End of Days
The last threads of faith are scattering from my frayed talis. Slick-haired weatherman just told me tomorrow, mother nature’s gonna kick my ass. So I looked it up on weather.gov. 45 and breezy.
So let me get this straight….
a car barrels through scuffling pedestrians in Manhattan. A man breaks both kneecaps. The driver speeds away. Next up? Your favorite TV shows are coming back to air.
A movie critic cheerleads for a patently shitty new film; an MSNBC anchor uses a turn of phrase to pose a question, but because it’s politically incorrect, he’s suspended and has to tuck tail between legs in a disingenuous televised apology.
There’s so much more. So many reasons to look at broadcast news and wonder, is this really journalism? Or is this just a pile of shit, perfumed for viewing pleasure.
When it comes down to it, ’sex,’ ‘drugs,’ and ’scandal’ are what make you click on the link, or hold the remote just a little bit longer. These catchwords drive news more than events themselves. When the election is about a tanking economy and a failing war, the broadcast is about the word “pimp,” and how many 8-balls Barak blew up his nose thirty years ago.
Is there even a war anymore? I haven’t seen news on TV regarding Iraqin weeks. It’s as if, because there’s an election on the horizon, the lives lost, the lives of Americans lost, just don’t place high in the show anymore. And of course, there’s the ubiquitous household danger, waiting to kill you at any moment, sneaking surreptitiously behind you as we speak. What is it? We’ll tell you, after this message from our sponsors.
I can no longer regard television news as anything more than cheap entertainment. And the glibness with which anchors approach these issues is sickening. Print and broadcast are different worlds. And the more competition television gets from the internet, the more outlandish and irresponsible broadcast news will get.
Integrity is dead in pop culture. No one reads anymore. I persist in a profession better suited to the cemetery.
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