News?

Watch 'n Wait: Thank you for your comment. I have missed you for quite a while.

I am having more and more trouble with what is passed off as news, or at least what is reported on national television. I guess when a bus overturns in Santa Maria that is indeed news, but national news? I have no doubt it is news for people who live in Santa Maria but why is it worthy of being reported on what is supposed to be national news, like CNN, for example? Surely it is not the only bus crash or other similar accident in the world that day? Similarly, I find it distressing to hear that a building burned down in some other city. I mean, really, buildings burn down all the time all over the country, so why is one particular burning building featured on national news? And why, if there are multiple murders everyday in the U.S., is one singled out for not only reporting but virtually non-stop reporting? The same with the disappearance of a young woman or a child. I am not suggesting such things are unimportant. I'm sure they are of grave importance to the people involved. But how do these individual events get singled out for so much coverage while identical events receive no coverage at all - at least on national news?

The only conclusion I have been able to come to is that the MSM don't really want us to hear any truly important national or world news. If you want to hear what I would call "real news" you have to go either to sources outside the U.S. or the internet. It is perfectly obvious that the British Press, for example, contains much more real news than U.S. news sources do. The same is true of Germany, France, and most other European countries.

Critics of our news media say this is because our news sources have concluded that Americans would rather be entertained than informed. As this is so, corporations that wish to advertise do so on programs that are entertaining rather than informative. While this may be useful to corporations it is surely disastrous for a democracy that supposedly can only function with an informed electorate (which we have long since abandoned). There is also the well known (by now) fact that our MSM are owned by large corporations that are in league with the current administration and therefore act on the administrations behalf. This is a truly dangerous situation that is going to be difficult, if not impossible, to overcome. Even PBS has been usurped by the current administration. We still have Free Speech TV and Democracy Now but lacking quasi porn and soaps they have a limited audience. There is little doubt that if left unchecked the present administration will go after them as well as the internet. We must resist this at all costs!

There are, I guess, faint rays of hope. I know several people, who like myself no longer watch tv other than Democracy Now. And it is being reported that subscriptions to newspapers are falling off. More people are blogging and getting their news from the internet. At least some programming on MSM has become so awful that fewer people watch every year. But I guess it can never become so awful that no one will watch. Pity.