Politics roundup - Stories that caught my eye

Hello, so took me a while but we are back with another entry of politics round up, specifically this one with stories that caught my eye and made me pause for a second. I hope you enjoy it and let me know if you think I should cover some other stories in the future. Hoping that through doing this regularly I will get used to pitching potential articles ideas for my future journalist career ahh.  

Charlie Kirk shooting 

So we all saw it…. Charlie Kirk getting shot. There are already hundreds of journalists writing about this particular event but I would like to put my opinion on things. It was a horrific thing to watch unfold regardless of your political views. For someone to get shot in a public place especially a political one is unsettling and shocking. 

I made a conscious point of not watching the graphic videos that circulated online of the event. I don't think that anyone should be watching someone’s father, husband, friend being killed. I can’t really quite believe that that is where we are in 2025. 

What struck me was that it was almost normalised that the event was filmed and shared around online. Not just one angle was caught on camera, it was almost a habit that people reached for their phones to record this event and share it to their followers. It says a lot about where we are in 2025 and how quickly a shooting becomes something worthy of spectacle. 

It reminded me as a future journalist that in a world obsessed with immediacy we still have to stop and think about what the family or individuals involved would want.

Macron’s Wife having to prove she is a woman 

So this story came up as a notification on my phone from the BBC news app. I did have to double check that this was actually real and not entirely clickbait. Lo and behold it was real. Brigitte Macron, the wife of French President Emmanuel Macron, reportedly had to undergo a DNA test to prove she was biologically female, following conspiracy theories that claimed she was actually a man

It is one of those stories that made me think, really ? That a woman in the public eye has to prove her identity because of internet rumours. It speaks to a wider issue around misogyny and online conspiracism. Women in politics or even just adjacent to politics are held to different standards. Not just scrutinised for their appearance but also their relationships. In this case the scrutiny spread to the gender of the figure in question, it wasn't just invasive but dehumanising. 

It was an interesting case as for the most part the theories that were spread about Macron’s gender were not based in much and it blurs the line between legitimate political discourse and gossip. It also speaks to the role in which online discourse and forums can spread conspiracies not based in fact faster than ever before. 

Typhoon at the China-Vietnam border 

Another story that caught my attention that barely seemed to make headlines here was the devastating typhoon that recently hit the China-Vietnam border. A couple of my friends were travelling in this area at the time which made it hit home that bit more. 

The typhoon caused severe flooding, mass evacuations and major damage to the infrastructure. Luckily my two friends were higher up in the region so weren’t too affected, with the extent of their involvement just being kept in the same place for a few days. However the news coverage was limited. In scrolling through the UK news sites to try to read up on the story it was nowhere to be found. It really made me think about how selective our media coverage can be and what counts as newsworthy and what doesn’t. 

It made me think about how global reporting is done and how often natural disasters in Europe or the US tend to dominate coverage for days while equally devastating events in Asia or Africa often receive a fraction of that attention. That gap matters, not just for awareness but also for empathy and international aid. 

It was a story that really made me think on a wider scale and how the imbalance shapes how we see the world. If the stories like this are not told widely it quietly enforces the idea that some parts of the world and the people that live there matter less. 

Final thoughts 

These stories are all very different but each one made me stop and think for their own reasons. Charlie Kirk made me think about how easily violence is posted online and how this can very quickly become public spectacle. The story about Brigitte Macron revealed how online conspiracies can dehumanise and break people. Lastly the typhoon on the China-Vietnam border reminded me of how easy it is for entire regions to be overlooked in Western media. 

Writing these posts helps me to process what I actually think about the news beyond the quick scroll of the headlines. It aids me to think about what is happening and why it matters. Hopefully if you made it this far it may do the same for you. 

See you in the next one 

Rosie x