Didn't we have a revolution so we wouldn't have to fawn all over royalty?

[Liberal In Texas]

Enough of the wall-to-wall coverage of royals.

Run the "highlights" once an hour if you have to but get back to reporting other actual news.

[Autumn]

1. We don't have to fawn over anybody. The media reads a scripts, I rarely see any reporting of actual

news.

[onenote]

2. We had a revolution so we would have the freedom to decide whether to fawn over royalty.

[Liberal In Texas]

4. The two networks I watch are acting like the whole country wants to

keep seeing this nonstop royal-palooza.

[onenote]

6. And given how things work, if people weren't interested, they wouldn't be broadcasting it.

The networks look for the largest audience possible. Presumably they feel that covering the Queen's passing and the related events will give them that. And history suggests that is probably true.

[Liberal In Texas]

12. It's not about what the people want. It's about what the managers think people want.

After having spent some time in broadcast TV news (over 30 years) I know that the execs are afraid if they don't go crazy covering some event or big story, the competition will and they'll look like they're not doing enough and then look bad to THEIR bosses.

When some producer finally decides that enough is enough and starts to par it down and if somehow some overnights (ratings) can show people are getting tired of the wall-to-wall the coverage might actually get back to something more normal.

[onenote]

17. Events involving the royal family draw large US audiences.

When the audiences aren't there, the coverage won't be there.

[Liberal In Texas]

36. As an anchorman I once worked with said

"They don't tell us what news they want to watch, we tell them what the news is."

September is not a rating period.

[relayerbob]

32. Most of us don't watch the news "wall-to-wall"

Try turning off the TV?

[Liberal In Texas]

35. Neither do I

Just would like to see something besides Dead Queen and Family walking around when I do want to watch it.

[pwb]

3. But a new person and set background come on every hour?

And they repeat the same thing. Everyday, what is different? Cable sucks all the time. IMO.

[Ocelot II]

5. Who's "fawning"? The death of the Queen is major news

and historically significant. The media will cover it, but you can always turn off your tv.

[brooklynite]

7. Wrong: we had a revolution so we wouldn't have to obey royalty.

Last edited Sat Sep 10, 2022, 03:07 PM - Edit history (1)

Is there some specific actual news you feel you're missing out on?

[Ptah]

27. Ha

we had a revolution so we would have to obey royalty.

[spanone]

8. The funeral isn't till a week from Monday....

[leftstreet]

11. Agonizing

Link to tweet

?s=20&t=DMxVefQ09jmdOj3csBRcxg

[Patterson]

25. Plenty of time to figure out how to use a remote.

[AZSkiffyGeek]

9. Someone forcing you to fawn over them?

I’ve found it pretty easy to ignore. People have an amazing ability to not read articles and not watch TV if they don’t want to.

[KentuckyWoman]

10. 1981 was worse.

I believe they had Peter Jennings and Barbara Walters on ABC covering that day for a full 9 hours straight with almost no commercials.

[claudette]

13. Yes

[Ocelot II]

14. Didn't we have on-off switches on our TVs so we wouldn't have to watch

anybody else fawn all over royalty?

Go for a walk, read a book, go shopping, clean your basement. Nobody is making you watch any of it. I always have to when people complain, Why is [name the annoying subject matter] on the news all day?!!??? when God gave them fingers with which to push that little OFF button.

[Chainfire]

15. I just don't watch stuff that offends me.

In fact, the only thing that I have watched, concerning the death of the Queen, is the reaction on this forum. The Brit bashing has really surprised me.

[Treefrog]

22. Yes, my favorite are the threads from people

who probably never knew one thing about the British empire, but are now posting righteous rants...it's so obvious.

And quite amusing.

[Kaleva]

16. Nobody is forcing you to fawn all over the royals

You choose to do so.

[Treefrog]

18. This is history.

Turn the channel.

Somebody making you watch?

[Liberal In Texas]

19. Look folks, I'm not saying I don't know how to entertain myself

other than watching a 24 News channel. I'm saying if I want to watch a 24 hour news channel, all you get is this over the top coverage. And there is very little new for them to even report on.

[lanlady]

20. The media loves repeating the (false) narrative

that Americans are fascinated by the British royals and ruminating on how that fascination contradicts our nation's founding ideals etc etc.

In all my 65 years I've met exactly 2 fellow Americans who truly cared about the royal family. Two, that's it! The vast majority of us pay attention only when a pretty woman enters the picture (Diana), scandal erupts (Diana again) or tragedy occurs (Diana once more).

The media is just being lazy, as usual. It's pretty easy to set up cameras in front of Buckingham Palace and let BBC reporters do all the work for you.

[Hortensis]

21. Maybe you're misattributing much of the caring. You don't imagine

that you and your post and those expressing similar complaints are "fawning over royalty" after all. Yet here you are, clinging to the event. (Btw, last time I'd looked all the previous QE2 posts had dropped way down.)

So maybe there are other reasons for posting that aren't fawning either. A lot of them are from people who really don't deserve what could be seen as insulting characterizations.

The thing is, it's normal for people of all types to develop some fondness for what they're used to and and to have some regret for having it taken away. And of course some knee-jerk resistance to change.

The general regret for losing Queen Elizabeth around the planet, among billions in whose lives she played no measurable role and had zero authority, seems almost a perfect example.

(Btw, it's also normal for contrarians to express their own emotional involvement by complaining about the dominant attitude. But complaining is not the opposite of "fawning," indifference is.)

[Hekate]

23. Duplicate post

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100217140019

[dalton99a]

24. As entertainment, it's better than watching Honey Boo Boo

or whatever the garbage du jour is

[Texasgal]

26. I'm not having that issue.

I'm watching college football today!

[appalachiablue]

28. Twice actually, the British came back in 1812. Depending on

which historians you read, that war was fought over trade, territory, the impressment of American sailors into the British Navy, and considered by some 'The 'Second War of Independence.'

In Aug. 1814 the Brits burned Washington and in Sept. we fought them in Balto., 'charging up to the airports' like Trump said (!), at Fort McHenry where the the Star Spangled Banner was born w Francis Scott Key.

The Queen's passing is of interest to me, news outlets will feast on it but don't watch if it bothers you. Not an Anglophile, I know the massive abuse and exploitation of colonies by the British Empire. My main concern now is Charles' placement as king and Camilla as Queen. That weak, worthless Royal should have been passed over for William.

[jalan48]

29. In a college history class I learned that 1/3 supported the American Revolution,

1/3 opposed it (and supported the Monarchy) and 1/3 was undecided. I think our nation has always had an element who support Monarchy or authoritarian rule.

[emulatorloo]

30. Who told you to fawn over royalty? I haven't watched a single minute of coverage.

[zipplewrath]

31. Funny you should ask

I know you didn't, but there are all manner of reasons asserted for the revolution. Equally, there are many reasons people supported the revolution.

But it was a developing attitude that took years if not decades to mature. At its core though was the desire to govern themselves. They wouldn't really have minded remaining a colony, if the crown and parliament had left them to their own devices. Leading right up to 1775, the continental congress was begging parliament to offer them more control over colonial affairs. The colonists started rejecting governors sent over and forcibly sending them back to England. Troops were sent over to try to get control and it basically spun out of control.

We tend to look at the Declaration and the Bill of Rights as some sort of outline of what the revolution was about. But these were really after the fact documents, written to try to put the revolution into some context. The ideals expressed in them were anything but universal, and to some extent not even really understood.

The "radical idea" that was the United States was exactly this, that people could be trusted to govern themselves. It doesn't seem nearly so radical today, because there are so many democracies now, imperfect as many of them are. But at the time, most of the world was betting against us.

The scary part is that much of the world still bets against us, and after January 6th, it appears it is still truly a radical idea. Mostly because there are apparently so many people still today, here, that don't really understand how hard it is, and what effort it takes to do it well. At the core is a need for all of us to understand and agree that the majority gets to govern, and the minority accepts that (with protections). But there is a controlling minority that exists today and has no intention of giving up control. And they will do anything, including abandoning democracy in any form, to keep control.

[Liberal In Texas]

39. I wasn't trying to post some historical fact.

Just how I feel when I see some Americans bowing and curtseying to royals when they visit here. And the absolute nonsense of continuous coverage from England. Interviewing random people and showing every little movement of one of the family. Like I said. Do a comprehensive report once an hour if you think there's that much interest. But there's other stuff going on in the world. You know, like Ukraine and an expresident who's a felon.

[zipplewrath]

40. Yeah I know

I just saw a opening for some thoughts I had been working on.

FWIW, CNN does this all the time. They find one topic and work it absolutely to death. I found this worst when the Plane disappeared into nowhere. We heard nonstop nothing for a month. They do it with hurricanes too.

[Liberal In Texas]

43. It's News Filler. When you can dispatch a few reporters and get a few experts to interview

and fill the filler with MOS (Man on the Street) interviews (find one for and one against).

It's lazy journalism. It's also cheap journalism. Even though you're paying for satellite time and hotel rooms for the staff, it's cheap compared to doing real investigative reporting and going after the crooks and grifters and letting people know about proposed laws that are going to hurt or help them.

[zipplewrath]

44. Yes, it is

All of 24 news has a common problem, creating content. They have more air time than content by a long stretch. On a normal day one hopes they have at least an hour of content, but often they don't. So when these events come along, it's prepackaged content for them. Especially anything with the royal family, there are schedules and manuals and what not and it is virtually scripted. And even THEN, it's not enough content.

[Voltaire2]

33. Mostly we had a political revolution so

that wealthy landed white men were not subject to the whims of the British Parliament.

The king wasn’t that much less of a figurehead then than he is now. That was settled 150 years earlier during their own civil war.

[Meowmee]

34. I hate football etc.

So I don't watch it. I find this coverage to be a welcome relief to the depressing negative stuff that is usually being covered. Some of it not even calling out a fascist criminal who is threatening our country. I don’t think people are fawning, at least I haven’t seen that, people are grieving and it is a major event that is being covered because a lot of people want to watch it. Just go outside and do some other activity. It’s healthier anyway.

[Talitha]

37. It sure beats watching Dump and his gang of criminals.

[lindysalsagal]

38. It's just fun for us, since we don't finance them or do their bidding.

[JI7]

41. Are you being forced to fawn over someone ?

[Renew Deal]

42. Bend the knee!