The Internet is saturated with news. How can you tell what’s important?

Let’s take a look at it, shall we? A quick scan of Google News reveals that an Indian company is going to begin importing more oil from Saudi Arabia to meet increased demand. In fact, at the moment I write this, there are 2,152 articles on the subject accessible from that single portal. One thousand seventy-seven articles discuss the horrific flooding in Iowa and elsewhere along the Mississippi River. Ah—the EU is going to press forward with the Lisbon Treaty (about which there are 3,755 news articles).

Same-sex marriages started in California (948 stories). Barack Obama hired a staff member who had been fired from Hillary Clinton’s staff (404 stories). Salmonella has been found in five more states (541). Coffee lowers heart risk (56). Vinyl shower curtains could be toxic (216). Antipsychotic drugs can kill you (209). Stan Winston died (311). Tiger Woods won the U.S. Open (6,994 stories).

Shall we continue? Trolling elsewhere we find that a couple was freed from jail in Paraguay after a doctor confirmed that the groom is a hermaphrodite; another couple faces murder charges after tying their son to a tree for two nights as punishment; police are investigating a woman with five dead husbands; police killed a man who stomped a baby to death.

We’re barely scratching the surface. We could continue indefinitely—just freezing a moment in time and glancing at all the items that someone at that moment considered newsworthy.

Much of it is—frankly—junk.

What’s important? The maze of information is infinite enough that each one of the millions of Internet newshounds can furrow into his personalized nook to find what interests him—politics, business, finance, science, technology, health, entertainment, sports, weather, travel—and come away feeling informed.

But there is a vital dimension to news watching that most people miss.

It goes beyond merely knowing what is happening. It involves being able to analyze those events and project how they will play out in ways that could—that will—radically change our lives, our world.

Not only do most readers overlook this dimension, but most news outlets, staffed by tough, experienced professionals, do as well, even as they make their daily decisions about what to report on and how. A harried assignment editor—monitoring multiple newswires, tv channels, police radio broadcasts and phone tips—will tend to allocate reporters to what looks potentially most dramatic: conflict-driven, telegenic, “man bites dog.” But the simple fact is, short-term drama in most cases has no bearing on a story’s long-term importance.

Several other factors that attract attention—the story’s timeliness, proximity to the audience, celebrity of the subject, how many people it immediately affects and so on—also may not directly relate to the true importance of a story. Add to that purely logistical factors—the suitability of a story for the particular medium; balance with other reports; resources invested (it’s not much of a story, but we’ve spent the money so we’ll go with it); organizational policy; ideological slant; sense of public need or taste; need for ratings/subscribers; accountability to advertisers—and what ends up being highlighted may be light years away from what truly is most essential for readers or viewers to know.

The Trumpet faces many of the same decisions as we monitor world events: What will we cover? How should we write about it? How much space should we give it? What will we feature on our cover? We grapple with limited intelligence, personal assumptions and flawed perceptions as much as everyone else.

In some basic ways, however, we are quite different from any other source from which you may receive news. For one, producing a free publication—including our free monthly print edition—means we have no accountability to advertisers and little need to adjust our content in order to pander to subscribers.

But the key difference is the primary criterion we use to determine a story’s newsworthiness. It transcends and supersedes all other criteria by a vast margin—and is completely ignored by every other news outlet. Where other criteria swing and fluctuate and can suck the process toward silliness, this keeps it focused like a laser beam on what truly is—even in an absolute sense—important.

That criterion is prophetic significance.

In order to prove His omnipotence, millennia ago God recorded in Scripture descriptions of future events, and is now bringing them to pass (Isaiah 42:9; 46:9-10; 48:3-5). These provide tools to analyze events for their true significance—how the trends today are pointing toward the future as mapped out in Scripture. The prophecies are signposts pointing to the imminence of Jesus Christ’s Second Coming—an event which the Messiah Himself told us to prepare ourselves for by watching and praying (Luke 21:36).

For a practical guide on what news topics fit that prophetic criterion, read our article, “But What Do I Watch For?”

Of course, many scorn and dismiss this unique approach. But with it we are accumulating an impressive history of accurate, Bible-based forecasts—tracing back to Herbert W. Armstrong’s stewardship over the Plain Truth newsmagazine through the greater part of the 20th century—that anyone who is willing to should be able to recognize.

To us, news is much more than a curiosity. As we watch events aligning, bit by bit, step by step, with the prophetic view spelled out in the Holy Bible by the living God, it is proof positive that “the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men” (Daniel 4:17) and that He is about to bring justice to this weary world. Thus, our message has driving purpose: to inform, to witness, yes—but also, hopefully, to motivate and inspire. The fact that each story has been chosen for its prophetic significance carries this urgent, implicit message: Seek God while He may be found.