Do you like hearing about what’s going on in the news, yet not necessarily listening to hours upon hours of tragic stories on television news stations? If you’re like me, you like to know the bullet points: what’s going on in the world, why it’s important, who it involves, and its effects. As a college student (and a legal adult), it’s important to be up on the world’s happenings, as it can all affect us! The Skimm – a simple e-mail newsletter sent daily summing up what’s going on in the media, politics, economy, and much more – is a perfect source of news that I’ve recently found out about from Marissa Simon, the Pitt Campus Ambassador for The Skimm!
The Skimm was founded by two women—Carly Zakin and Danielle Weisberg—who became friends while studying abroad their junior year of college in Rome, Italy. They both eventually ended up being producers for NBC; shortly after they started working, their friends and close ones would always be asking them what’s going on in the world. What better way to solve this problem than creating an email newsletter that they could send to all of them!
When you sign up for The Skimm, you receive the newsletter in your e-mail every Monday through Friday at 6 am. So when you’re lying in bed not wanting to get up (me every morning), you can roll over and read all about the latest happenings! They contain short blurbs about national and international happenings—yet, they have a quirky and fun tone to them that makes them more enjoyable than hearing a reporter say them in a monotone voice.
What I find to be the most important part of The Skimm is how it makes an effort to educate and inform those from 18-24. While you’re in college, it’s really easy to be unaware of what’s going on in the world, when you have your own busy schedule and things to worry about. Yet, with such a low number of students reading the news—the 2013 State of the News Media report says that only 23% of U.S. college students read the news—it’s awesome that these two women have found a way to hand us the news in a 1) free form 2) understandable, easy language and 3) fun, tech-savvy way.
So… how do I sign up?
Well, my fellow students, you can sign up for The Skimm’s free e-mail updates here by simply entering your email via our campus rep, Marissa’s link. Then you’ll be ready to get your brain going! Who knows, maybe you’ll be answering that question your professor asks that no one knows in your politics class tomorrow?