Milberg's Musings: This just in: Another legacy of Steven Sotloff

PEMBROKE PARK, Fla. – You've heard the saying "All politics is local?" It's time to add "all 'news' is local." That is to say, the news we pay attention to most closely, or at all, is the news that affects us right where we live.

That's why Steven Sotloff's barbaric public execution that horrified us also gave South Florida the personal link, made a geopolitical guerilla-type war our local news.

Recommended Videos



Six degrees of Steven Sotloff: you knew him, knew someone who knew him, you shared his religion, shared his career calling, maybe read his words in Time magazine or other publications for which he wrote. And just like that, a war in Syria, a terrorist act on another continent, countless other captives we don't even know about -- suddenly those are issues we demand our leaders address.   Because those are now our local news.

Friday during Sotloff's memorial, a speaker made a point to say how there are days-worth of news stories on a shooting in a movie theater but no news for days on massacres in Syria. But what goes on there, we now know intimately, does affect us personally.

So what drives what's on the local news? You do.

What the feedback and ratings show you want to watch is what local news produces -- for better or worse.

Maybe one of journalist Steven Sotloff's legacies can be a new passion for, and attention to, and demand for the kind of news he knew could change the world.