When did the "News" turn into gossip?

You'll notice a very common theme with me is the media. Mainly because no matter what subject you're talking about ... The media is pretty much responsible for all of our opinions.

Ever since the advent of cable television and in particular 24-hour news networks, the news has changed from being a daily one hour informational service, which the three major networks more or less provided (at a loss) for their viewers, into a profit driven competitive market. The combination of attempting to turn a profit with the network's news bureaus, and being on the air 24 hours a day significantly changed the product.

Cramming all the day's events into a single hour required newscasts to pretty much stick to factual presentations of events. At the end of the newscast the news anchor or a special guest commentator, would give a two or three minute "Editorial Comment". Which was clearly labeled as being an "Editorial", complete with it's own graphic and musical introduction. Some networks had one person to present the news and another to provide the editorial opinion ...

This was all done to specifically make sure the line between factual news and editorial opinion was clear to the viewers.

But once the news became the entire focus of a network, 24 hours a day ... There was more time to fill than factual news to present and the only thing worse than constantly repeating the same thing over and over all day long, is dead air. So more and more editorial commentary, or entertainment started working it's way into the newscast as a way of elongating the presentation.

These changes didn't happen overnight. Initially the first 24 hours news network (CNN) aired an hour of news, and repeated it 24 times a day. They broke the day into three (or so) hour segments, each one presented by a different anchor, and allowed for breaking news to alter the basic one hour cycle's presentation.

The idea of a 24 hour news network was great. It allowed people to watch the news as it was convenient for them and eliminated the need to be in front of the television during the one hour a day the networks aired the news.

Over time the 24 hour news network became profitable because more people turned to it in the course of the day, than the network news. And that's when the media problem began.

Like most things, as soon as money (and the potential to make large amounts of it) is involved, money becomes more important than the thing, which provided the opportunity to make it in the first place. And as with every business, as soon as one company starts making money, other companies will start clamoring for a piece of the pie.

Naturally more 24 hour news networks started popping up, each one trying to get a piece of the 24 hour news network pie. Which of course lead to competition. Where once the news was an hour of informational television provided by the major networks, primarily as an informational service for their viewers, 24 hour news networks began trying to entice viewers to watch their news.

It began simple enough by using more attractive male and female anchors to read the news, which someone else had written instead of actual news journalists who researched and wrote their own stories. After all, the person reading the news needed to be in front of the camera for hours at a time.

But how do you really get people to watch your newscast instead of the other guy's?

By making them like, (identify with) your newscast more than the other guy's. And that is done, by making people agree with you. So you start editorializing the news in order to cater to a certain demographic, which leaves another demographic available for another network to cater to.

Eventually the line between news and commentary disappeared completely.

Today news is nearly all entertainment ... More gossip and scandal than factual presentations of events.

When someone walks into a mall and opens fire, the news networks all clamor to get the story (the same story I might add) reported literally seconds before the other networks and will report unverified information (like the number of casualties) and then adjust the facts later, JUST to be able to say something before someone else ... As if viewers are switching channels to see which network pipes in first.

I'd prefer they just shut their mouths (in terms of statistics) until the facts are known and then aired them. Break in on the newscast and inform us that a shooting has happened at a mall, but save the unverified facts for later, after they've had a chance to be verified. Accuracy is much more important than being first.

A couple days later, when conducting an interview with a family member of a victim (or a witness to the shooting), the questions are more about how they felt as they heard the news that their spouse was killed (or as they saw people being shot), it's like they are purposefully trying to get the person they are interviewing to cry ... As if emotional response is news and trying to evoke the viewer into feeling emotion is what passes for news these days.

What ever happened to simply reporting the news and letting me decide how I feel about it ??? Oh yeah ... There's not a lot of money in that.

I could go on forever about the media and how dangerous they have become to our country, how badly they've perverted the 1st Amendment, how they are failing the American people, and how they are really more interested in spreading disinformation and diverting our attention away from the very things they should be bringing to our attention.

And I'm sure I will ...

Does everyone on the planet already have a blog ???

After some serious consideration, I've come to the conclusion that it's time I start spewing forth some of the clutter, which has recently begun to fester inside my brain ... Those who know me best might suggest this won't take more than a few seconds, but I have a feeling that over time, the spill could reach major proportions.

This was all spurred on as a result of a particular news item, which has spilled over onto the web and the realm of the so-called "Blogosphere". I just happened to have enough interest in the story, to Google it and I ended up in an endless series of [fill-in-the-blank].blotspot.com sites ... Each one opining (from a completely uninformed perspective I might add) on the matter.

Which all lead me to the conclusion that I must be the only person on Earth not to have a blog of my own. And I have to say, after reading many of those blogs, whatever I might spew forth can't possibly be too much worse than some of what's already out here.

Don't get me wrong, while some of the blogs and comments I read were barely coherent and steeped in ignorance, some were very well written, and even a few were presented from an objective viewpoint to boot.

In my years online ...

Just over 12 to be exact, as I met my wife online, on the original MSN in late 1995, back when you had to pay for monthly access and (in her case) long distance dial-up access as well. We were one of the first recorded online romances, which resulted in marriage and were the focus of a couple local news station reports (local to where she lived, and I moved ... We were on opposite sides of the country, Idaho and Texas), because nobody had ever heard of such a thing and the Internet itself was a big unknown ... Oh and yeah, we're still very happily married. And yeah ... I digress just a bit, you'll get used to it ... Or maybe not.

I've generally stayed away from blogging and blogs in general. Generally speaking I figure people want to read my ramblings about as much as I have cared to read their ramblings.

But because the lines between news and entertainment are so blurred these days ...

And because you can see a news story on a major network where they encourage their viewers to go to the Internet and read blogs to get "the rest of the story" (which has an implied "which we aren't willing to air lest we get sued, but we think you really would like to read what we found online" air about it) ...

And because when you do there's no differentiation between John and Jane Doe's uninformed, absurd ramblings (which reads more like something you'd find on a bathroom wall or a lynch mob's itinerary/to-do list), and an actual coherent account of factual information ...

And because news outlets are blurring the lines between news and entertainment, and half the time I watch the news these days it's more like watching people gossip with that ever so subtle mind-control edge, instead of presenting the actual news of the day ...

And because the older I get, the more concerned I am becoming over the direction our country is headed in and it appears to me that the media is actively diverting our attention away from the problems we should be focusing on, rather than shining a light on them ...

And because I've quite simply reached the point where I don't care what people think of my opinion anymore ...

I think it's about time I joined in on the blogging and rambled along with everyone else.

Hopefully with a certain amount of objectivity and reason ... A bit of occasional humor ... Literacy is always nice ...

And ultimately, if nothing else ... With the intent of relieving some of this clutter that has begun to fester inside my brain.