[Tyson]

Yes, a Shakespeare quote from R&J pretty much sums up the state of news programs today.  I cut out the news 2 years ago when we cut the cable cord (for financial reasons).  Sometimes I will visit relatives that have cable and keep the news on and it's just shocking to me how negative and awful it is.  I thought it might have just been me, but there's another forum I frequent (MrMoneyMoustache) and one of the members there posted this:

I'm in a vacation house for a week with my in-laws. They leave the television on basically all day, which drives me crazy. But the worst was ABC nightly news last night. I've never watched it before. In roughly half an hour, here are the subjects they covered:

- Shark attacks in NC
- Wildfires in WA
- Small plane crash in MA
- SpaceX Rocket Explosion
- Flooding...somewhere

None of these stories carried any context or big picture framing. No experts were consulted. Nothing actionable for the viewer. Basically they just showed pictures of the event, then interviewed affected people crying. After each news segment, my mother in law would intone 'isn't that awful'?

I suspected that this brand of news was harmful, but it took being away from television for a long time to really be hit with how corrosive it is. I felt terrible after, but with no sense of what I could do to stop feeling terrible. I could see how someone watching this every night would build, brick by brick, a wall between themselves and the world and assume that THE WORLD IS NOT A SAFE PLACE. And this isn't even the politically charged, fear mongering cable news.

It was apolitical catastrophy porn. And because this house has paper thin walls, I cannot escape it.

And that pretty much sums up how I feel, too.  I try to tell my parents to just cut that stuff off, that their lives will be better without it, and they'd save a lot of money too.  But for some reason they just can't do it.  Which makes me sad.  On the other hand, our daughter is growing up without that stuff in her life at all, so that makes me happy. 

[James Romeyn]

"Television is the poor man's whiskey."

Russell Baker

[Atlplasma]

If it bleeds, it leads. Pity the reporters who have to loiter at a crime scene all day just so they can have 30 seconds of airtime and use the victim's home as a background prop. It's more theater than journalism.

[Wayner]

There are no journalists, they are story writers.

Most "old fashioned" journalists checked out the story, before they covered it.

Not now.

'ner

[neobop]

Ignorance is bliss.
neo

[lokie]

I hardly ever watch daily news at my house. I probably would if I could find something interesting. An occasional Charlie Rose or a few broadcast now and then during elections.

My in-laws watch the news all day as well... mostly Fox. They are in their 70's. When they talk politics, business  or just general current events... they have this general look on their face that is doom and gloom and are mostly just pissed off.  The world is going to hell in a hand basket! I  feel sorry for them. But they get what they deserve when you have this non-sense going on in the background all day. I just want to scream at them.... Change the F@#*&ing channel! Or better yet, turn it off and listen to some music. I mean really... you control what goes in your head. If you had the choice of looking at a beautiful mountain/ lake, etc or a garbage dump all day... what would you choose? I just don't understand people's stupidity and their propensity to listen to misery all day. 

[mcgsxr]

I find reading an article better than watching the news.

But, I have sworn off both for most of my adult life.  If I need to know something about something I often listen to a local talk radio station.  Their coverage is usually excellent.

[lokie]

Objectivity over the airwaves doesn't exist anymore... especially with talk radio.

There is absolutely no news for moderates. To me... everything sounds filtered through a bias.

[spudco]

News has always been a mix of information, propaganda and entertainment.  It once functioned to keep people informed but has morphed into something of less value.  Watch "Good Night, and Good Luck" or "The Insider" to get a feel for how long the decline has been in motion.  What is more important than the decline in informed reporting and analysis is the fact that the populace is now trained to have distain for any reporting that isn't about child molestation, cops shooting what ever, airplanes dropping from the sky, corporations selling you poisoned food or defective cars, governments building internment camps or zealots cutting of someone's head.  The populace will accept a few feel good miracle stories with happy reunions of long lost family or lovers, babies that survive horrible diseases, teachers that skip meals to save money to buy school supplies and neighbors who help an elderly person go to church.

This will not change because it is what the masses wish to see and how they like to view their world.

It is just one more reason to join The Society of Poets and Artists Advocating Immediate Nuclear Holocaust.   

[Tyson]

I hardly ever watch daily news at my house. I probably would if I could find something interesting. An occasional Charlie Rose or a few broadcast now and then during elections.

My in-laws watch the news all day as well... mostly Fox. They are in their 70's. When they talk politics, business  or just general current events... they have this general look on their face that is doom and gloom and are mostly just pissed off.  The world is going to hell in a hand basket! I  feel sorry for them. But they get what they deserve when you have this non-sense going on in the background all day. I just want to scream at them.... Change the F@#*&ing channel! Or better yet, turn it off and listen to some music. I mean really... you control what goes in your head. If you had the choice of looking at a beautiful mountain/ lake, etc or a garbage dump all day... what would you choose? I just don't understand people's stupidity and their propensity to listen to misery all day. 

It's funny, my parents are in their 60's and its the same story - Fox on, all day long.  Only really switch it to catch the local news at 9pm or whatever.  Freaking Baby Boomers - their generation completely screwed the world up in the first place, and now they are all just watching it burn.  I never watch the news because I'm too busy cleaning up their mess.

[macrojack]

I've got unfiltered news for the lot of you. The current state of affairs is not news at all. The Hearst empire was built on public misinformation and selective reporting before we boomers were born. They choose what to publish and how to slant it in an effort, often successful, to tell you what to think and how to view something. They decide what is important to you before you know about it.
Ever since somebody in the 1980s eliminated FCC restrictions on media ownership, we have seen corporate merger after corporate merger until ALL high profile media are owned by a handful of international organizations whose best interests are served by their reportage. It is propaganda, pure and simple. And it isn't a boomer phenomenon. It happened as a result of a master plan that was mentioned to us in the late 1980s - The New World Order.
Sorry if this seems vague - rules are rules.

[WGH]

Freaking Baby Boomers - their generation completely screwed the world up in the first place, and now they are all just watching it burn.  I never watch the news because I'm too busy cleaning up their mess.

Hey - I resemble that remark.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEM7I5VSVjY

Sorry, I always try to leave the place cleaner than when I arrived. I'll be happy to come over and clean up the mess in the morning.

When they talk politics, business  or just general current events... they have this general look on their face that is doom and gloom and are mostly just pissed off.

That's just old people, some just get cranky and TV news makes their atrophied brains happy.

"It might be helpful, if those who control television and radio would sit still for a bit and attempt to discover what it is they care about. If television and radio are to be used to entertain all of the people all of the time, then we have come perilously close to discovering the real opiate of the people." - Edward R. Murrow

And who else can work in quotes by The Three Stooges and Edward R. Murrow into one post?

[Folsom]

Careful Tyson, there's a lot of old on this forum

News is similar to Universities... They're selling a product so it's going to do whatever it needs to, to be sold.

One could talk all day on this stuff, but as we all know it just makes you

[Rob Babcock]

I like to stay informed on what's going on in the world, if for no other reason than to inform my vote.  But I never watch television news, ever, at all.

[jarcher]

Infotainment - that's what we mostly get now. Anyone remember when CNN or Headline News actually reported news (or MTV actually played music - but that's another topic)? Fox News make have accelerated the trend, but everyone else got on the bandwagon. I've pretty much tuned out from TV news altogether. Still read the newswires (AP & Reuters) to try to stay "informed". Use to read The Economist, but just don't have the time to get through an issue anymore.

We got the bubble headed
Bleached blonde
Comes on at five
She can tell you 'bout the plane crash
With a gleam in her eye
It's interesting when people die
Give us dirty laundry

[lokie]

For some reason, I love to follow the weather south of the border:

Weather looks great in South America

[brooklyn]

It’s been years since I watched the news or TV for that matter..
The news is about sensationalism and ratings..