We always had newspapers at the home. Mainly because I had a paper route. So, there was plenty of reading material.
In high school, in the 60’s, I was fortunate to have a current events class. And the text was a weekly news magazine “Business News and World Report”. I remember arguing with the teacher. I wanted “Time” magazine. It was more liberal. Was a great class! I wonder if they still have them (current events class) in high school.
Still interested today. But, the Truth is pretty elusive.
I’ll be 50 in six months and it hasn’t happened yet.
I always had a fleeting awareness of politics due to growing up around my father, who is as steadfastly Republican as it gets. Looking back on it now, I see how I would always regurgitate his GOP talking-points as if they were dogma even though I objectively had no real understanding of what I was talking about. Nowadays, my dad and I are diametrically opposed in terms of our political views - he’s a hardcore rightwing Tea Partier, while I’m a leftwing socialist - so my views are especially interesting in light of the ubiquitous Republican exposure I experienced in my youth.
Still, I know exactly when my real interest in politics began: I was a senior in high school (in 2009) and my US government teacher made us watch Michael Moore’s Sicko; needless to say, my mind was blown, and I religiously followed the Congressional debate over the ACA that began shortly after my graduation.
I thought that my interest in politics would wane after Obama was reelected, but nope; it’s been three years since then and I’m still just as obsessive over politics as ever. 
Between 16 and 24.
I was always aware of politics, since whenever we went anywhere with my father, he always had on Rush Limbaugh, and my grandmother always had on CNN. I remember in high school become more interested in politics, especially after I started to form my own political opinions. I can still amuse myself by watching CNN (usually at home) and Fox News (only channel we can get at work).
I started observing the news about the age of 14 or 15. Along the ways the sources have changed along with my views on a number of subjects.
In the beginning young and dumb and many discussions with my Dad on all matter of subjects. He was great in teaching me to look at different sides of an issue and the financial cost of decisions.
We always had a daily newspaper at home which I read regularly from around 7/8-years old, and I’d read the Teletext news on the television and watch news reports. When I was around 10 I went out with a friend, who had a video camera, and I interviewed random people in the street about their thoughts on nuclear disarmament. One guy asked if I meant unilateral or multilateral and I replied multilateral. I don’t know who was more surprised I knew the difference; me, the interviewee or my friend the cameraman.
There was no, single event which caused me to take interest in the news, it was very organic and I still read several broadsheets (quality newspapers) each day.
I can remember being called a weirdo because I could not stop watching the interviews with the returning POW’s from Vietnam. I think I was 13/14.
So at least since then, but of course my interest level varied through the years depending on what was going on in the world or in my personal life.
I didn’t care much about politics until Bush 43 was elected. I’d always thought that it didn’t matter much which party controlled the WH, but boy did he prove me wrong.
ETA: I remember back in the late 60’s, when some of the kids in high school were protesting against the war in Viet Nam, how weird I thought they were. They must have been fucking geniuses. Or I’m just dumb. Or both.
For me, in my early teens. I remember being aware of the Hungarian refugees arriving in this country in 1956, but what really imposed itself on me was the Cuban missile crisis when I was 14, followed pretty swiftly by the comic opera of the slow collapse of the Macmillan government, and sundry high society sexual shenanigans in 1963 (that taught me how to read between the lines in the newspapers, and how to try to separate out spin from what was really happening). And then it was the full flow of the Sixties and all that.
News is not just politics. I have been interested in the news since I was able to read the paper.
Mid teens I was peripherally involved in local city machine politics, mostly of the envelope-stuffing variety. By the time I was twenty-two I was thoroughly disgusted with the venial cronyism of the bosses (bosses are rarely the office holders).
So I have had a basically grass-roots indifference to politics for the past thirty years as I have trouble believing that these people begin to represent us more as they gain more power.
(My high-school football captain eventually became mayor, was arrested on racketeering charges, and is now running for office again.)
Started really paying attention in college - late 70s. Was a PolSci major concentrating on international/nuclear deterrence, SALT, etc., and grad student in Public Admin But got pretty excited about John Anderson, Carter/Reagan…
As a kid in Chicago, was always “aware” of politics. The precinct captain would stop by and tell my parents what the machine should look like before they pulled the lever. My dad was a big Daley fan, my mom not at all.
Then I remember Watergate. I was 12, and I remember my mom having the TV on while she was ironing. Could still name at least half of the panel members, remember the various witnesses, etc.
Stopped caring much after W beat Kerry for his second term. Think it essentially pushed me into a mild depression - if the Dems couldn’t defeat an incompetent liar such as that who had misled us into an indefensible war, what hope is there for reason to prevail at ANY time? After that I paid some attention to local politics, but shortly found they were controlled by interests other than me, and were immune to rational questioning. So I decided to focus on something I had SOME chance of effecting - what happened within the 4 walls of my home.
My first solid memory of a national news event was the Kennedy assassination; I was in first grade. I have a vague memory of seeing him speak on television, presumably before that, but I couldn’t tell you what he spoke about.
I know I was following the 1960 election, which puts me at 7 or 8.
In first grade, I remember being disdainful about the news in My Weekly Reader because I had read it in Newsweek several weeks earlier.
Maybe 8 or around there. Vietnam was just getting a lot of coverage and my brother was going to be heading there and I got hooked on news and current events. I had some background with the Kennedy thing and other events but from that time on its been a daily part of my life.
Really interested and somewhat invested in politics from about age 20-29. Once in my 30s I realized it all doesn’t really matter. I still pay attention, but I’m not nearly as invested as I was.
The Lewinsky Scandal was all over the news when I was 10. There was also some awkward moments where I was hearing stuff on the news beyond my understanding and started asking my parents about Saddam Hussein and such like that. I remember seeing scenes on World News Tonight of tanks going full speed across a plain and I had a sudden understanding that those things were killing people and it was happening right now. It was chilling.
From there I paid more and more attention to the news until college, where I simply became so disgusted with extreme party rhetoric and how it changed perfectly acceptable people into lunatics that I simply decided to stop paying much attention. I read about it when attention is called to it (and this happens all the time) but I don’t go out of my way to find it on my own any more.
I was vaguely aware of the '44 election but had no knowledge of anything political, although I was certainly aware of the war. I had three uncles fighting, although my father was deferred. I well remembered how depressed my parents were in '48 over the prospects and how pleasantly surprised they were by the outcome. Then, thud, came '52. But with the growth of McCarthyism in the early 50s, I really became involved and interested. I followed the Army/McCarthy hearings like religious services. I was a HS senior, 17 years old, in '54. I guess I must have voted in '58 and, for state and local offices in '59, but my first presidential vote was in '60 and I stayed up all night until the results were clear.
Eight years later, I moved to Canada, but Canadian politics always seemed of marginal interest, although since I became a citizen, I have participated. Meantime, I have always voted in US national elections (from IL, my state of last residence, so I have thrice voted for Obama).
I’m at least a little bit like Fubaya – only, I have never been truly, very deeply interested in current affairs / politics: reckon myself one of the world’s lifelong Peter Pans. I started to – in a half-assed, confused kind of way – care and pay some attention, in my early / mid teens; ceased to, in my late 20s.
As regards trying to convince someone to care about the news / politics: I see myself as more likely to take the opposite tack, and ask, “why would you want to? National and world affairs are largely frightening / depressing / prone to making one angry, and there is wretchedly little than the individual can do to influence the course of events. It can be better for one’s peace of mind, to concentrate on one’s personal life, and stuff which one can do something with / about, and / or actually enjoy.” I feel that the ostrich is a wiser bird than it’s given credit for.
I remember getting into politics around age 11 - before then, I sort of cared about Presidential elections and the like because everyone around me did, but I didn’t really try to understand what was going on.