I think the news overload we face each day is driving us mad. What wasn't news before is now prime time news on TV, radio, print and on the internet, and this reporting of every triviality and perversion of what most people experience in their daily lives has deterred us from finding real news that has a real impact on our lives. From daily updates on the lunatic actor Charlie Sheen to hysterical reports of the earth boiling us what we see as news today is not enriching our lives or defining issues with which we need to deal. It is creating a fantasy land that insulates us from reality.
Need another example of non news being portrayed as news? CNN.com had a feature story today about the Philadelphia Public Health authority giving 11 year olds free condoms, anonymously. They go on line, fill out a form, and receive a mailing of condoms...without mom or dad knowing a thing. It's a bizarre stupid anomaly by that city health department that is irrelevant to almost everyone who is asked to read the story, and it takes the place of real issues that we are uninformed about and neglecting. But this is what news has become today. Instead of being buried on an obscure web site, it is presented a feature story on CNN. it does not follow.
The "censor" or "editor" who screens what is put in print or aired by mediums seems missing in action. Instead, those whose job it is to choose what is to be presented as news now prioritize the sensational item above the substantive one. No wonder the world is so misinformed about what it should know. It's too busy being entertained and titillated to see and digest what is important. We have become children in a room full of foods, but who have the cookies and candy in our view and the veggies and fruits hidden beneath the sweets. It's just harder and harder today to find objective news about real issues that matter. As a result the world becomes less informed about what it should know.
Problem is, most people don't realize they have been euthanized by the junk that is portrayed to them as news. It's what happens when a medium explosion presents endless sources for news. With so many sources the most entertaining win out over the most important. Real news, mostly unexciting, is pushed to the background in favor of entertaining "news" which is more profitable for the news presenters bottom lines, given us the mentality we possess today of entertainment first, substance second.
How ironic that the glorious information source explosion of the internet and modern electronic technology would so quickly dumb down what it tells us into goo that humans can't get enough of. We avoid dealing with real problems and duties because by wallowing in the stupidity we are uninformed about the serious. Well, at least I know where to refer 11 year olds to get free condoms.
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