bias and Magic's HIV positive announcement to my list.
     
  3. TigerVols

    TigerVols Well-Known Member

    Yeah, the question is personal news stories...Katrina was tragic, but it didn't personally impact me in the way some others did, namely:

    1. Challenger explosion. First big story where I remember where I was when it happened (The maneater newsroom).
    2. 9/11 for obvious reasons
    3. Magic's AIDS announcement. The impact and shock can't be over estimated.
    4. Elvis' death (hey, I'm from Tennessee -- and I'd met the guy!)
    5. Obama's 2008 election
     
  4. Football_Bat

    Football_Bat Well-Known Member

    Tyson getting KTFO by Buster Douglas.
     
  5. Football_Bat

    Football_Bat Well-Known Member

    Working news division: The Columbia breakup over Texas in 2003. That was memorable by me in more ways than one.
     
  6. Norrin Radd

    Norrin Radd New Member

    This is for us, in our lives, for the things we care about and feel connected to?

    1. The Fall of the Berlin Wall
    2. Magic Johnson's HIV announcement
    3. The Rodney King verdict and the L.A. Riots
    4. Challenger
    5. The firing of Coach Bob Knight/the U.S. hosting the 1994 World Cup

    Honorable mention:

    The 2008 Democratic primaries
    9/11
    Columbine
    Clinton's election in 1992
    Obama's election in 2008
    Penn State
    The Kings trading for Gretzky

    I remember mostly the news that shaped me as a journalist and an individual. There will be a sameness to a lot of the responses, I expect.

    - The fall of the wall seemed to come out of nowhere. I guess you could add the fall of Communism to this. Maybe it's because I was a kid, but no story since has seemed as big. Sure,. 9/11 was huge. But we were all convinced that Soviets had the ability - and, perhaps, the wherewithal - to make us all glow in the dark. The wall going down meant the world really was changing. It was something everyone could get behind. It was a joyful moment, not a tragedy. It's easy now to say "Communism was gonna fall anyway!!!!!" We didn't really know that at the time. It's a shame something like this has lost all of its impact for people.
    - Magic was news because of how much HIV towered over the 1980s, and because he was the most prominent heterosexual to announce. And yeah, because he played for the Lakers.
    - Rodney King . . . hey, I'm from L.A. People still talk about it.
    - Challenger occurred during a time when we were still using the Space Race as a stand-in for an actual fight with the Soviets. The Space Shuttle program looked invincible before that.
    - Until it happened, it never seemed Knight could be fired. It had a seismic effect on the athletic fortunes of my alma mater, that only now is turning for the positive.
    - The World Cup was massive for sport in this country. heralded a sea change in the fact that soccer was now going to gain a foothold. And convinced me to go into sports journalism.

    As for the rest:
    - Columbine remains the most noteworthy school shooting of my lifetime. Others might have bigger "numbers," but this was the one that shook everyone up. The ones since, as far as news stories go, are less impactful.
    - 9/11 is 9/11. I was in SoCal at the time. It was a terrible tragedy, but looking back it seems it was more of a moment that led to changes rather than an ongoing story. Maybe that's because it's been twisted so much by so many different forces in the days since.
    - The two elections were impactful for different reasons. Clinton's win showed that the country was moving decisively away from the Reagan era (supposedly). Obama's election doesn't make the list for me because his victory was a fait accompli. Now, the primaries were a big story because it was clear the GOP had no shot, and it was clear that it was Hillary vs. Obama. So we were going to get an historic president anyway.
    - Penn State remains mind-blowing. Just thought these other stories were more important.
    - The Gretzky trade opened up the sun belt for the NHL. A hammer at the time.
     
  7. qtlaw

    qtlaw Well-Known Member

    1. Man on the Moon
    2. Watergate
    3. Fall of the Iron Curtain (Less chance of WWIII/mutual nuclear destruction)
    4. 9/11
    5. Chernobyl/Three Mile Island (nuclear energy needs to be rethought)
     
  8. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    These lists always come up in the immediate aftermath of something. In even a year, this something is going to fall way down.

    It also depends on what a "news story" is. Iraq and Afghanistan have been going on for 10 years, is that a single "news story"?

    I would say:

    1) 9/11

    2) Iraq/Afghanistan

    3) Oklahoma City

    4) Desert Storm

    5) Challenger

    That's including the impact. As far as just the news intensity and interest and regardless of the significance, I'd have to put O.J. on there.
     
  9. Stoney

    Stoney Well-Known Member

    Dick, you've been prone to knee jerk reactions in the past, and I think this might be another example.

    I feel somewhat uncomfortable ""rating" tragedies, and by no means am discounting the enormous gravity of this one, but I'm not sure how anyone can declare it to be a bigger story than the Iran and Afghanistan wars, Hurricane Katrina, Asian tsunami, fall of communism, Rodney King/LA Riots, Oklahoma City, etc.

    To an extent, I think all these school shooting cases can be bundled into one running storyline that includes Columbine, Va Tech and others over the years. This is not the deadliest or largest of school shooting cases (for example, 33 were killed at Va Tech). However, I think it is having a deeper impact because of the age of the victims, and hopefully will have a "final straw" impact resulting in reform and a more meaningful reaction than we had to past school shooting cases--but I'll wait to see if that actually happens before giving it final straw credit.
     
  10. Starman

    Starman Well-Known Member

    1) 9/11
    2) JFK
    3) Apollo 11
    4) Crash of 2008
    5) MLK/RFK
    6) Watergate
    7) Cuban Missile Crisis
    8 ) Challenger
    9) Fall of Iron Curtain
    10) Hypodermics on the shore, China's under martial law.

    Watergate and the fall of the Iron Curtain of course stretched out over several months, so that kind of diffused the impact of both events.

    The Crash of 2008 went from off-the-radar-screen to the 'world-economy-may-meltdown-within-24 hours" in the space of about a week.
     
  11. Stoney

    Stoney Well-Known Member

    Dick, you've been prone to knee jerk reactions in the past, and I think this might be another example.

    I feel somewhat uncomfortable "rating" tragedies, and by no means am discounting the gravity of this tragedy, but I'm not sure how anyone can declare it to be a bigger story than the Iran and Afghanistan wars, Hurricane Katrina, Asian tsunami, fall of communism, Rodney King/LA Riots, Oklahoma City, etc.

    To some extent, I think all of these school shooting cases can be bundled into one seperate running storyline that includes Columbine, Va Tech and others over the years. This is not the deadliest or largest of school shooting cases (for example, 33 were killed at Va Tech). However, I think it is having a deeper and more transcendent impact because of the age of the victims, and hopefully will have "final straw" impact resulting in a more meaningful response and real reform and real reform this time--but I'll wait to see if that actually happens before giving it final straw credit.
     
  12. Versatile

    Versatile Active Member

    I don't think all the other things on these lists combined have had the same level of effect as 9/11. (The older generation probably could put a few events of the 1960s on that list, but unless you lived through Pearl Harbor, nothing comes close to 9/11.)

    I also think you are greatly exaggerating the societal impact of Newtown. I would put it behind Oklahoma City because Timothy McVeigh lived. And I would put it behind Columbine because that story reverberated for years and came as a total shock to the country. How many TV shows pulled or delayed episodes for Newtown? (That's a question; I saw an early screener of Jack Reacher was delayed, but I haven't seen much else.)
     
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