wolfwill23
War Child
I am a news junkie. However, as of late I'm trying to ween myself off the cnn.com, foxnews.com and msnbc.com, as well as the their respective television stations. Why am I tuning out?
I am tuning out because these stations sell one thing, FEAR. Yes, we live in a scary time but you know what, I don't want to be reminded of that every single fu**in' time I turn on the TV or go on line. I understand why the news stations 'sell' fear. If the viewers are afraid of some terrorist attack, what are they going to do? They're going to tune in to get the latest info on shops that sell duct tape. Here are some things I think the news stations should do to clean up their acts.
1. Stop running Bin Laden tapes. He wants to kill us, so what? 'Kill the infidels, kill the Jews, blah, blah, blah.' It's old news. Airing the messages of his tapes NEVER shed any new light on the War on Terror (except for the CIA to say that he's alive-which should not be news to anybody, especially the CIA). The airing of these messages serve no purpose other than to scare the daylights out of viewers so they'll tune in to see what they can do to save their families from a terrorist attack. Stop the tapes, they're not even newsworthy at this point.
2. Lose the terror alert color code symbol that is ALWAYS on the screen (except during commercials, of course.) I don't know if CNN has this thing up all the time, but FOX News NEVER takes it off the screen, especially when we're on a heightened state of alert. If there's a change in the terror alert level, then put it up for a bit. But after some time, take the friggin' thing down. My sister-in-law is European and she gets scared to death every time she sees it.
3. Run some POSITIVE STORIES. I know this is a stretch, but bare with me here. There's so much f**ckin' death and destruction in the world today, how about some nice stories (and please, save the stupid animal stories, let's focus on HUMAN BEINGS.) I am sure that there are probably 100 kind acts that go unnoticed everyday and are newsworthy for every single bus bombing, terrorist act, or murder. Since when did we as a society develop this appetite for only negative news? Let's see how some people are changing other people's lives for the better. (I'm sure one reason why you don't see more positive human interest stories is because it's cheaper to just take some scary story off the wire and report about it as opposed to sending a reporter into the field with a camera operator to shoot and edit a nice piece.)
So, there you have it. I will now get off my soapbox. Any thoughts on this?
I am tuning out because these stations sell one thing, FEAR. Yes, we live in a scary time but you know what, I don't want to be reminded of that every single fu**in' time I turn on the TV or go on line. I understand why the news stations 'sell' fear. If the viewers are afraid of some terrorist attack, what are they going to do? They're going to tune in to get the latest info on shops that sell duct tape. Here are some things I think the news stations should do to clean up their acts.
1. Stop running Bin Laden tapes. He wants to kill us, so what? 'Kill the infidels, kill the Jews, blah, blah, blah.' It's old news. Airing the messages of his tapes NEVER shed any new light on the War on Terror (except for the CIA to say that he's alive-which should not be news to anybody, especially the CIA). The airing of these messages serve no purpose other than to scare the daylights out of viewers so they'll tune in to see what they can do to save their families from a terrorist attack. Stop the tapes, they're not even newsworthy at this point.
2. Lose the terror alert color code symbol that is ALWAYS on the screen (except during commercials, of course.) I don't know if CNN has this thing up all the time, but FOX News NEVER takes it off the screen, especially when we're on a heightened state of alert. If there's a change in the terror alert level, then put it up for a bit. But after some time, take the friggin' thing down. My sister-in-law is European and she gets scared to death every time she sees it.
3. Run some POSITIVE STORIES. I know this is a stretch, but bare with me here. There's so much f**ckin' death and destruction in the world today, how about some nice stories (and please, save the stupid animal stories, let's focus on HUMAN BEINGS.) I am sure that there are probably 100 kind acts that go unnoticed everyday and are newsworthy for every single bus bombing, terrorist act, or murder. Since when did we as a society develop this appetite for only negative news? Let's see how some people are changing other people's lives for the better. (I'm sure one reason why you don't see more positive human interest stories is because it's cheaper to just take some scary story off the wire and report about it as opposed to sending a reporter into the field with a camera operator to shoot and edit a nice piece.)
So, there you have it. I will now get off my soapbox. Any thoughts on this?