Brainwashing and Cable News Entertainment

Pay-cable news entertainment venues -- with their opinionated, colorful personalities -- reflect the views of the very entity that pays their salaries.

Does that sound jaded? Perhaps. But we may not always getting the full story -- fact-checked and unbiased -- when we watch cable news programs.

I sometimes enjoy cable news shows the way a lot of people do and in the past have given little thought to how we grew up with television -- where a strictly news-based report of something that happened was read with no opinion whatsoever, unless it was tacked on and represented as pure opinion for 30 seconds at the end of the news.

Back then we were left to our own intellects and upbringings to form opinions unless we opted to read the editorial page of our newspapers. And lots of people read newspapers in those days. When the newspaper itself upset the sensibilities of those who disagreed with their op-eds or how and where they placed their news stories, the consumer was given an opportunity to write a letter to the editor and have it published for all to see. Newspapers are becoming a dying form of news, however. Few people make the time to read them.

So instead of waiting for one of the major networks' nightly news at dinner time like we Boomers used to -- encapsulated into one hour of the most important information of the day -- many, many Americans now rely on cable news to keep them informed. When an issue these shows decide to tackle is given priority in a given hour, however, it gets so drawn out, skewed and spun, that the average person tuning in can have no idea what just happened.

In the words of a Brandeis University student, a generation beyond my own, "Our grandparents had Edward R. Murrow, and our parents were equally blessed to have Walter Cronkite reporting the news on television, but after Cronkite’s retirement and the advent of Cable, a long malaise fell on the important industry of news media.

"With the notable exception of Mike Wallace’s 60 Minutes program (which today only attracts a very elderly audience), television news has been successful only in exciting those wishing for salacious material and investigating events in popular culture. The days of hard-hitting interviews of politicians and investigative reporting in the same style of Woodward and Bernstein have been long lost, as the cooperate interests of ratings and advertisement revenue have supplanted the real job of the press; informing the public when things are amiss."

I suppose it makes me uncomfortable to see how so many people believe these opinionatd cable news entertainment programs to be real news. As a media person who began learning the rules of journalism back in high school, I hate to see what has happened to news reporting.

With 24-hour news channels like CNN, FOX and MSNBC, where you can tune in at any time of the day, these pay networks began having to find a way to fill up the time. So they came up with paneled talking-head shows, tirade-laden men spewing their not-so-humble opinions, Hollywood news (as if it affects our lives) and over-sensationalized stories that would barely have made the back pages of a newspaper, let alone the front page of the National Enquirer.

These convincing, educated people spew forth their personal and/or their network's corporate-branded opinions ,then proceed to reinforce it all by asking others who will validate their views in more diverse ways to join them. It then becomes a veritable feeding frenzy on the topic at hand right before your eyes. By the time the program is over, everyone is so smug and self-righteous that the unsuspecting public is convinced that these "news" people must be right.

They look like newspeople and they sound like newspeople. but they are just on air personalities interviewing "expert opinion" consultants. Very few work at covering or uncovering the truth, the way traditional journalists must do before they publish a news story. Because they present this format as a diversity of views, however , it is referred to as "balanced" -- and we think we've heard the full story.

Did it occur to you that when we were growing up, news entities never had to represent themselves as "no spin" zones before? Dan Rather, who was a brilliant and seasoned newscaster (I read one of his books when I was in college) was taken off the air and his career left in ruins when the source of a news story he was presenting turned out to be bogus, but I doubt any cable news person would be forced out so quickly after such a long career.

This practice of feeding us without accountability plants someone else's perspective in our heads without our ever having had the opportunity to hear the "rest of the story." And the average American has little time to do otherwise -- that is what cable news relies on.

Look at how we look to HBO or Showtime for great programming. As kids, we used to wait for Hallmark specials to appear on TV (we even marked our calendars!). When we got VCRs, we were able to pick and choose how we spent our evenings in front of the TV -- which was thrilling for us. But cable TV didn't want us using those VCRs too much. It would rob them of viewers. Now we have "on-demand" programming and fascinating, thought-provoking cable series like the Sopranos or Dexter that titillate our imaginations, hating to love and loving to hate each and every character in a given show. For pure entertainment, it's great, and I frankly don't miss the television programming of my childhood.

News, however should not be entertainment, in my opinion. It should be news. It is so easy to get sucked in by what cable has done to us that we tend not to go anywhere else. Then, like delicious-tasting food that we gravitate back to every time it's laid in front of us, we tune in again, instead of looking at the ingredients it contains and deciding what would be healthiest for us in the long run. That's the definition of consumerism. We have no doubt been boiled down to a science by cable television companies.

However, any news standards that include strict source-quoting, accountability that would be impervious to litigation and the practice of comprehensively presenting both sides of an issue -- without opinion -- and then reporting on what is the truth so we are an informed public don't seem to be the focus of on cable news channels. Why? Probably because we PAY to hear them. As long as we do, we are getting what we pay for. We can hear swear words, see nudity (Real Sex? ) and consider off-the wall topics that we still can't get on the free airwaves. For those who want government out of our lives (at all costs), it's a perfect venue. And for those who value being held to the standards I have raised here, it's a losing proposition. There is no doubt enough research done on any given topic as to what presentation would protect them from litigation, but that's about the extent of it.

In order to find unbiased news sources, you must look for fairly bland, statistical, hot-off-the AP newswire news that lacks opinion no matter where you turn -- in newspapers, online or on TV. It's getting harder and harder to find. I can watch CNN and realize when they and MSNBC are waxing far left. And just as FOX news will never present an extremely critical view of the conservative right without having someone there to smash it to bits as the last word on the program, other cable news outlets won't let the right have the last word either. It's their corporate brand, plain and simple.

I remember watching an interview with MSNBC's Chris Matthews at the time when all networks were reporting on the assassination of Pakistan's Benazir Bhutto. Matthews was (and I am not kidding) predicting that this news will be good for both Rudy Giuliani's and John McCain's presidential campaigns. Is this sick or what??

These days where news is concerned, I question everything. I believe it to be a healthy (but an oftentimes frustrating) way to live, even if it's a lot of work. Because the truth is important, wouldn't you prefer facts and statistics-- and no opinion unless you decide to seek it out? We are being encouraged not to THINK by these cable news companies. Just to listen, be entertained and to merely decide which personality they offer makes us nod our heads, laugh or believe in them. Then we're hooked, and in lock-step with them. Why would we go anywhere else?

True, news reported in its rawest form is rarely entertaining -- something we Americans (and Brits) have a passion for. But it's real and it makes us use our brains to devise our own opinions. It doesn't feed us one side of an issue or present something in a skewed light.

I obviously have given a lot of thought to all this, mostly because I think society tends to have forgotten what is real and what is not any more -- and instead takes the path that has been made so easy for them.

It's the brainwashing of the masses at its finest and most subtle. And it's time to make it a topic of conversation with friends, at bars, in colleges, and perhaps even in those previously revered vessels of information called newspapers, hoping against hope that someone will actually read them -- online or in person.

Now that we have finally learned that doctors are not gods and many, many prescription medications only create the need for MORE medications by drug companies who now have the audacity to advertise on television -- let's QUESTION our news sources as well. If you care deeply about the oft-described dumbing down of America, start with yourself and what you're willing to do to get the REAL news.

I continue to check in with cable news entertainment, just like today, however. It's best to keep your friends close, but your propaganda sources even closer.