Current events have not always been something I claim to be an expert on. Before college, the main news-type shows I watched were Entertainment Tonight and Talk Soup. I looked like quite the intellectual when someone asked my feelings on a given oil spill or the death of an important foreign dictator, and I could only smile and nod.

Then I started college.

As a freshman at MSU the dorms offered a slight pathway into the world of news. I would pick up a copy of The State News every day, and then would grab a copy of The New York Times, which was always placed right next to it - what else would I do during class?

Now, there is something powerful about The New York Times. When carried, it gives off a sense of knowledge and boasts about the brain behind its carrier. However, there is one trick to using the mystical intelligence of this profound newspaper. You actually have to read it.

Once this stepping stone was accomplished, I used the next three years of college as a time to learn about what was going on in the world. While I will admit there are times I slack and don’t know everything, I quickly study up when I am embarrassed by not understanding a political cartoon in the publication I write for.

The maturity that comes with age offers an understanding for the life experiences we have. As I have gotten older, world news has become personal. And as I identify myself with a strong Jewish background, I have become passionate about Middle East relations.

My second year in college I went on a trip to Israel with Hillel Jewish Student Center. With conflicts between Israel and Palestine, I was nervous to go to a land wracked with hatred and war. But I never saw any of this while I was there.

To say everything was fine would be a naive statement on my own account. While the 10 days I spent touring the entire country were safe, I did come to the conclusion that the media’s power in giving the conflict added drama was huge.

Tuesday’s New York Times, in all its mighty power, featured a story on its front page headlined “West Bank Deaths Heighten Anxiety,” which reported the killing of five Palestinian police officers by Israeli troops Monday.

In recent years, it seems there has been daily news coverage about the violence and conflict between Israel and other Middle East countries. However, even with all this trouble, Hillel still sent a group to Israel last week. I find it hard to believe a Jewish organization would send 20-some college students to a war zone.

Something is either being underplayed or overplayed. And which is it?

Society gravitates to negative news like a moth to a flame. War, crime and scandal sells copies of papers. Even copies of the almighty New York Times. We are so quick to read stories, turn up the volume on our televisions and cast judgments on a conflict we so obviously don’t get the whole picture of.

As a Jew, it would seem I should have emotional ties to this conflict, and avidly follow it in the papers. The fact is, however, I don’t always even know what is going on out East - similarly as uninformed as I was when I was younger.

It’s really not that I don’t care. I just get incredibly frustrated when I read stories like the one that ran Tuesday. There have to be other aspects of what is going on that the media just isn’t picking up on.

With all the control the media has, it makes me wonder how much impact it could have if more positive news were to be reported. I am not taking sides in this matter, choosing Israelis over the Palestinians - because after all, this time it has become hard to do so.

The challenge is not in picking a side to root for, but rather coming to an understanding of what is actually going on. Whether it’s a battle for land or a much larger issue at stake, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is an emotional microcosm for society. With each account of violence, each act of murder and each article on the front page of prominent newspapers comes a very large price to settle.

Society is what will ultimately be faced with this expensive bill.

With no logical explanation and no easy answer to the problems, what I have come to do is keep an open mind. Rather than read each news story with the goal of picking a side, I question why it’s being written in the first place.

So with my inquisitive mind, and urge to learn about the events that make this world, I have learned one thing. It’s not just knowing about what makes headlines - it’s questioning and demanding to know why.

That, and I’ve learned how smart I look when I read The New York Times.

Rachel Wright, freelance reporter, can be reached at wrightr9@msu.edu.