TV news is a disgrace
I don't watch tv.. well, nearly at all. I used to watch the daily show before Comcast decided to re-arrange tv channels and I lost Comedy Central but gained a whole lot of news channels.
I'm currently reading a book about young people not following the news so I thought it would be interesting to watch some tv news just to see what it's like these days.. Conclusion? Scary, scary, scary, scary.
What in the world has happened to our news? Over a couple of hours of news this is what I was exposed to:
1. A scare story about avian flu. Now anyone who is a little educated about recent events already knows all about avian flu (if you don't, October National Geographic had an excellent article about it). This news story wasn't really news though.. more of a "aaaah, we're all going to die! Panic now!" kind of story. Apparently they gauged the preparedness of hospitals and emergency centers by calling them with symptoms of such diseases as bubonic plague and smallpox and then panicking based on nobody being able to recognize the disease. Frankly, I'd be panicking if anyone diagnosed such an unlikely disease over the phone.. but why be logical.
2. A show whose sole purpose appears to be to judge and convict (on air only, of course) a man arrested for suspected murder of a young girl. "Instead of 18th birthday celebration she's being buried!"... And of course the entire program is focused on essentially hanging this young man before he even gets a trial.. because he was unemployed and a "shady character".. My favorite quote from this one was..
Some "panel member": He claims to be bi-polar..
Host (interrupting mid-sentence) yells something about collecting government money for a non-disease.
Did I mention they were talking about why he should or should not be executed?
After watching tv news for a couple hours.. I'm glad most young people don't.
Comments
flame war in 5-4-3-2...
Posted by: rob | October 11, 2005 12:52 AM
I rant about this far too often myself.
Basically, cable TV started eating network viewership back in the late 80s and 90s, causing the major networks to lose revenue. By the mid-90s, broadcast TV had lost so much viewership that their major money making shows were no longer "prime time" comedies and drama - instead it was news programming - including shows like "60 minutes" and "Prime Time". Since these shows were now the main revenue stream for the networks, they had to "tailor" the news to increase viewership.
The "news" may be useless now days, but it's what sells. As you've obsered yourself, it's "newstainment." The objective of a news program is NOT to inform (contrary to what you might believe), but it's to sell advertising slots and make money for the networks. They do what sells ... regretfully.
The really sad thing is that the masses eat that stuff up ...
Posted by: Paul | October 11, 2005 09:26 AM
Kasia, be happy to watch US news. European news are even more depressing. And the EU provides us now with a selection of countries with 'local' news...
A friend chides me all the time for not watching the news. Well, I guess my sanity depends on not seeing them.
Posted by: dda | October 11, 2005 02:44 PM
Hey Kasia, is the #2 one the Nancy Grace show on whatever derived CNN channel it is? That sounds so much like her show... I love to hate it.... ;)
Posted by: Arcterex | October 11, 2005 03:11 PM
I don't watch TV either especially not the news. TV is for the brain-dead anyway. Who wants to listen to some dork speaking with a fourth grade vocabulary interpret a bunch of hype. My generation (25 to 30 years olds) reads news online from tons of different sources from underground online papers, to blogs, to cnn rss feeds. I would say I am much better informed with a better variety of input than my parents generation ever was.
Posted by: Andy | October 11, 2005 04:32 PM
Andy, yes, I believe that's what that was.. I was watching CNN Headline News under the misconception it would be the safest and least-full-of-BS.. I was wrong!
Posted by: kasia | October 11, 2005 09:17 PM
As an aside, I just finished 'State of fear' by Michael Crichton, an excellent book, with the last 3 or so chapters being a great commentary on exactly this (hype, crisis, the expanded role of the news scaring us since the end of the cold war). Great stuff, highly recommended.
Posted by: Arcterex | October 12, 2005 12:44 AM
I've been silently complaining about this for a while now. I don't watch TV, but whenever I'm at my parent's house, my mom has the TV in the kitchen on to news usually. The news they give is usually crap. Things I don't even care about, and no one should care about. If you look at the majority of subjects they cover, it is all ratings prostitution.
Young people consume don't *watch* television news, therefore the hypocratical generations of old people have decided that they are better becuase they watch TV News nightly. I get more and better news on the internet on any given day without even trying. Just looking at Google's customized page, stopping by digg.com, watching a few internet tv shows, and checking out Google News gets me enough news to work with for a day...and that's without looking at any major news feeds from different places, in fact I just found aljazeeras english news page and plan on reading it, first hand news on the issues in the Middle East, before it is chewed into tasteless crap by western news.
The Daily Show really does seem to be one of the best news sources on TV, I haven't been able to watch it regulary but from the episodes I've seen, they cover more important issues and if you are smart enough to cut through the "comedy BS" you can get a lot of really good news. Like exactly how the Government is wasting millions of dollars in New Orleans. You don't hear about that on CBS.
Posted by: fadumpt | October 12, 2005 10:43 AM
i guess i'm the only one around who watches tv? i like my music videos! a mindless tv show doesn't do anyone harm once in a while. it's all about taste and entertainment.
imo, it doesn't matter WHERE you get your news: print, tv, internet, radio, the voices in your head. i learned at a very young age you can't put faith in it. unless you're an eyewitness, you must put trust in the reporter. i personally find that very hard to do.
Posted by: ambo | October 14, 2005 09:54 AM
Ambo, you forgot Ouija board. (All the best news comes from a Ouija board).
Posted by: Paul | October 14, 2005 10:45 AM
Mike, I didn't say it like that. I was referring to your Daily Show Post crack about how the news on the show is worthless...like a "back at Mike" crack...
But it was more that you actually have to use your head some to extract the news, like not all he says *is* really, but a lot of it is, and a lot of it you can trust. I would still rather read an online news paper though. Especially if the country that it happens it has an english page.
Sorry for insulting your intelligence there Mike :-D
Posted by: fadumpt | October 14, 2005 12:00 PM