Slow News －ゆっくりした新聞—

I read about an interesting “newspaper” in France, which is published only on February 29^th.  In other words, it is published only once every four years. 

The publication has sections on politics, technology, sport and so on, like other newspapers.  But the articles are intended to be humorous. 

I thought it was a nice idea to have a newspaper that covered the news over a longer period of time.  But instead of being humorous, the “slow newspaper” should cover the news seriously.  Imagine you had an accident and stayed in hospital for several months, and so missed all of the daily news.  No problem.  When you feel better, you can read a summary of the last year’s news. 

Of course, some magazines and tv shows summarise important events of the year in the last week of December.  But they assume that you already know the events they are summarising.  They offer reminders and commentary. 

A true slow newspaper would instead present stories as news – assuming that you are finding out about them for the first time. 

So what would a newspaper published only every February 29^th include in its pages?  Would reading about events from a safe distance make events seem less threatening?

 

Headline:

Terrible Virus Sweeps the World, Killing Millions

(But don’t worry.  Scientists have already come up with a vaccine)

 

Isn’t that more relaxing than living through the coronavirus pandemic day by day, in constant panic?