was walter cronkite a big suckfest?
When I was a kid I remember thinking that watching the evening news was a sign of something good...intelligence, savvy, something along those lines.
Now, as a responsible adult something has changed, and I don't think it's just me. The evening news seems synonymous with everything I hate about American culture. I can't stand the commercials for the news. On the few times I've seen it lately, I've made it through about two and a half minutes with my jaw dropped. On the last occasion I heard a broadcaster, talking about a high school basketball coach who died, say, "He checked out of the game...of life."
Someone tell me it's not just me. Or tell me it is just me. But did the news always suck?
(oh, and hey, if there any canadians out there, does the news in canada suck?)
Now, as a responsible adult something has changed, and I don't think it's just me. The evening news seems synonymous with everything I hate about American culture. I can't stand the commercials for the news. On the few times I've seen it lately, I've made it through about two and a half minutes with my jaw dropped. On the last occasion I heard a broadcaster, talking about a high school basketball coach who died, say, "He checked out of the game...of life."
Someone tell me it's not just me. Or tell me it is just me. But did the news always suck?
(oh, and hey, if there any canadians out there, does the news in canada suck?)
posted by sparklestone at 6:26 PM
11 Comments:
The news here tends not to be as sensationalist as it does in the States - yet.
It still sucks though.
The latest on my local morning news is to update the weather format - instead of the usual "this'll be the weather today" forcast, they do a "schoolkids weather" and a "Commuter Weather" and a "Unemployed Bastard Crack Whore" weather with reports tailored to those particular groups.
Oh and there's the "Americans are Being Insane AGAIN" report which is on almost every night.
First off, Happy Birthday chucklehead.
I don't think the news always sucked, but I'm tempted to say it has sucked for the duration of our lifetime. Well, my lifetime at least. I think America spent so long watching Vietnam play out that afterward we felt a void. We need shootings and explosions and protests and all that stuff.
It's just like the Howard Stern surveys. The people who loved him listed to hear what oulandish thing he would say next. The people who hated him also listeded to hear what outlandish thing he would say next.
Sylow, you say "duration of our lifetime" but isn't it possible that I watched 733 days worth of unsucky news before you came along?
The likelihood of your sisters pointing your face towards the TV while they sat on your head is pretty slim, don't you think?
Happy Birthday!
News took a big downturn with the 24 hour cable channels. That's a hell of a lot of time for news - so they had to invent news, make unnewsworthy items news, and become entertainers rather than journalists.
My absolutely most hated news quirk lately is the blurbs like this one which is true by the way:
The common household item that is killing your children...find out what it is on the 11 PM news....(so let's allow a few more kids to die before you tell us, idiot...)
The answer was the toilet - kids falling face first and drowning..what a way to go...
Mary, if this were your blog I'd say (with a wink) "boy that's shitty", but it's just not as funny here.
Mary, I was just talking with someone about this news question (perhaps at the very moment you were commenting) and I brought up the whole "thing that is killing your kids and is probably in your house right now" thing. I heard that while flipping channels about a week ago.
I didn't stay tuned to find out what it was...thanks for letting me know.
hey listen, birthday boy...if you think that a headfirst fall into the toilet is the only thing that can kill a person, you haven't been watching enough news.
j
sylow - everywhere I go I step in shit...even my contributions here lead to shit-related topics. I don't know how I doo-doo it.
Sparklestone - like Google does, come to me first when you are looking for some knowledge; right now I'm #2 for large anuses and (drum roll) NUMBER ONE for white anuses and holding for week two.
Sylow, you don't grasp the early years in the Sparklestone household. He easily spent 3 hours a day being sat on by one of his sisters and 22 hours a day watching TV. Clearly some of that time overlapped.
I grew up watching cronkite and brother, that set me up for a lifetime of never trusting anyone.Is that good or bad? From what I recall the news did not always suck, but there were scary things happening. I honestly believe there was a different broadcasting generation back when I was a wee one and they had some sort of code to live by. That goes for newspaper journalists too. I'm sure broadcasting started changing with the kennedy assasination, leading into veitnam, watergate but then...the reagan attempt...talk about coverage.
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