# What's the purpose of following political news?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-purpose-of-following-political-news/828717>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [January 31, 2019, 9:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-purpose-of-following-political-news/828717 "2019-01-31T09:02:54Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\
**Post date:** [February 4, 2019, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-purpose-of-following-political-news/828717/21 "2019-02-04T03:44:57Z")

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“‘2) gave you a competitive edge over others”

OP, would you please explain what this is supposed to mean?

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**Author:** ![Chad\_Sudan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chad_sudan/32/4509_2.png) [@Chad\_Sudan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chad_Sudan)\
**Post date:** [February 4, 2019, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-purpose-of-following-political-news/828717/22 "2019-02-04T06:52:36Z")

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> [@Sitnam](#):
>
> “‘2) gave you a competitive edge over others”
> 
> OP, would you please explain what this is supposed to mean?

Sure. Here I was going by my own experience on the fringes of academia and journalism. In many other fields it might not apply at all.

In academia, a person who could speak knowledgeably about politics had a leg up when interviewing for a position or conversing at networking/social events.

And in the media, pre-internet, people had to depend a lot on their memory of past news stories in order to write current news stories and set them in context.

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