Colby Taylor once told me, it was the move from a nightly to the 24 hour format that ruined "the news" for everyone. No longer enough to simply report on events, all day news channels have to spin and spin to hold their audience's attention.
Pretty smart young man. I believe he hit the nail on the head.
As far as I'm concerned, the news is now just another form of advertising and advertising's main goal is to create buying habits.
Whether we buy into a conservative or a liberal news channel, we are subscribing to a point of view whose only real agenda is to keep saying anything that will keep us tuned in.
Isn't it more like fact shedding than fact sharing when the networks opinion mongers peddle emotional dialogues cloaked in superficial facts. Their rants abrogate reason and divide us onto one side or the other of lines THEY are drawing in sand.
What do you think?
I think something more insidious came from the 24-hour cycle. There is still only maybe an hour of reportable material so it’s on repeat all day. Many people leave the news on as background noise. What I’ve witnessed is a growing paranoia about the increase in (crime, immigrants, disasters, etc) based not on actual increases but on hearing about the same incident every 20 minutes for a few days. I think this plays with brains in a wholly unintentional but in the end very divisive way.
Good point, Dale. Fox News keeps my mom worrying about so many things she shouldn't be concerned about. She watches that channel most of the day, so her perceptions are polarized and the fear-mongers have her in their clutches. Mom has diminished mental capacity, so it is definitely repetition over pov in her case.
I can see how having the news playing in the background can brainwash even a healthy mind, but for senior minds who can no longer reason their way out, it is a most insidious trap.