The outrage that is cable *news* versus choice

[liveoaktx]

It's amazing how the Dem Convention has so clearly thrown into focus how unpleasurable cable news is. We are all backed into a corner to go to cable IF we want to watch the Dem convention, because broadcast media, our PUBLIC airwaves, have abrogated their real responsibility to inform the public about our most important issue, the elections, in favor of, say, showing people eat worms. Once there, if you don't happen to know that Cspan is the ONLY channel that is showing the convention sans commercials and commentary, you're looking at one of the major cable news channels.

These, in turn, are throwing up as much of the Republican Noise Machine as they possibly can at every turn, while talking over speeches or co-opting them for fluff.

I have always had a choice in what I listened to. I didn't and don't listen to Rush Limbaugh or Howard Stern and never felt that I was missing anything. I've wondered, over the last year I've been actively watching cable news, why so many trivial items are shown repeatedly, while major stories quite often are ignored or relegated to the streaming ticker. And now I know that I have been opting into the same right-wing agenda coverage that I avoided on radio.

It's much like I felt about the president at first. One doesn't want to think that one's president is foolish, careless and deceptive. And one equally doesn't want to think that the noble work of informing the public is co-opted by right-wing agendas working for corporations who do not have the public interest at heart. It's been a rude awakening.