An Everything Briefing, explained
What to Expect
Everything Briefing is your comprehensive daily look at international developments unfolding each day on each continent, all in one place. This daily brief will serve as the most thorough, all-encompassing guide to the day’s unfolding events out there. I liken it to the idea of a streaming platform that encompasses all of your favorite shows and movies with no need to have other subscriptions; this is the goal for your newsletter diet!
Just like an everything bagel, Everything Briefing will be comprised of, well, everything. It seeks to capture all of what you need to know for your day, all in one place.
Now, to introduce myself:
Anyone who knows me, or has been around me at all in the last ten years for that matter, knows that I am a reader. If I had to put it into a cheesy, if uneven metaphor, I would say that my desire to read has always felt like an unquenchable thirst; like a runner who loves not just the activity of running but the journey that it represents. For me, that journey has always been centered on the pursuit of knowledge; knowledge for no other purpose but to be more informed about the world and to have it on hand in the event of usefulness. Because of this, I took up the hobby of writing out as meticulous of notes as possible on each and everything I read. Doing so allowed me to revert to a prior reading and quickly reassess the fine points of what I had read. I’ve always thought of this as a personal daily briefing of sorts on what I needed to know for that particular day. When I was an undergraduate, aside from my assignments and presentations, I made it my daily goal to read each of the news-related articles, both national and international, in the big three newspapers: The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal, save for some redundancy. Such dosages of information pushed me to adopt this practice for retention purposes that have served as an invaluable tool to refer back to on any given issue throughout the years. Doing so for no purpose but for my enjoyment of the journey of it all.
About six months ago, a co-worker who was eyeing my desk commented, after years of honing this personal practice, that I should share it with others. It was his belief that others may find it as helpful as I have. A lightbulb flickered, and alas, here we are.
After months of pondering, deliberation, and second-guessing, I decided that I wanted to provide the readers who frequent Everything Briefing with daily content that is substantive, useful, and thought-provoking. Whether there is a nail-biting election in the Philippines or tensions between the world’s superpowers, I want to both inform and keep the important stories on your radar so that you know what’s going on. The content of each news brief will be substantive and refined so that you can start or finish your day quickly with a good idea of what’s happening on the seven continents.
Foreign policy and international relations generally can sometimes be a convoluted field, saved for analysts and intellectuals in the centers of power. However, as we have been reminded time and again, from COVID-19 to the war in Ukraine and Canadian wildfires, a ripple today, even one thousands of miles away, can become a wave here tomorrow. What happens throughout the world, dictated by the Butterfly Effect, matters to each and every one of us. Whether you live in New York City or Huntington, West Virginia, this is true. Our interconnectedness is inescapable. Cognizant of this reality, I seek to inform all, in a community-oriented fashion, about daily world events while opening a window into the work I do every day as a reader with that unquenchable, unresting thirst to know what is going on.
As demanded by my training from my graduate studies at American University’s School of International Service, I will provide you with nothing less than authoritative, researched, news-related information. Information provided will always be from analytical and legitimate sources that hold the highest of journalistic and academic standards.
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I hope that you will join me in this consequentially important quest. Your ideas, thoughts, questions, and comments will be welcome all along the way. After all, we will be in this together.
Thank you to everyone who has supported me in this endeavor by offering their advice, encouragement, and support. And as always, all the personal credit goes to my Mom. If not for her and her many hours of restless work, I wouldn’t be who I am today. She is missed today and every day. This is for her.
Welcome to Substack!