Serene nature footage, nice idea, IMHO.

If you need a break from the incessant yammering of the talking heads and the pundits, it is a nice little break.

My wife friend texted her and was like wow no election on the tv at work for the last 10 mins. Then she said someone stealthily changed it to the weather channel. They usually have their work tv on cnn and they work in DC so I am sure its been overwhelming. I was like how can you not tell the difference between cnn and the weather channel for that long though?

To be honest, I can't stand US TV "news" with their constant bombardment of the audience with hyperbolic "breaking news" about, well, very very few topics that actually are of substance. This "news souffl�", It's just another form of highly distracting entertainment which, if consumed in small doses, probably doesn't hurt. But to have it on all the time is almost guaranteed to make you dumber for no longer recognizing forests because of all the trees that are being presented as today's total specialty ... when they aren't special at all.

And consequently the pundits are more and more detached from reality as they are spending an inordinate amount of time within their own "news entertainment industry" bubble, mostly talking about what others said about someone else's comment to something that usually is without any consequences for our lives.

As an experiment, try to stop the time when any reporter on the scene is asked to answer something that he cannot possibly know ("How will the President respond to this?" / "Will there be consequences for the stock markets?") because the facts aren't in, because it's about something that goes on in someone else's mind, or because it's about the future, how much time they are wasting to say nothing of substance (except offering speculation) to escape having to admit that they don't know. I think, this evasion of admitting that they don't know makes these people blind to the things that they don't know. They think they do - but whenever it matters, they do not.

+1 Ssnake

The fundamental issue is that the vast majority of tv news in the US is run on networks with commercials and hence ratings are the number one priority.


Apparently most viewers want to be entertained during news coverage so that's what the networks give them.

Exactly. The problem isn't the media, it's their audience. They're the ones who have the issue. If they didn't watch, the news would change or get cancelled.

This is why no news program resembles an episode of Caprica, for example, which no one watched.

Now if there was a privately run, non-ad funded news source, it would probably be very different. Or rather, they do exist, you just don't know about them because they have no budget to advertise either.


The Jedi Master

...which is why I think that underneath all the silliness, Anchorman 2 actually is an eminently political film. It's almost unrecognizable, but there are a few key scenes - Ron Burgundy having his fits of laughter when he first hears the concept of a 24 hour "news only" channel ("This is the dumbest idea I ever heard. There aren't enough news to fill 24 hours."); he's right about that, and he's right that it's ridiculous, but of course since he's also a nitwit, he's uncapable of seeing the business potential in it. Then there's the scene where, out of desperation, he asks for a car chase video feed and starts his inane, fact-free commentary of the footage ("At this point we cannot say what motivated the driver to do this. Was is a family drama? Workplace frustration? A bank robbery gone wrong? It could be any of these reasons.")

One thing I am enjoying though, witnessing the hand wringing angst of self important celebrities, ('Luvvies' we call them over here) as if anybody really cares about their opinions.

On top of the 24-hour constant bombardment with (mostly insignificant, or at least blown out of proportion) "news", social media facilitated the trend to superficial but high-volume news digestion (and therefore presentation by the news provider). And also the alarming trend to adjourn into topical "echo-chambers", where select opinions and convictions are constantly verified - and amplified. Which to me is a very troubling trend: it leads to tribalism, narrows the perception and severs the connection to others.

Why read a long, in-depth analysis when you can get the gist by reading 140 characters instead? Why risk getting angry if one could simply retreat to a "safe space" where one's convictions are not being challenged?

Also, a recent study suggests that most people (70%) forward links referring to articles that they didn't even read (just the headline, and maybe the sub-headline). And since non-paywall websites are dependent on high traffic - wile facing a lot of competition - headlines become increasingly hyperbolic and click-baity...fueling unwarranted hysteria.

+1


It was almost endless during the election the number of times I saw a tv news "story" or an internet blog about such and such Hollywood or music celeb and why they were wanting you to vote for their candidate of choice.



I'm sorry but if someone is influenced by a celebrity on who they should vote for then perhaps that person shouldn't be participating in the political process in the first place.

The problem is the country needs to be desegregated.

Too many blue and red people are clustering together. Every state should be purple. Every county. Every city. CA is always blue, but it shouldn't be. TX is always red, but it shouldn't be. NY is always blue, but it shouldn't be.

If you all you do is live, work, and socialize with other people who think exactly like you do (and surprise! celebs fall into that group), you will come to believe that it's universal. The echo chamber effect.

Then when you find out you were wrong and that 50% of the people think differently, well, in the modern era it seems there is no greater torture than to be proven wrong about something you believe deeply.



The Jedi Master

This is getting started down the political path. If it continues, it will be moved.