A confession: I am a news snob

Although I am prepared to admit with pride (where shame might be more appropriate) that I come from a country that once took over the whole world and called it the British Empire, there is one thing about my country that I am proud of, and that is its news coverage. If you ever tune into BBC America and catch the BBC World News, you will find that it is just that - world news.

Maybe it's because we once occupied these far flung regions, or maybe Britain is so small that we need to look elsewhere for good news, but I enjoy the global perspective, delivered in that crisp BBC accent.

So, I endure American news. I manage to tolerate it only be telling myself that The Today show, on NBC in the morning, with Matt and Katie is not news. It's more like a magazine, and you may occasionally find a tidbit of news in there, but don't expect too much.

I admit, I could try and read a local newspaper, but there's so much of it... and I'm really not that interested in a lot of stuff that passes for local news.

So, my snobby solution is simply this: I read The Economist, a weekly magazine that is not just about economics, but in fact, seems to be, in my humble opinion, the best, most thoughtful, global, informative news magazine that exists. To get a taste of the coverage, go to the website (www.economist.com) and read some of the Backgrounder articles, to give an overview of, for example, the Arab-Israeli conflict. I love this magazine. I feel smarter when I've read it - and I do read almost all of it.

The only thing it lacks is real entertainment news. I cannot find in The Economist who has had the latest nose or boob job; what two names of dating celebrities have now been combined to describe their relationship (Bennifer? Tom-Kat??), or anything else that someone who lives within 30 miles of Hollywood should care about... so strange that they would overlook this...