What is the best Television News Program for news? Information you can trust, which is neither conservative or LibDem’ish; is there such a news station available anywhere? Sure most all news stations claim to have the most balanced, fair, accurate and truthful news, but then again so does the weather channel which is only right 75% of the time and they have real live satellite radar to prove what they are saying?
The real question is; who can you trust? Most cynics say “trust no one” which indeed maybe the best advice so far, yet surely one news outlet has to be better than the rest right? Well which one is it? Are there several, are there none, are there some you can trust some of the time, yet try to fool all the people the rest of the time?
Recently I had a conversation with Fred online while drinking my coffee. Fred is a great wealth of information, as he has satellite and cable TV and some 400 combined channels to surf. I call him surfing Fred. Mr. Fred is a liberal at heart although prefers to be called an Independent. He voted for President Bush the first time and John Kerry the second although prefers neither really. Fred just cannot stand the Fox News Channel which has the highest ratings in the United States currently, although he admits to watching it daily.
One might say that Fred could be right about the Fox viewer ship, when he says the are conservative based folks who have turned off their brains; the mindless masses, surrendering their minds to the media, as he recently agreed that they should be called.
Many folks love Fox news while others think it is more like a comedy in a way, as they interrupt everyone before the viewer ever learns anything. Others, well they simply think that they like that little thing that runs across the bottom of the screen and say it is actually quite a good TV program with the sound off. The Weekly Standards guys are okay when they are on, as they appear very matter of factly and believable, but how much can you really learn from 5-7 segments of shouting and yelling and occasional reading of viewer emails with all the persnickety’ness they can muster?
What TV news do you think is smart to watch? Do you agree with Fred? Would you say none? Or is there one worth turning on for 20-minutes? Do you believe you should channel surf between a few stations to get the best average interpretation of a real life story? I mean you can only take so much of C-Span and the World Cable news gets silly sometimes too. Al Jazeera is certainly an eye-opener of how and what they are listening to in the Arab World. For world news even CNN is it really any better than 50% worthy? Your thoughts are of interest to me because so many are thinking from a cynical sarcasm point of view these days, which is justified to a large degree.
Additionally what print would you say is worthy: FT, WSJ, Foreign Affairs, Economist, Weekly Standard, USA Today, NYT, Bloomberg, BBC? Would you say all are good to some degree, but have you noticed that all have been found to somewhat slant their news? Myself, well I have been misquoted in the media enough and the WSJ always misquotes people, hell they have miss quoted there too on occasion? Got any ideas on a reliable media source. Some local newspapers are great for local stuff and always picks up the world headlines and major AP stories, but often they do not seem to scrutinize the stories much meaning they only pick up the ones with catchy headlines, much of which is laced with opinion. Now then, what would be the supplement to the daily; who, what, when, where and how? Any thoughts, what media sources do you like, think on this.