These days you can turn to just about any of the major news channels and get information about late breaking stories, but there is also a decidedly entertainment aspect to these news channels that is disturbing. Some of them, like “Headline 9janews” don’t even attempt to be a solid news provider anymore. They are pure tabloid and usually they only provide gossip about the latest missing child or murdered wife or whatever the latest juicy tidbit is. Others like “Fox News” are just fronts for political stances, in this case the Republican party which seems to control all of Fox’s news programming in a very blatant and disturbing way.
They even go out of their way to pronounce themselves “Fair and Balanced” but the opposite is true and it is transparent to all but the most partisan of viewers. Michael Moore claimed that Fox News helped to push the 2000 election in favor of the Republican candidate George W. Bush, but it seems far-fetched that any of the news channels could affect something as important as a national election. It is a fact, however that they called the election early in favor of Bush without any real proof that he had in fact won. Whatever the real story was we may never know.
We all know that the tabloid news shows like “Entertainment Tonight” and “Extra” are all fluff and more concerned about following celebrities around town like paparazzi than covering any real news, but when Fox News and CNN, supposedly real news channels start reporting the same trivial material, it becomes a matter for concern. Many people have stopped watching these news channels altogether and instead favor the hard hitting and incisive PBS News Hour. This is one of the few remaining news channels that take their time reporting a story and they go in-depth to cover all the different angles. They are interested in finding out the facts and this cannot be done with twenty second sound bites. This type of journalism requires investigative reporting done by real professionals.
To be fair, CNN does have some semblance of reporting left with Anderson Cooper, one of the few reporters left that actually hangs on to a story. It was in evidence just recently with the massive earthquake that hit Port Au Prince, Haiti. Long after the regular media had disappeared he was still there covering the story and the aftermath of the great quake, which left thousands dead and many more injured and homeless. The struggle to rebuild continues in Haiti and you can still switch the channel to CNN and see Anderson Cooper there with Sean Penn, who is much to be admired for his humanitarian efforts, despite what you may personally think of his liberal politics.
Fox News would never have given that type of coverage to Haiti and especially not Sean Penn whom the regular talking heads on Fox like Sean Hanitty and others detest. This is another example of allowing political views to cloud investigative journalism and one of the reasons that these news channels are evading the real news.
