News media running 24/7 give us the option to tune into the news programs of our choice
– programs that give us the slant that confirms what we want to hear. I admit, my favorite news program is the
Rachel Maddow show. I watch Rachel as
much for entertainment as for news.
My first
teaching job in a remote Indian village was third, fourth, fifth and six grades
combined. These kids knew little
outside of their village life and politics.
Each morning I would tape the world news that aired earlier on RATNET
(the single channel of television available in the Alaskan Bush) and play it for
the children at the beginning of each school day. I
would ask them five questions:
What is actual news?
What is sensational hype?
What is not news?
What is fact?
What is opinion?
I had
parents that came to me and said that they were having to watch the news
because their children wanted to discuss it when they came home from school.
The
twenty-four news cycle bastardizes the news.
It has to be that way, for how many different ways can you present the
same event for twenty-four hours? Almost any
natural news event can be covered in five minutes, but then the discussions,
predictions, opinions and suppositions begin ad-nausea in order to stretch a precise incident to hours of coverage.
We are fed a
mixture of news and pabulum and entertainment under the guise of
information. News is purposely slanted to the viewing audience (high numbers bring advertisers; and it is really all about money – not news coverage.
MSNBC spent
ten minutes on ‘inflation gate’ this morning: Were the footballs used by the
New England Patriots slightly deflated for better handling during their final
game with the Colts?
At the end
of the section we knew no more than we did at the beginning: If presented as
news this should have warranted no more than a comment; it would have been more
appropriate in the sports section.
In plain
language the news man knew no more about 'inflation gate' than we knew, since the findings of the
league have not been announced; but he spent ten minutes on hype, speculation
and opinion. My students would have
said: NOT NEWS.
The best coverage was from Rachel Maddow - she put it into perspective; entertainment.
the Ol'Buzzard
