"And now, the Evening News..."
This is when that saying "no news is good news" is a bad plan. Finding actual news on the news was my mission today. I get 10% of my news in the morning from The San Antonio Express-News, which is kind of a rinky-dink paper (as far as modern newspapers go :[ ). The beauty of the newspaper is how fast the human eye can scan it for articles of interest. I can troll for days in message boards, tweets, and blogs, but I will be missing something else in the process with the time-wasting I would do finding stories relevant to my day-to-day life. With the Express-News, I can quickly read an article of interest, summarily dismiss it as being total B.S., and then use the keywords to Google the story after work. The plus side of my cynicism proved itself when I did not have to wade through six hours of 9/11 pandering to get my local news. On a recommendation of a friend, I was told that if I were to look at an Online News Source, to look at http://www.reuters.com. That proved very useful in that they own and produce their own stories with their own investigative journalists (...or so it seems.... at least the bylines match this theory). Generally, I avoid Twitter/Facebook/blogs because there is no telling the whether the source is telling the truth, or for that matter if the source is actually "the source" and not a company paid to appear as an unassuming individual or concerned insider/whistle blower. I think it is safe to assume about 30% of my news comes from online sources. I prefer http://www.youtube.com. Youtube shows average people posting without all the corporate pressure (just dont re-post copyrighted programming). However, Reuters won for actual facts presented. I ignore Wiki Leaks. Although I support them constitutionally for freedom of speech, I don't support the buying/selling/receiving of stolen property. Saying it was to keep the Government in check sounds like sensationalist B.S. It also doesn't help when you consider how high an intake of cash they get for so little overhead costs (an estimated $1.3 Million compared to $40,000 in expenses) . I pray that it does not become another News Corp. The beauty of the online sources was how fast the information arrived. Posts were made around the world around the clock. Best part of it is that you can hyperlink to other articles allowing for a thread of consciousness. Despite that readily available source, 50% of my news comes from TV programming. I can tolerate CNN in the background of my day to day (in fact, it is playing right now on the monitor next to the one I'm typing this blog on!). The shortcomings of TV news is repetition and biased coverage. Stories about politcal campaigns dominated the cable-waves today. As this blog is not for me to vent my politcal views, rest assured reader...I was displeased. Moving on. The other constant part of the today's news was the coordinated Taliban attacks on Kabul. The event is tragic and people got hurt, but that was not the key portion of what I was looking at. Instead, I noticed that CBS, NBC, ABC, and CNN ran the exact same story at the exact same time (plus or minus about a minute and a half). They probably do that to force the viewer to pick a channel and not "surf". To make matters worse, they all used the EXACT same file footage, GoogleMap, and interviews. I saw the same red-shirted civilian run past the camera about 18 times today on five different networks. The fifth was PBS. This version of the exact same story was broadcast between 1-2 hours later than the competion. By then, I am burnt out on the issues they presented and the dialogue was too dry for a solid hour of news consumption. Not having the ads allowed for slightly lengthier versions of the same clips, but no new news relevance was gained from this. CBS did well with live coverage and frequent cameras in helicopters, but they splashed their logo on EVERYTHING. NBC was a waste of time, but their track record is high enough that I tuned in anyway (at least during commercials on other networks). ABC ran the exact same stories that aired on the other networks an hour later, then dissolved into the first 15 mintues of the 2 hour Jaqueline Kennedy special they were set to run at 9 pm (two hours after that). The news from Comedy Central was the underdog. They aired the news with a comedic bias with the shows The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report. Despite the hunt for laughs they do, the reporting was either fair and accurate or so obviously a comedy sketch that most people would not be confused. Bad news in a good and light-hearted way is WAY easier on the ears on stress-level of the audience. Biggest problem with these as a news source comes from it being a rerun from the night before. Even though they were late reporting, the subject matter still made them competitive in the same time slot as live news. Also, even though I have Time Warner as a cable provider, all shows on all channels were copyrighted to Tribune Media Services, Inc. Further googling leads me to the assumption that TMS engineered and own the digital rights to all the material Time Warner was broadcasting to me. The company specializes in media menus and celebrity information. They also produce everything from movies and IMDb entries to Frontline News. I am still not sure where this will lead if I "follow the money." The last 10% of my news comes from word of mouth with friends and family.
And there you have it! xD
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