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#3680 - 12/13/02 04:19 PM
News Blackout!
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Member
Registered: 11/20/02
Posts: 317
Loc: Towson
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For a few months last year I had a self imposed news black out. I cancelled the paper and stopped watching the news. I found myself sinking into depression and being constantly anxious about all of the bad news. I spent more time reading and writing in my journal. I felt better pretty quickly. But news has crept back into my life....and it isn't any better than it was last year. The broadcasts last evening about the two children, one missing for days whose body was found, apparently murdered by the mother's boyfriend and one tortured and starved to death. As a mother I am horrified. As a human being I am dismayed. If as an adult, I can not handle or process this information, how can we expect our children to? Remember when we were kids and had school assignments re: current affairs? Frankly, I don't want my children reading the paper or watching the news....the current affairs are just sickening. I think I'll return to my black out....there just isn't enough paxil in the world to help me deal with the anxiety that tv brings into my house.
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#3683 - 12/21/02 04:23 PM
Re: News Blackout!
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Member
Registered: 11/22/02
Posts: 1149
Loc: Ohio
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One thing to keep in mind is that news media in this country are businesses out to make a profit. TV knows that its ratings go up when it broadcasts sensational stories. Ont the other hand, public TV and radio are non-commercial and don't have to satisfy advertisers. I _only_ attend to news on these stations and consider local news to be junk. Another thing -- if you go to a public library and look at newspapers from the 1800s, you'll find many of the same stories that shock us today. The thing is that the definition of news includes things that are out of order, extra-ordinary, not run of the mill stuff. I think it's all of our duty to be informed about what's going on, and to ask for the important information _expecially_ women and especially mothers! Why don't we know what goes on in city and town councils? What about the bills that are pending? These aren't on TV because viewers find them boring, but this is information we need to govern ourselves. I said this in my post about children and TV -- the airwaves belong to the public -- I learned this on the playground, and it's still true today. Why have we let the advertisers take control? TV doesn't care about our children. I sometimes wonder whether sugar cereal would even exist if TV didn't advertise directly to children? Did you all know that when the FCC asked TV stations to increase their educational broadcasts, the stations got away with calling "The Flintstones" and "The Jetsons" educational? (I'm not making this up!)
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#3684 - 12/21/02 04:24 PM
Re: News Blackout!
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Member
Registered: 11/22/02
Posts: 1149
Loc: Ohio
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One thing to keep in mind is that news media in this country are businesses out to make a profit. TV knows that its ratings go up when it broadcasts sensational stories. Ont the other hand, public TV and radio are non-commercial and don't have to satisfy advertisers. I _only_ attend to news on these stations and consider local news to be junk. Another thing -- if you go to a public library and look at newspapers from the 1800s, you'll find many of the same stories that shock us today. The thing is that the definition of news includes things that are out of order, extra-ordinary, not run of the mill stuff. I think it's all of our duty to be informed about what's going on, and to ask for the important information _expecially_ women and especially mothers! Why don't we know what goes on in city and town councils? What about the bills that are pending? These aren't on TV because viewers find them boring, but this is information we need to govern ourselves. I said this in my post about children and TV -- the airwaves belong to the public -- I learned this on the playground, and it's still true today. Why have we let the advertisers take control? TV doesn't care about our children. I sometimes wonder whether sugar cereal would even exist if TV didn't advertise directly to children? Did you all know that when the FCC asked TV stations to increase their educational broadcasts, the stations got away with calling "The Flintstones" and "The Jetsons" educational? (I'm not making this up!)
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