Tuesday, April 12, 2011

All the News That's Fit to Broadcast

This past Saturday morning I was at the gym, working out on the Arc Trainer while watching the weekend edition of Good Morning America on the television that is attached to the machine. After a couple of news stories regarding the budget battle, the fighting in Lybia, and the Japanese earthquake, the next story was about the voting on American Idol.

Granted, I know this is a morning "news" show and they do their share of fluff pieces, but this just got my goat. For the first three stories they maybe allocated 15 minutes total. The American Idol story went on for 7 minutes! And this is a story about a television show that airs on a competing network! Really?

I am so constantly amazed at what both the local and national news organizations choose to report on their broadcasts. There are so many important and interesting stories in the world that they could education the public about, but they give us stories on the latest You Tube viral video or what Charlie Sheen said yesterday. And then we wonder why the American people are so apathetic and uninformed when it comes to elections and world events.

With the decline of newspapers, I think that television news really needs to pick up some of the slack. Give us more cake, and less icing. Those who are looking for icing, watch Entertainment Tonight and leave the news to the rest of us.

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