February 25, 2012

Is It News Or A Variety Show?




What has happened to the news these days? I don’t watch daytime television and haven’t for quite a while because most of it isn’t worth tuning into but now the news has gotten silly.

In the evening when I do turn on the television for the latest reports and weather we are bombarded with advertisements for the morning show where anchor people have turned into blooming idiots playing, “Rock, Paper, Scissors,” pretending to play musical instruments or having eating contests. “Can Jed eat that twenty pound steak?” Do people honestly enjoy that kind of stuff? I just want the news, people.

It’s bad enough that we’ve put actors out of work by hiring any Joe on the street thinking America gives a hoot about “Reality,” now we are trying to turn the news cast into street entertainers.

And what’s with the coffee? Everyone is drinking coffee and then someone comes in with a pot giving refills. Where are the tea drinkers? That’s what I want to know. I guess I couldn’t be an anchorperson since I don’t drink coffee.

Well my solution was to just not turn it on but some evening broadcasts are switching to this new kind of reporting as well. People no longer sit behind a counter, they now stand showing off their fashion clothes because drab conservative anchor duds were too boring. I can’t keep my attention on the map to find out if it’s going to rain because Susie’s glittery dress is distracting me.

And since when is an actors personal life breaking news? I can see letting us know when a famous person passes away but do we really care who is having an affair with whom or what celebrity is going into rehab for the umpteenth time? I don’t. They have separate entertainment shows for that.

It’s bad enough that most of them are slanted to their own personal political agenda. I’ve always thought they should paint a big elephant or donkey on the back wall to let new people know which side of the fence they stand on. Just tell me up front what you believe so I can make my decision because you aren’t going to change my mind based on your opinions.

Personally, I’d just as soon read the paper to get my news but the weather changes so much here in Oklahoma you have to keep a close watch on it sometimes and we only have one local paper which is also very slanted in their beliefs.

My favorite used to be PBS but they recently fired everyone and hired all new people for no apparent reason other than the fact they were old. I got a kick out of the weatherman because he always sounded drunk. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t but his voice had that tone that was fun to listen to. “Hurry, Hon, the drunk guy is telling the weather.”

I still watch PBS because at least we don’t have all the hoopla distracting me from the real reason I’ve turned on my television.

Yes, I know you can get news from the Internet too but I haven’t quite gotten into that. I do check out the web for world news but so far our local online news isn’t very user friendly. I can spend a lot of time trying to find a story about recent events. They purposely don’t update them right away because they want you to watch them on T.V.

I don’t have a problem with change when it’s for the better, but personally, I don’t think making news shows a three ring circus an improvement.