djplong,
First off...
Please do not let my reply cause Bk's question to get set aside... I do not wish to be the cause of having it "fall through the cracks" as it seems to have done earlier.
Thereafter...
Quote:
Originally Posted by djplong
Allen - Respectfully, which point are you referring to? I would like to think I disproved any misconceptions that I only read/see "liberal" news. It's 'entertainment news' that I just can't bear to watch anymore. Maybe it's because I grew up with what *I* consider to be more dignified news anchors - and now I have to put up with "What's in your pantry that may be poisoning you? We'll tell you at 11!" or any combination of scare-you-into-watching bumpers. ...and another thing, what if I'm going into my pantry at 9:30?
And on those occasions when I DO watch tv news (usually weekday mornings around 5:30am) they spend their money on style instead of substance. They'll send a reporter to stand in front of a building to report on a story. There's nobody to interview there. Heck, nobody's awake. Sometimes it'll be as bad as "this afternoon - something will happen here" or "yesterday there were people here". They design and build multimillion dollar studios (in Boston, Channel 7 was the first and worst at this) that try to make Mission Control in Houston look like a home-video setup. All style, no substance.
And don't get me started on the commercials. I don't know how the 6 o'clock news is these days, but the morning news is *all* car, furniture and jewelry ads.
Why don't I watch 'visual' news more often? Because there's so little NEWS there. Between the commercials, the chatter, the promos, etc, there's little room LEFT. When I *read* something, however, 100% of that time is reading - input. Far more efficient. ...to say nothing of the fact that I can skip EVERY Paris Hilton, Michael Jackson, supermodel or movie studio "news" and stick to stories that ARE news.
...and, yeah, I know it's the "NH" Union Leader, but that's a recent (to me) change and old habits die hard (I moved to NH in 1974). Since we have award-winning papers in other cities here in New Hampshire, I'll always think of them as "Manchester".
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I'll readily agree with you that there is a lot of very shallow news programming out there... especially Local (I can hardly stand it) and Network news. However, Fox does provide very good coverage in their news blocks. I think you would be surprised if you actually tuned into (or recorded) Neil Cavuto at 4:00 PM, Bret Baier at 6:00 PM, Shepard Smith at 7:00 PM or even O'Reilly (commentary) at 8:00 PM... and let's not forget Beck at 5:00 PM (which is where this all started). Not that Beck's is a news program... I just think you might be surprised by all of his research and documentation.
To be fair, Beck does not like what is going on in Washington, he is very upset about what he believes Progressives want to do to this country and he "calls out" Progressives on both sides. (Progressives in the true historical sense of the term... not the intentional "sunshine and lollypop" substitution of Progressive for Liberal in the so called "main stream media" today.) O'Reilly is an Independent and as he says "he is just looking out for the folks". If you had been watching him, you would have seen that has "bent over backwards" to be fair to Obama but he does now seem to now be losing patience with him.
Can television (or radio) go into the same depth as print? Not easily in today's marketplace... I agree with you there, but if you are really looking for some semblance of balance (although I'm sure you think you already have it), I suggest you try Fox in a few of the above time slots. This may initially be a total anathema to you since you seem to be getting most of your news from a print media which has been proven to be in the neighborhood of 85% liberal political affiliation by admission on more than one occasion.
Again we are taking about balance here... if you are going to use *Dan Rather* (fired by CBS because of biased reporting) and *MSNBC* as some of your sources, the least you could do is include Fox... if not Limbaugh to balance that out. (Thought you might enjoy the Limbaugh recommendation... but I'll take Limbaugh over Olbermann and the like any day.)
Although we may not agree on a lot of things, it's been a good discussion. I just encourage you to actually watch Fox for a while and then make your judgment. There is no question that their commentary comes mostly from the right, but at least it is labeled as commentary and you know what to expect as opposed to having "bias by omission" or having it written between the lines.
Since I know you like the printed word (albeit commentary with reference to factual data in this case), here is one last link for you:
http://www.forbes.com/2009/11/14/fox...t-lichter.html
Finally, I think I have "about beat this horse to death", so once again... best wishes to you. Feel free to reply, but I'm "over and out" for now... perhaps someone else will engage if you wish to continue. This is all just too much fun for me... time to get back to work. Thank you.
P.S. I'm with you on the commercials, but I thank God we have them... it means continued commerce and capitalism! I have to admit though... I enjoy blasting right through them with the DVR.