As mentioned on the “About” page I currently live and work overseas 10 months out of the year. At my current posting I have only one U.S. news channel available to me. Actually, I recently found that MSNBC is also provided, but, after just a few minutes of viewing, it should be clear to anyone that MSNBC is not a news channel. That leaves me with Fox.
I recently sent an email to Fox letting them know that current water cooler (armored SUV) discussions at work have gone from examining the news presented on Fox to discussing the global topics not presented. The months of “Fair and Balanced” criticism of Obama Care have left little time for any world news, especially when that precious little remainder of time is divided between criticizing other presidential decisions, human interest stories (2 year old dials 911), and viewer opinions.
Fox. We get it. Obama Care, in its conception and implementation, has been and continues to be a nightmare. The only person or persons that will benefit from the program are former Presidents who each sit one notch higher on any presidential ranking.
Yes. The current administration is inexcusably incompetent in its internal and especially its foreign policies and initiatives. The bar has clearly been lowered.
No. I do not care about the 2 year old that called 911, or the dog that surfs, or whatever other bit of fluff that you find entertaining enough to present. I do not turn on the news to be entertained. I turn on the news to be informed. And while we are on the topic, I could care less about your opinions. Present the facts and trust me to form an educated opinion.
And, I absolutely do not care about the opinions of viewers. At least I know that your media personalities have some formal education even though they spend so much of their time trying to hide that from the viewing public. I cringe whenever I hear, “send us your comments and we will read a few on the air.”
I understand that ultimately a business is about making money and in your industry higher ratings equate to higher revenues. With this in mind it is easy to see that, based on the results of the most recent Presidential election, a large percentage of your potential viewers are not very smart. I can see how a pencil pusher somewhere might encourage you to dummy down your reporting to attract a percentage of these voter/viewers. However, you do this at the risk of loosing your current viewership.
Fox News, the last decent U.S. news channel, is quickly becoming the MTV of the news industry. As MTV went from playing music to reality shows, Fox is going from news to fluff and opinion, forcing those interested in news or simply intelligent discourse to turn to foreign outlets.
Friday, December 6, 2013