I Miss the News

The title of this post is a bit dishonest. I don’t miss the news. I miss watching the news.

Growing up, I didn’t understand why my father z”l was so glued to the television (what we called it then) for his news. He didn’t read newspapers, but his daily rituals were listening to an all-news radio station during his commute, and watching multiple news broadcasts every evening.

No matter what other interesting and fascinating program was being shown, he would turn the dial (what we used then) to receive daily updates on the world, the United States, and local news (New York City) at least three times every night—- at 7:00pm, 10:00pm and finally at 11:00pm. Then, there was a certain trust that what was reported is what happened. The anchor was a stellar journalist—-who earned his (anchors were only men) reputation through his ability to uncover the essence of a story and report what you needed to know. There was a calm in being able to rely on a person that way.

For my father, a WWII army veteran who saw the world almost go to pieces, witnessing the underbelly of humanity, it must have been reassuring to hear the state of world affairs every single day, several times a day. He witnessed the world unfolding and he knew about it all. He was able to sleep knowing the true state of things.

Me, I’ve not been able to watch the news on Mainstream Media [MSM] for quite some time. I don’t hear journalistic integrity or neutrality, I hear a form of bias—-from every single station. What I hear from MSM are op-eds disguised as news; “hosts”, not news anchors, who lead people down a path of foregone conclusions. Morning broadcasts are often platforms for newly emerging, soon-to-be published books or movies with impending premieres. Celebrities of all sorts weigh in with their opinions.

Since October 7th, the offenses are even more egregious regarding Israel. I am tired of writing to MSM stations, spending time backing up my outrage with statistics and historic information. I am tired of Israel constantly being held to different standards and the accompanying biased reporting, replete with images that are meant to shock.

It is a disgrace that these shows are called “news” at all. I see little that resembles true journalism. In its place is a clamoring for ratings and shares. The telltale signal for this is the usual announcement before a problematic live feed or video share: “what you will see might be disturbing….”, or “viewers are cautioned about….”. These are codewords for what’s really going on—-baiting viewers with images that have the opposite effect, grabbing more people who will refrain from tuning to another option so they can actually watch.¹ In our visually-oriented world people mostly form their opinions from what they see.

Some stations on MSM now unashamedly sell products²at the tail end of their broadcasts, as if to reinforce the fact that they are actually in the business of sales rather than disseminating information. Viewers don’t seem to care or be bothered. I’ve seen no consumer outrage about this anywhere. ³

Sure, I can busy myself with searching the net for source material on countless topics, but I miss the ease of listening to a broadcast to get my updates. I do read the news, but it takes more time and more effort to dig through the muck. I don’t want to work so hard to get my information, filtering out all the overt and covert prejudgments. I just want to trust, to rely on what I’m hearing.

I don’t imagine that things will revert back to the way they were. But as with all things, when there is a space for an unfilled need, often a new option is created to fill it. I hope it will be one I can trust.

1. I don’t have statistics to back this up, but it is common knowledge that negative news creates more engagement than positive.

2. MSM’s sales pitches: “ABCDeals & Steals”, “CBSDeals”, NBCSteals&Deals.

3. Please share any links to the contrary with me, I’d appreciate knowing there’s a backlash out there.