Dear Friends,
It seems to me that what passes for news now days is opinion and drama. It may be that people who consume the news want opinion instead of news. I personally like some information to go with opinion.
Jim Lehrer News Hour is about ten minuets news thirty minuets opinion. Outrage at what this or that person has said. But we don’t get to hear, in context, what the offender in fact did say. There was no coverage at all about the MILF gorillas in the Philippines, the unrest in Bolivia or the Canadian elections.
Instead coverage focused on whether or not one politician lies more than the other. I can tell you a fool proof way to tell when a politician is lying, look to see if his or her lips are moving. We all know that politicians lie. I would expect that a news organization worth it’s salt would at least give passing coverage to world events.
That is the reason that the American public is so often caught off guard when a major news event happens. John Q Public has only been watching weather people stand in the rain and wind of a hurricane telling us not to stand in the wind and rain of a hurricane. Hours of this mindless tripe. Then an allied government is attacked. The American people are aghast and exclaim “ why does this keep happening to us?” meaning why didn’t we know about this before it erupted into a full blown crisis. The Georgian crisis was brewing as far back as April, as I talked about in one of my BBS posts, http://incapp.org/yabb/YaBB.pl?num=1209305651 but the American people were caught off guard when Russia invaded Georgia.
Our “high quality” and “unbiased” main stream news organizations leave a lot to be desired. Perhaps they could try reading the Taipei Times. America’s news organizations could learn a thing or two about what is news and what is opinion. Then perhaps label them as such.
Of course the media provides what the market demands. Otherwise the firm providing the service will loose market share and eventually fold… Aren’t the major news media outlets in decline though?
