Finding News
By
Leonard Zwelling
This is how Google defines news.
news
/n(y)o͞oz/
noun
newly received or noteworthy information, especially about recent or important events.
“I’ve got some good news for you”
- a broadcast or published report of news.
plural noun: the news
“he was back in the news again”
If this is news then what I see on TV or hear on the radio or read on my computer does not strike me as really being news. It is supposed to be noteworthy as well as novel (not to mention true). I am not sure why the summation of the sexual indiscretions of Governor Andrew Cuomo or Representative Matt Gaetz or any member of the National Football League is noteworthy. Frankly, why should I care and am I supposed to be surprised? And what about the judgment of the news outlets making darn sure that the shootings in Atlanta were depicted as Asian hate crimes when there is no evidence that this is true at all despite what the newly elected senator from Georgia says.
I am also not entirely clear why natural disasters like floods and tornadoes qualify as news on the national level. Locally—sure. Making the flood in Alabama national news and then shoving a microphone in the face of the poor people victimized by the flood is not my idea of worthiness or for that matter integrity.
And don’t for a minute think that the lack of integrity in news reporting is limited to Fox or the other conservative outlets. I am this close to ceasing to watch all broadcast news. CNN and MSNBC slant the news and slant the commentary by the talking heads, too. What the heck is anyone supposed to do about the crisis at the Mexican border and what makes anyone think that people in North Dakota care. I actually doubt that they do. The coronavirus is a worthy story and the fact that we now are learning that the Trump Administration didn’t take the threat seriously and that that cost people’s lives is definitely news. But is the nonsense out of the WHO of claiming they have a report on the origin of the virus that required Chinese approval and that cleared the Wuhan Institute of Virology of all wrongdoing? Give me a break. There is no news there. The news is what China wants us to believe it is and we are the dupes if we do. The WHO is a tool of Beijing. Keep the WHO off the news. Trump was right to stop the WHO funding.
What is even more infuriating is the last five to ten minutes of national newscasts being filled with feel good stories that don’t even rise to the level of anything close to news.
Now the question is why is this occurring in a country that used to value Walter Cronkite, Ed Murrow and Huntley and Brinkley? The answer is that news has become another form of entertainment and not just on the Internet where I challenge anyone to go on the CNN web page and figure out what is news and what’s an ad. They both contain a Kardashian.
The only vestige of honest reporting that I see on the television is the PBS News Hour, but even that has a liberal lean to it.
I can’t even depend on the newspapers either. The New York Times has gotten way too far left and The Wall Street Journal way too far right. Maybe in New York there are other options, but I am impressed that those of us who live in places other than New York have a hard time finding hard news.
Anyone have any suggestions or do I keep reading three newspapers, watch many different networks and listen to many radio stations in the hope of discerning some semblance of reality?
I am not sure when news became infotainment, but we’re there.
Help!
