Who in their right mind wants to constantly read crap like this every morning? These are the headlines on CNN’s home page today:
Latest News
- Snow threatens flooded Red River Valley
- World leaders meet to talk about economy crisis
- Ticker: Mrs. Obama heads to Europe
- Cafferty: War on drugs is insane
- CNNMoney: Air travel expected to fall 7.8 percent
- Hospital: Octuplet mom’s file accessed, 15 fired
- Boy went on bike for bubble gum, met a killer
- Pistachios possibly tainted with salmonella
- Hundreds feared dead off coast of Libya
- Is Twitter getting too big, too fast?
- Alleged torturer accused in 15,000 deaths
- Girl, 8, goes outside to play, vanishes
- How will April Fool’s worm impact you?
- Martin: Why aren’t stars adopting U.S. kids?
- 12-foot python puts squeeze on reporter
- Baby alligator wanders into house, bites guy
- Racy pix are teens’ right, ACLU argues
- CNN Wire: Angry workers hold Caterpillar…
So, what earthly good does any of this news do for you and me? For one, it makes me angry that this hogwash is even being “reported,” because not a one of these pseudo-events will be changed by my attitude about it nor are they necessary to know. In fact, if all the news magazines, newspapers, and television news went away and we heard about none of what’s supposed to pass for news in this country, nothing would be changed in this world, except perhaps we would all get our good sense back and we would all go about living our lives locally instead of vicariously elsewhere. And people are alarmed because newspapers are failing? Gee, I wonder why?
Mystery of Iniquity 
I used to get mad at people who said they “don’t read the news.” I let it get to me. But now I realize they’re all just a bunch of idiots. If you want to stick your head in the sand and pretend nothing is happening beyond your computer, so be it but don’t use your little blog to spread lies about the media industry.
I won’t begin to dissect every story you listed, though I’m sure you can imagine (God, I hope) the ways that the majority of them are relevant to people. World leaders meet to discuss the economy? Well, that doesn’t effect you. I’m sure you don’t work or spend money. Air travel prices are increasing? Well, only travellers care about that, and from your rant about how we should all only concern ourselves with “our lives locally,” I’m sure you don’t travel much. A torturer is accused with killing 15,000 people. Pfffft. Who cares? A little girl goes missing…let her community worry about. Your community has enough problems, what with the increasing number of bimbos starting blogs once the town got broadband access.
And we all know the media never does anything worthwhile. Watergate? The Mei Lei Massacre? Abu Ghraib? Blackwater? The Iraq War? The Pentagon papers? Not to mention presidential elections every four years and a Congress that brings inane bill after inane bill up for discussion. No…let’s not hold our government or corporations accountable for anything! Let’s let them reign supreme while we use the popular “grape vine” to get our news. Bitsy’s had a baby…well, that’s great! Who cares about the school shooting in the state next door or the impeachment of a president? Those things don’t concern us.
It must be nice to be so inane. Just one more thing…the newspaper industry is “failing” because advertising revenues are down, and the newsrooms can’t support their staff. (You’d think they could for the $19,700 – $24,000 that journalists make, but these are the times we live in.) Advertising revenues are down because businesses are losing money. We’re in a recession…which you’d know if you bothered to read news stories instead of just bitching about them.
kcolli11,
Gee, why I’ve never thought of any of that before!! Thanks for your wisdom. insight, and chastisement! I didn’t realize I meant all of what you imply is in this post. I have obviously never thought about it to any extent, but you know me best. Whew. I feel better and more enlightened. Oh and thank you, for some reason I thought my blog changed world events. I now know it only pisses people off. Cool. 🙂
Now this is interesting because I used to draw inferences about what people said, based on what I wanted them to be saying to give me an excuse to go off on some adversarial rant against people whom I perceived to be my opponent, with no particular justification.
I say “used to”, when it’s actually a habit in process of breaking. I’m sure it’s worth doing though. The polarised didactic mind set usually does nobody any good beyond a short term adrenalin rush, and a feeling of being virtuous.
The use of the words “little blog” is an absolute give away here.
It’s worth remembering that people set up their “little blogs” to process their own thoughts, and the fact that we get to comment is entirely at their discretion. It’s all too easy to make assumptions about other people’s thoughts based on our own agenda.
I write in these terms because, a year ago, the first comment could have been me. I have come to believe that we change the world, locally or globally, by example, not by splenetic outburst.
Blessings
Reg
Reg,
I suppose our “little blogs” are our own “splenetic” outbursts and sometimes people come across them and take them very literally, without having read the entire blog or knowing anything about the blogger. I chalk this up to immaturity more than anything. We all need to question our own assumptions. But blogs are just that; the splenetic outbursts of their authors and we should never attach as much importance to them as the first commenter has, even if we are journalism majors. 😀
Blessings back
Exactly my thoughts. I could have written that.
I do believe that there is such a thing as group psychology and that the news can depress a mass of people in a city, a country, a continent, or even the world.
The problem is that, apparently, good news aren’t news at all, and journalists have to go around looking for bad news.
But it sucks that all they talk about is how bad things are. Everybody becomes convinced that we are in trouble, and then the negativity grows.
I rarely read the news. I try to stay away as much as I can, though close enough to have a general idea of what’s happening.
Lovely answer to your neurotic commenter back there. Geeez! Some people’s writing screams out SHRINK NEEDED!
Lorena,
Yes, the point I was making in the post was that the news is all negative when it comes out. Apparently the commenter thought that meant I didn’t know what was going on in the world. In fact, I still think we suffer from knowing too much news or otherwise, and not enough good news at that, as you aptly point out. If the commenter had actually read my blog at any length he/she would know that I don’t sit with my head in the sand, but that’s drive by readers for ya.’ Spew bile and run! 🙂
Seriously, I miss the days of watching the 1/2 hour evening news. What more do we really need to know? When we have 5 or 6 cable news stations and their websites running 24/7, all those hours have to be filled up with *something*. Inevitibly, you will get crap like ‘Baby alligator wanders into house, bites guy’, and endless pundit talk. I try to stay informed, but there is just a lot of crap to wade through.
I agree. Oh, there’s no question about staying informed. That’s a given. My beef is the relentless negativity of the entertainment news as I like to think of it. You’re right. Do we really need to see and hear the same news all day long? Nope. Thanks for stopping by HIS. Good to see you here. 🙂