David Merritt is a junior majoring in communication. He can be contacted at [email protected].Since I gave up my television-watching habit a few years ago, there honestly isn’t much I miss about it.
Stale sitcoms, brain-numbing advertisements and countless reality shows make this a pretty easy decision.
The only thing that bothers me about tuning out is that I feel like I’m not keeping up with current events in the news. And the news might be the only saving grace of television, so I na’vely thought.
Unfortunately, after watching a few minutes of it recently, I made a terrible discovery: The news, like the rest of television, is just entertainment. They merely replace actors with real people and talk about stuff that really happened.
I understand the need to keep people’s interests. But how relevant or objective is it to talk about “how-hot-is-too-hot” in respect to children’s Halloween costumes? This was a real topic on CNN. Is there not enough going on in our communities to avoid resorting to that kind of garbage?
There needs to be a focus on real issues, like what our government is up to or how well local businesses are doing. And if I want to hear someone’s opinion on [insert pointless trivial event], I’ll flip on Oprah.
It’s extremely uncomfortable that so many news programs have “journalists” who operate a bit like talking heads by reporting real events and spouting their own opinion on them. I’m so glad they’ve taken this great burden, because the last thing I want to do as an American is process information and, God forbid, think for myself.
Of course, the networks realize all this because that’s how they keep us tuned in. They entertain us with so-called news that is neither significant nor without bias in order to brainwash us. They employ other tactics as well to keep us glued to the screen.
I’ve noticed that news programs on television not only try to entertain and push an agenda, they also try to scare the crap out of you.
There’s always a very unnatural focus on violent crime. Many of the headlines will include something about a girl being raped or kidnapped, a man being killed while robbing a bank or a car running over a small child. A foreigner to the United States might flip on the television and decide that we live in a country bursting at the seams with violence.
The truth is that very few people end up as victims of violent crimes, and the news and, well, television in general over-represent this part of our culture.
Basically, the problem with the news programs on television today is that instead of doing their best to inform you of facts that properly reflect the way the world is, they do whatever the hell they have to do in order to get you to tune in tomorrow.
Unfortunately, television is run by businessmen who, by no fault of their own, are just trying to make a living.
I don’t think the problem lies solely with them. The real responsibility lies with the viewers who choose what to watch and can always exercise their right to hit that big fat power button on the remote and turn the junk off.