“These days, the “news” is a single hyped-up story — a mass shooting or Comey’s appearance before Congress – are often presented in near-apocalyptic fashion. Such an approach is meant to glue eyeballs to the screen in a situation in which viewers are eternally restless and there are so many other screens available. This single story approach is both relentless and remarkably repetitious because a lot of the time next to nothing new is known about the supposedly unfolding event (which is nonetheless presented as if our lives depended upon it). To fall back on the anchor of Avon, it often seems like a tale told by a collective idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
“What this form of news certainly does is suck all the air out of the newsroom. On some days, when one of these 24/7 events is running wild, you could be excused, at the end of half an hour of “national news,” for thinking that nothing other than the event at screen center had happened anywhere on Earth. And I mean nothing. Not even the weather, generally such a favored subject of the nightly news because it offers disaster in its most picturesquely chaotic and yet expectable form.”
(Tom Engelhardt, Tom Dispatch)
And yet the CNN approach it is effective. Tom Englehardt is right – CNN in particular, with its breathless ” breaking news” formula, can be compulsive watching. He mentions the Comey hearing, which we were glued to – and then we had to go online to find out from the Guardian or BBC what truly apocalyptic events were going on in the rest of the world. The CNN approach, like that of Fox News, makes a ton of advertising money. It suits the the American public, whose tastes are generally of a parish pump variety, that is, most people don’t care much about what is happening in North Korea or Yemen, or how many people are starving in Yemen. They are, fleetingly, exercised about local news and tribal matters, like how their political party, right or wrong, is doing today, and having a grumble about the “others”. People complain about the attention span of the c. 10 year old President, but attention spans are pretty short in general.
From an Epicurean standpoint one should be seeking peace of mind and pleasure in its broadest sense. Getting riled up by stupid tweets and over- excited talking heads is not conducive to ataraxia. The problem is that tuning out of it all – an option – is just what Trump and his crowd want us to do.
A problem with CNN is that in order to seem fair and balanced, they insist on having a fair number of Trump supporters on. These people frequently tell lies or avoid the questions they’re asked. Then the Trump supporters will debate Democrats. The result is an excruciating shouting match, in which the viewer actually learns very little. I eschew American TV news entirely. The best form of televised information now is actually comedy shows. In these, the presenter will be direct and succinct about the problems America faces. Any misinformation will be called out as such, it will never go unchallenged for the sake of impartiality. As an added bonus, the shows provide you with a much needed laugh!