Matthew Petro

Cable "news" shows

Last weekend, Tracie and I spent our time in Flagstaff with her grandmother. While her grandmother is a fabulous person and fun to spend time with, she has a habit of leaving the TV on, tuned to Fox News all the time. This often drives us crazy. Is there really that much of an audience that wants to hear the same “news” regurgitated hundreds of times a day and hear hype-mongering rants from ratings-seeking personalities?

After listening to this a while, I can’t see how any of it is constructive. None of what is said is meant to achive a meaningful dialog amongst  people with differing viewpoints. My thoughts on this subject were really summed up by something Obama mentioned on the “Inside the Obama White House” special which NBC aired this week. He said that the cable news channels are like WWE wrestling. All of the personalities have their predictible roles to play, and all of the discussion really doesn’t shed any new light on an issue or educate the viewer in any way.

This is one reason I don’t miss having satellite TV at all.

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