All This Year's Bad News Considered

America's favorite news anchor Nancy Grace. Image via.

We're getting closer to the end of the year, which means it's time to momentarily turn our heads backwards and look back at the five biggest news stories from the past 365 days. In no specific order, here are the definitive bad news stories of 2013.

The site of the Boston bombing. Image via. 

The Boston Marathon was the sight of this year's worst act of domestic terrorism. Yet for Americans outside Boston, the bombing's most lasting impression was how unnecessary the traditional news media model has become. Cable stations spent much of the days after the bombing discussing whatever shit they could find, trying to lure folks to their network with the promise of an “EXCLUSIVE.” Their most probable reason for spreading fiction without it being karate chopped by fact checkers? The cable channels were sweating about losing viewers to the internet. They had reasons to worry. Later on, when the moonlit manhunt for the Tsarnaev brothers was underway, we didn't watch the news unfold on TV. We watched on Twitter.

The year's most notorious leaker. Image via.

For years, Glenn Greenwald's beat has been “ways in which the American government is terrible,” a profitable well of sludge and muck that never comes close to drying up. In June, Glenn found a great heaping pile of gold in whistleblower Edward Snowden, the government contractor who revealed the NSA has been spying on all of us. Instead of immediately focusing on the leaked information, first we asked, “Is Snowden a terrorist or a hero?” That was not what we should have been worrying about. Luckily, the conversation seems to have progressed to the point where we all know the NSA's PRISM program is a big deal. When my mom won't tell me over the phone where she puts her “secret key” in the garage because “they” may be listening—without considering the fact that if the feds truly wanted to get in, they wouldn't be stopped by a single lock on the front door—you know this story has changed the landscape for good.

The government shutdown and Obamacare resulted in many ridiculous signs and news stories. Image via. 

After years of planning, months of legislation, an actual Supreme Court decision, and 16 hilarious days of Republicans chilling around a bonfire, Obamacare was finally released onto the country on October 1. Watching the government shutdown and Obamcare's debut reminded me of driving back from a relative's house after a huge Christmas dinner. You know when you're sitting in the back of the car with your family for hours with food churning in your stomach, and then someone loses control of their butt for a moment, blasting food ghosts into the car, and you have to sit and fight for oxygen because it's too cold to roll down your window? Well, the Obamacare rollout has been kinda like that.

The worst human in America. Image via. 

Remember when conservatives (read: racists) were willing to put all their credibility eggs into the basket of George Zimmerman, a Florida man who essentially stalked and then shot Trayon Martin, a black high school student? And then when jurors acquitted George, they logged onto Facebook and were like, “Vindicated! By the judicial system! Eat it, anti-gun commies!”? Well, all those conservatives were wrong, because George was later busted for pointing a gun at his girlfriend. (Classic Zim!) Of course, this is America, so racists ignored the domestic violence allegations, and George was able to sell a shitty painting he shat out with the word God and phrase with liberty and justice for all online for $100,000. Maybe next year we can all agree to stop allowing assholes like George to live the American dream?

Unfortunately, Jodi Arias was national news this year. Image via. 

Jodi Arias is in a weird place on this list. No matter how far you stretch the definition of a “newsmaker,” Jodi shouldn't fit it—we only know her name because she alledgedly murdered her boyfriend in 2008. Of course, she's also somewhat aesthetically pleasing, and to ghouls like Nancy Grace, this means Jodi is the perfect subject to exploit the same way a carnival manager might attach a tail to the body of a dead vagrant so she can call it “Mer-Man.” At this point, Nancy and company's behavior is expected, but they can only profit off these femme fatales because we love to digest true-crime soap operas. So, you know, let's try harder in 2014, everyone.

@RickPaulas