Bad News

Last week pointed out the terrible state into which American news reporting has fallen.  Brian Williams got suspended for not telling the truth about an experience in Iraq or Afghanistan, but the real problem was that the network news has deteriorated into worthless fluff.  The lead story is almost always the weather, because it is so easy to report -- no need for overseas bureaus, correspondents, language ability, etc. -- just put someone outside in the rain, the wind or the snow with a microphone in their hand, and you can fill up many minutes of time that is supposed to be devoted to the news.  The thing is, if the weather story if relevant to you, you can look outside and see what you need to know, or get a much more detailed local forecast, and if the weather doesn't affect you, why do you care enough to watch it for five or ten minutes.  As Carl Bernstein said on "Reliable Sources," it's really entertainment, not news.

The PBS Newshour does a good job of reporting the news, and now so does Aljazeera.  Aljazeera makes the US network news shows look entertainment for idiots.  ABC has even developed its own way of speaking, eliminating most verbs, and replacing them with gerunds.  Instead of saying, "Obama was peaking to the press," ABC says, "Obama, speaking to the press."  And they are very prone to saying things like "right here," or "right now."  ABC seems to be trying to speak like newspaper headlines aimed at people with a sixth grade education.  ABC believes it is speaking to an audience with no knowledge of English grammar or geography, or anything else previously taught in high school.  They clearly believe the American education system is an abysmal failure.  ABC illustrates that today a college dropout like Scott Walker has a good chance of becoming President.

It's amazing that the Muslim/Arab network Aljazeera has a higher opinion of the American public than Walt Disney (which owns ABC) does.

Bill Maher had a great editorial on "New Rules" about how bad the network news has become.  We have learned that the executives of the networks have contempt for the American people and the future of the United States.