TURN THE CHANNEL – PLEASE…

The silly fabricated spat between the Obama Administration and FOX News is just that. For many years, most Americans have understood that Fox was the Republican mouthpiece. The Democrats need to wrestle complete control over NBC, CBS or ABC news and move on with their own dedicated mouthpiece. Some may argue that either MSNBC or PBS is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the DNC, but with each having about 1 or 2 percent of total viewership, neither is a nationwide player except among a small group of educated viewers.

Comparing weekly Nielson ratings, it is apparent that none of the 4 major national television networks regularly garner more than 5% of the total U.S. population to watch any of their news or entertainment shows. We have so many other choices that we no longer turn to a few individuals for out worldview. The hundreds of cable, satellite, and even PBS stations cater to our narrow interests to the detriment of any larger social outlook.

Living in Arizona, which has a separate time-zone from the rest of the nation, I can watch most of the nightly national news broadcasts within a 2-hour span using only my digital antenna picking up local stations in Phoenix. (We’re been on Pacific/California time since springtime but after Halloween, we will stand still and then join Mountain Time with Denver when everyone else wastes time for no apparent benefit by changing their clocks.)

FOX does not have any daily national news broadcast. They let their local affiliates put things together for an entire hour or more each evening. Their only national news broadcasts are their talk shows on Weekends and for Professional football commentary – the latter I prefer to most other national sports broadcasts.

NBC Nightly News and ABC World News both come on at 5:30 PM in Phoenix. I generally prefer NBC in this time slot. CBS Evening News comes on at 6:00 PM so I don’t have to miss a thing though it is pretty repetitive of the NBC coverage. PBS now has 3 stations in Phoenix and the News Hour is repeated at 7:00 PM from its original broadcast time of 6:00 PM. I can regularly overdose weekdays on national news particularly since it is so repetitive between the various networks. This schedule does not apply on weekends, as it’s anyone’s guess when the evening news may appear due to the primacy of college and professional sports.

Commercial for-profit networks seem to edit too much and they cannot provide a complete or even a minimal analysis on most of their stories. Flash and sensationalism substitute for good journalism. PBS suffers from the opposite fault – too little editing and they like to beat dead horses. Just being boring is not a prerequisite for good journalism. The local FOX news shows seem to dwell on shallow excitement, local or national crime, ugly car accidents, sex scandals, sports, and thus it is nothing more than a tabloid newspaper on television.

In addition, all the networks have many additional quasi-news and entertainment programs that are simply televised tabloids, principally covering celebrities, major disasters, and more crime and sex stories, with fashion and pop music thrown in for diversions. They appear to be competing for the title of the absolute shallowest and most superficial broadcast in network history. Their entire worldviews center on a couple hundred rotating celebrities that contribute absolutely nothing to society and will matter nothing at all within just a few weeks time.

Therefore I read newspapers, magazines and Internet blogs for the most part – all via the Internet. I work from home so I do not have a regular commuting period each morning and evening to read something on the bus or train. When I’m driving around town on business, I generally just pay attention to the traffic and only have the local classical music station playing in the background as I have during most of the day when I’m home.

I complained in a prior post about President Obama’s over-saturation in the news to the detriment of actually getting something accomplished. A commentator suggested that I just turn the channel but most news programs schedule their commercials exactly at the same time. Unfortunately every time the President speaks, it makes news for all the national news broadcasts and I suffer through the coverage hoping to learn something I don’t already know.

Our 24/7 info-entertainment news Media hyperventilates about trivial matters and ignores major national and global issues. News is merely another form of entertainment that must be profitable. Developments in communications and all types of Media are obsessively covered by the Media since it is hopelessly fascinated by itself. It exaggerates its own importance in the lives of the vast majority of Americans who are not part of the Media.

This narcissistic preoccupation with itself and all things related to the Media has essentially rendered the Media far less important than what it thinks it is. As a result, it ignores most other major issues to focus on those who merely make or transmit information, regardless of the actual content. Sometimes TMV and I personally suffer from this Media disease as well.

Many people have also become equally superficial and overly fascinated by the Media, trying to get on it for their 15 minutes of fame, and with acquiring all the latest communication technology. Most of these developments are transitory and will be obsolete in less than 2 years. Most of them will not enrich our collective lives or address any of the major issues that actually impact our lives directly.

I also fault our entire education system for the pervasiveness of ignorance in our society. I estimate that we have now produced 3 consecutive generations of people where the majority is poorly educated, with no end in sight particularly since most states and localities are gutting educational funding during this deep recession. It is not just the fault of our schools but of each prior generation of parents. You can’t expect disengaged idiots to engender much better in their children. What’s more frustrating to an objective observer is that the many imbeciles are fiercely proud that they know nothing just to prove they aren’t “elitists.”

This destructive trend translates into too many people not being competitive in the global workforce of the 21st Century, being unable to understand major public, political, economic and social issues from various educated viewpoints, and being hopelessly dimwitted and shallow. There are many remarkable and educated individuals under 40 but the larger dead weight of the uneducated those generations must haul into the future will permanently handicap them.

At our home, we have the news channels on while eating dinner and our family concurrently engages in lively discussions of current events every weekday evening. Sometimes we are talking so much that we completely ignore the redundant and superfluous news program. A family cannot come together if they have separate schedules or if few in the household have much interest in the world beyond their cell phone’s “circle of friends.”

When I try to engage many of my fellow Americans, I am too often disappointed that I find myself talking to empty sieves. That’s probably why I read submissions and post my own on TMV where the authors and readership are highly intelligent and engaged individuals – atypical of the average American. My only criticism of my fellow writers and TMV readers is that they really may not realize the extent of how bad off the majority of Americans are with respect to general low levels of education and corresponding high levels of ignorance.

I am not afraid of this country’s future because we don’t still have the world’s best and brightest people, but that small number will no longer be enough to support our country in a globalized economy. I am very concerned because our nation’s “ball and chain,” consisting of the most uneducated, ignorant, and uninvolved citizens in our society, is getting larger and larger with each passing year.

All nations bring to the global competition their own particular “balls and chains.” The eventual winners will have the relatively smallest “balls and chains” to haul, thereby making them far more nimble, flexible and competitive than the rest. Those societies that tolerate greater wastes of human capital will be dragged into the dustbin of history by their unbearably heavy “balls and chains.”

We certainly cannot expect our various Media outlets to adequately educate and inform us and our children. That is something we must all do as parents, local communities and a society as a whole. If we do not put our actions and our financial resources towards education, our society risks being completely left behind the trajectory of history within the next 10 years.

Marc Pascal