So, it’s Tuesday.
A few people have died in the past week or so. Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcette, Billy Mays, and M.J. Of course many other people died in that time but the news media doesn’t cover those.
Many Iranian protesters have been detained, killed or injured in the past week but it seems that media outlets are relieved that they’re able to STOP covering that story. It felt to me that CNN and other vampiric outlets feel they’ve bled that story dry…so fresh meat for the sensationalizing had to be found. The fickle nature of our information consumption embarasses me and I wonder what the world thinks of us because of it.
The Iranian uprising must have hit it’s 140 character limit because for the past week I’ve seen nary a story regarding the continuing struggle.
Oh yeah, that North Korean ship that we dispatched war vessels to investigate that was suspected of carrying fuel and supplies for nuclear reaction? Aww, forget about it…it’s old news…didn’t you hear…M.J. died.
I don’t think that our attention spans are so short that we, as a nation, need to move on. I think that the news outlets are all about the dollar and feel the need feed us something new to keep us interested. Shame on you for not understanding what Americans are really all about. We, as Americans, are ALLOWING this by watching the inane coverage, buying the gossip rags, and not demanding that REAL NEWS be reported.
It sickens me to think that the struggle for democracy persists for these people and we’re more interested in what happens to all the crap Michael Jackson foolishly spent his money on. We WERE witnessing a monumental change in philosophy in the Middle East…that is, until we decided to change the channel.
This is why I stopped watching the news many years ago. Regardless, even if they did report on things we want to hear about, everything would an agenda attached… usually ultra-right or ultra-left depending on the political leanings of the TV execs. What ever happened to moderation? It probably takes too much thought to be a true moderate… much easier to just listen to what you are supposed to believe and reiterate.
If you really want a leap from reality, try watching one of those Entertainment Tonight or similar “news” casts. Every time I’ve been so lucky as to catch one of those, I sit there with my jaw opened asking “Who cares about this stuff?!”
Well, coming back to reality, if what the media is reporting is a bunch of trash, it isn’t because nobody in America watches it… quite the opposite. I would like to believe that the media is just out of touch with the real America, but unfortunately, evidence is to the contrary. The dumbing down of information in the midst of the Information Age, is symptomatic of our reduction is investing in the education of our youth, which seems to keep getting worse over the past 40 years. Education, along with the innovative spirit in Americans, was the key to our becoming a super power. Unfortunately, it seems that we, as a group, have become so complacent that until it really starts to hurt, we aren’t going to see the light. Human nature , I guess.