News 24/7?

Would it not be much closer to the truth to advertise non-news, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week? Or perhaps all day and all night trivia? You might think that the world is a pretty big place, with many countries and many things happening. But our much vaunted 24/7 news stations seem to think that one or two or perhaps on a really good day, three items, constitute all the news. Not only that, those items seem to be randomly selected simply to fill up as much of the 24 hours as possible. For example, they will spend hours on a car chase. Like, so there's a car chase in Los Angeles. So what. There are many car chases in Los Angeles. I wouldn't be surprised to learn there is probably one or more per day. So why do we have to waste hours on a car chase? Who cares, except perhaps those who are chasing or being chased. Then there are murders or disappearances. If the presumed victim is a young white woman they will pursue this endlessly for days on end. As there are murders and disappearances of women everyday why does one get singled out for nonstop attention hour after hour? Is this stuff really even news? I would like to hear much more about our disaster in Iraq, or what is happening in Israel or Syria or Lebanon, or zillions of other places in the world. Apparently very little happens anywhere else in the world except in Los Angeles where there are car chases.

Then there are news stories that are worthy of attention. But how much attention are they worthy of? For example, President Ford died at 93 years of age. I confess to not being particularly surprised when someone who is reportedly in ill health and is 93 years old, dies. I like to know about it. And I don't mind hearing about his life in general - once, or maybe even twice. But I don't want to hear about it for hours or days on end. Once the announcement is made, and once the required laurels are recited, I think we should move on. I'd rather know what is going on in Russia, Japan, China, Manchuria, Indonesia, New Guinea, or wherever than more of the funeral arrangements (apparently no news is happening in any of these other places).

Some cynics argue that the reason the news people do this is because they don't really want us to know what is truly happening in places like Iraq, Palestine, Chechnia, and so on. I don't know if this is true but I confess it does seem that way. Have you noticed that Free Speech TV and Democracy Now don't do this kind of overly repetitive crap day after day? They mention something once on their news and then move on to something else. How refreshing.

Whatever happened to the fourth estate? It was sold to corporations who want you to know nothing but be entertained. The FCC and the industry needs much more than just a bit of fine tuning. Will the democrats do anything about this terrible situation - ha ha, most unlikely. I don't think Marx ever envisioned that you could buy off the poor with soaps, nascar, monster trucks, football, mud bogs, and long-legged girls in skimpy outfits. But what did Marx know?