Oh, hello! Have some pretzels. And beer. Hockey tonight, so I’m getting ready.
I don’t typically watch the news. Mostly because I find it inordinately depressing. Life is hard enough without adding more depressing events. Happy pills can only help so much.
But over the past few days, there have been a couple of very tragic shootings in the south, for which I have tuned in to MSNBC and CNN to hear about details. A couple of weeks ago there was another big story, that MSNBC reported on. The one a few weeks ago, there was supposed to have been a little boy in a balloon that was loose. MSNBC spent several hours reporting on this. It was a hoax. No one interviewed the parents in all that time.
Yesterday there was a horrific shooting in Texas. The first brilliant thing that the talking head on MSNBC said is that “he was a soldier with an Arabic sounding name”. That’s super. Let’s get everyone whipped up into anti-terrorist sentiment without finding out the reason for the problem. Next, he went to Virginia Tech, “which is ironic” – presumably ironic since there was a shooting at Virginia Tech not too long ago. Then he had been shot. Dead. Um, no, he isn’t dead. Stable condition. Today, they are targeting the fact that the “alleged” shooter is Muslim. And “it looks like he decided to go with his religious beliefs”. Really, MSNBC? What part of the Muslim religion espouses this type of violence?
So today, there was a shooting in Florida. “The shooter has been apprehended”. “The shooter is still in the building.” “The shooter escaped the building and is at large.” All of this was reported in a 5 minute time span. Then we switch back to Texas, where we’re told, “We’re going into this 2 minute moment of silence. Let’s go to Fort Hood and listen in.” Listen in? Really? WTF?
What has happened over the past 2 days is horrible. So much violence. So many people dead. And having the media add hate and ignorance to the fire only makes it worse. It fuels hatred and fear and will only instigate additional violence. I can’t handle seeing things like that. I’ll go back to just reading headlines.
I’m back off the news.
MagAndMoo's Blog 
Mo
There are two problems with the news these days:
The first is the 24-hour news cycle. News networks are forced to fill so much space, making huge news stories out of things that aren’t big and extending stories that should have died days ago.
The other problem is, back in the day, the news anchors were fairly educated, seasoned reporters who knew about a lot different topics. Now, a lot of them are just news readers and if they’re forced to fill time without a script, they say some of the dumbest shit I’ve ever heard. It’s embarrassing. We’re supposed to get informed by these people.
Not long ago, when Ted Kennedy passed away, one of our local news stations was so embarrasingly stupid that about a week later, everyone was fired and they hired a new team.
I will watch so I have an idea what’s going on, but I’ve found that I have to check out a variety of news sources to really get the full picture. Gone are the days of trusted sources like Walter Cronkite.
magandmoo
you’re right. it seems to be more about looks than brains now. i’ll read the headlines online to stay current and do further research as needed.