Considering the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico; we stopped getting our local paper years ago because it dispensed less information than you could gather from eavesdropping on the school kids waiting for their bus on the corner. It should be called the Minneapolis Waste of Time and Paper, rather than Star and Tribune.
I'm sure there are some decent news shows on tv (I'll wait while you get over your laugh attack). TV can actually handle breaking news really well; with a 24 hour news cycle, you'd think they'd be more than willing to delve deeply, overturn every rock for information and search endlessly for clarity since they have so much time to fill.
Somewhere along the line, they figured out that just because they're on 24 hours doesn't mean anyone watches for more than fifteen minutes, so in the name of efficiency that 's what you get; fifteen minutes worth of news every 24 hours.
If they wanted to, they could give us 15 minutes of in depth information but the template seems to be; give them something lurid to keep them watching for 16 minutes!
If it sounds like I'm not a fan of tv news, then I'm getting my point across.
Anyway, even if it weren't for the overtly political bias of the news (Katrina proved that Bush hates black people and the Gulf Spill proves that Obama is willing to
kick some ass. We'll just ignore the fact that the state of Louisiana had to take it in the shorts to make both points.) I have a problem with how superficial the reporting is. I understand it, I just don't like it. Most people, when told something like "BP will shell out $20 million (billion?) for the poor shmucks put out of work", just think "Good!"
It's not good.
The ramifications of all the decisions made by our administration for "Kicking some ass" are bad for people not only here in our country but in the UK as well. Innocent people, who had no culpability in what could very well have been an accident due not so much to reckless negligence (which we won't know until after the leak is plugged and an investigation is performed) but the simple fact that accidents happen.
Michael Barone wrote a good column on some of the reasons why the political reactions to this disaster are, in the long run as well as the short run, detrimental to us all.
It"s one of modern life's little ironies that here in the age of information, when it's easier and easier to do your own research, it's more and more imperative that you do; the news organizations all seem to assume that you won't.
