Back when I was a young adult, the news came on three, maybe four times a day. Early morning, so people could catch it before they went to work; maybe noon; around six in the evening, then either ten or eleven so they could catch it before going to bed. The times differed depending on the station and location, but you get the gist. Morning, evening, and late night. Maybe noon-ish. That’s it. For someone like me, who dislikes the news, it was a minor inconvenience. Like, I could just… not watch it.
That all changed around about the time of the Gulf War. I’m not exactly sure why they decided we needed news all day every day, but I remember being glued to my set for… news, because my husband at the time was deployed overseas. And that really messed with my mind, y’all. Because, as I mentioned before, I hate the news. For several reasons. Mostly because it’s not good for my mental health. I get very angry whenever I watch the news because it’s so… manipulative. Let me explain.
When I was in high school (back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth), I had a very good English instructor. He taught us the ways of rhetoric (the art of effective and/or persuasive speech or writing) and how to recognize it in advertising and journalism. I think he wanted to protect his students from being taken advantage of. It was a lesson I carried with me for the rest of my life. And that’s how I recognize the bias in news channels, and why it triggers my anger. Every channel has it. There’s no such thing as an unbiased news channel. They’re all slanted one way or another and it’s… infuriating for me. I blame my bipolar. ^_^
Bias aside, I’ve personally seen how the news works behind the scenes. Back when I was a young bride and the aforementioned first husband was out to sea, early 1990s I think, a news crew came by our neighborhood to interview Navy wives for… something. I came home at the tail end of this, and they interviewed me briefly. What they showed was my babysitter walking from my house to the park with my kids, all paired with somber music, implying that she was the sad Navy wife alone with her kids in these terrible times. Tugs on the ol’ heartstrings, right? She was like nineteen and not married, but what does that have to do with anything? Honestly, it was amusing. Confused my friends and family, but amusing.
I think it’s gotten worse since the news has gone 24 hours, because they have to fill up the time with something. When the 24 hour thing first started, if I remember correctly, they would do the morning news, then cycle that until the noon news, then repeat… It’s been decades since I’ve watched any news, let alone the 24-hour channels, so I have no idea how they’re doing it now, but that’s how I remember them doing it.
But people get bored with seeing the same stuff over and over again, so the stations have to fill in the gaps with whatever they can find. And a lot of the time, it’s fluff and nonsense, or it’s rage bait. Because rage brings up the ratings and keeps people watching. You know?
The internet has made this fill-the-space-with-nonsense thing way worse. Like a few years back, I remember reading about someone’s demise. I totally cannot remember her name, but she was someone I was vaguely interested in, and I was like, “Oh, that’s too bad.” So, I went looking for the source of her death to see how she had died. And you know what? I couldn’t find it. All I could find were other news articles saying she’d died, and they were all quoting and linking to each other. The only original source was a link to her employer saying something along the lines of, “We regret to say that [this person] is no longer with us.” It was so bizarre. I’ve tried looking this up, but I can’t find it anywhere, so you’ll just have to trust me that it happened. ^_^
But here’s one y’all might be familiar with… have you ever seen articles that are like, “Consumers are angry about…” or “The internet is in an uproar over…”? Next time you see one of those, look for the source. I stopped reading those because back in 2010 I read one — Customers Are Livid Over New Nail Polish Color or something to that effect — and the source was one (1) blog post with ten likes. They do this with political posts too. Just check the sources of these “People are angry…” articles. Yes, people are angry, but how many people really?
Like, I’m annoyed. I hate the news. That’s why I turned it off years ago. But it’s still all over my internet feeds. Anyone gonna make a news story out of that? Probably not. I hope not. Ha!
Oh well, what can you do? That’s the way of the world these days. Anyway, I guess I just wanted to get that off my chest. Thanks for reading, y’all. Take care of yourself. I’ll chat at you later. <3
