It’s on in the other room right now, and I don’t usually ever watch it deliberately, but every time I leave it on I’m just left with a sense of utter revulsion as to the sick spectacle that nearly all television news has become.
There’s nothing informing about it, there’s nothing revelatory, or illuminating, or often even factual anymore. So often now it’s just a exercise in narcissistic voyeurism — “These people were brutally murdered here today, and we’ve got a reporter live on the scene”.
It’s all about story narrative for them now. They don’t follow stories for relevance, or importance, or meaning, but for storyline, and what works best to draw in their audience. Of course, long ago I decided that a well-written piece of fiction on a topic would beat a “factual” news report on the same topic everytime, so it tells you how much they know about storylines anyway.
</rant>
Well … I will take a deep breath now … stick to ABC news if I ever want to watch it … this is probably no great surprise to most of you. Stick to online news from smart sources …
(For added relevance, check the link above. An essay by a former US network news correspondent turned academic, showing what TV news has become from his time on the job. Scary and illuminating.)