Rant Time: Politics isn’t News!
Seeing as how this is yet another Presidential election year, news channels cannot help themselves. Too bad for all of those poor news channels. They get so deep in the political weeds, they can’t even see the wild animals surrounding them. Let’s explore the tricky problem of incessant political news reporting.
Politics is absolutely not News!
One thing that cable news channels do not really seem to understand is that politics is politics. Political reporting may be considered a form of journalism, but it is absolutely, 100%, unequivocally not news. Politics is politics and will always BE politics. Let’s understand the problems with political reporting. To do that, we need to understand…
What is news?
News is goings on in the world. More specifically, it’s goings on outside of Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C. has always been a microcosm. It is and always will be its own tiny world of problems; political problems to be specific. While Washington, D.C. is a city and has its own city and local problems just as any other city, it is also the home of all things political around the nation. Thus, even though it is a microcosm of all things political, it also represents politics around the nation.
Let’s understand more about what is actual news. News is a pileup on a freeway. News is a mass shooting in a night club. News is the pandemic. News is an earthquake, tidal wave, Tsunami, hurricane or tornado touching down. News is a domestic squabble turned fatal. News is a dog biting and injuring someone. These are events that warrant and justify news reports. Politics is an ongoing, never ending, smorgasbord of mostly nonsensical drivel, punctuated using a lot of rambling so-called “expert” talking-heads; talking-heads who bluntly over-analyze everything, saying nothing at all useful.
When reporting news around the nation, or even around a local area, news is incident driven by what occurred today outside of politics. News reporting needs to ask itself, “Did something occur today [in politics] that warrants 24/7 political coverage?” If that answer is, “No”, then coverage should cease. And no, simply because it’s an election year doesn’t warrant 24/7 political coverage alone. The incident must still pass the criteria as being both news and newsworthy.
“What Is and What Should Never Be”
To borrow an apt phrase from Led Zeppelin’s The Lemon Song, News should almost always be new to the receiving audience. News should inform the audience about something they are unaware or have little to no knowledge. Like, for example, being stuck in a 2 hour traffic jam on the way home and then tuning into a local news station to find out what caused the massive delay. This means some people will have passing knowledge of an event, but they are seeking to become fully informed. This is what News reporting is all about.
In that goal, News reporting should always be something you’ve never heard of or have little to no knowledge. News also discusses what is. It does not and should not ever discuss or attempt to speculate on what might come to pass. What this means is that news is about the happenings of the day, not future speculation of what might come a month or three down the road. Speculation is best left to stock market analysts, futurists and fortune tellers. Speculation is never for news reporters. News reporting is intended to report on factual events that have already occurred. News reporting should never attempt to report on outcomes of possible futures. Future speculation is not news, it’s considered predicting the future. Predicting the future is a magic trick presented in Las Vegas. Prestidigitation is absolutely not now and should never become a news reporter’s job.
The only way someone in the nation might be uninformed about political goings on of the nation would be if they are new to the United States (just moved here) or if they’ve been hiding under a rock for the last couple of years. There is almost no chance that anyone even moderately informed wouldn’t have a fair amount of knowledge of what’s being said on these political segments. Even assuming total lack of knowledge, one day of watching these political ramblings would fully catch you up to 100%.
Obsessive Fixated Coverage
Unfortunately, for the last year or more, news networks have become fixated on reporting politics as their primary means of existence. Worse, they neglect reporting of actual news to fixate on political coverage around the election, around Donald Trump and around all of Donald Trump’s legal woes. They’re even now fixating on the Republican Caucuses as if their lives depended on it. Hint: they don’t.
Just because YOU want to report on all things political doesn’t mean WE want to consume it.
It gets worse. You’re probably thinking, “How so?”
Cable news networks like CNN, MSNBC, Fox News and now even NewsNation have fallen into the near 24/7 100% coverage trap of reporting solely on politics, with a heavy emphasis speculating on the future (see the section immediately above). When you can turn on the news any time of the day or night and hear the words “election”, “Nikki Haley”, “Donald Trump”, “Whitehouse” or “Biden” within the first 2 minutes of tuning in, you’re witnessing political fixation in action.
When that discussion spends a large portion of the segment with talking heads over election polls or of possible legal outcomes for Donald Trump, this is all 100% speculation. This is absolutely, positively, 100% fortune telling. No one can predict the full future to any degree and especially not reporters who have been trained in Journalism, not prestidigitation. This is also something news networks should absolutely NOT be doing simply for the reason that it is not news!
Repetitive
Worse, what can these news networks say that hasn’t already been said at least 1000 times before? Sure, it might be said by a different set of talking heads, but the words are effectively the same.
News is absolutely, 100% not about repetition. It’s about reporting on NEW news events… events that have never been reported previously. The word “new” is actually part of the word “news”.
Reporting on the same things over and over and over is absolutely not news, nor is it considered coverage or new. It’s considered fixation. News is not about fixating. It’s about reporting. It’s surprising to me that respected journalists who work for these organizations tolerate such political fixation and fortune telling. Hint: if you don’t like what your employer is doing, leave and find a new job.
As I said, it gets worse
When you can tune into shows hosted by Ari Melber, Wolf Blitzer, Chris Cuomo, Briana Keiler, Erin Burnett, Laura Ingraham or Hannity, when it turns politics, it’s all fixated speculative tunnel vision. Those things being said might be slanted to the left or to the right politically leaning audience, but they’re fixated, repetitive and completely inane nonetheless. How many times do you need to be told the same things about Donald Trump or Nikki Haley or even Joe Biden?
CNN and MSNBC are probably the two most fixated channels out there, but NewsNation and Fox News are not far behind. What is meant by this is that when it comes to prime time “news” programs, it almost always consists of back-to-back political chat… many times with many of the same talking heads “experts” being held over between each of the hourly segments. Not only will you hear the same discussions again and again and again, you’ll hear the same people saying the same exact things hour after hour after hour. It’s both mind numbing and nauseating. Again, this is absolutely not news.
Eclipsing Real News
What’s worse is that so many of these prime time opinion hours neglect reporting of actual news entirely. Yes, these so-called news hosts actually do neglect the actual goings on in the world to focus solely and completely on Biden or Trump or the Election or something else political. It’s absolutely sickening, maddening and, yes, frustrating. It’s also insane.
Feel Good Pieces
The one place where some news hosts seem to have a soft spot is reporting on various tear jerker segments. However, human interest stories are also NOT news. However, these hosts love to interject these eye rolling “human interest” segments in among their incessant political fixation. These tear jerker segments usually discuss a person who befriended a dog or saved a cat from a tree or some other such trivial nonsense, blown way out of proportion.
Fewer times, it’s a cancer patient were the news host is attempting to use their own celebrity status (and their network audience) to drive traffic to a GoFundMe campaign. That’s a noble goal, at least for the cancer patient, but sending money to the patient won’t help cure them. Only medical science can do this. Your money would be better spent and sent to medical research organizations seeking cures for cancer. These research organizations need this money a whole lot more to help fund their cancer cure research than sending it to a patient who can only use it to help make themselves more comfortable. That’s assuming that the person didn’t dupe the news program into believing a faked up cancer story.
Nothing wrong with tear jerker segments, but they are also absolutely not news… and they’re also produced for the wrong reasons.
News Producer Failure?
One would think that a news producer might want to vary the topics of discussions between news host segments hour over hour, but you’d be wrong. Instead, these news producers and their “programs” double down on the exact same political rhetoric hour after hour.
What you’ll end up seeing is these channels reporting on pretty much the same topic 24/7, but hammering it home incessantly beginning around 5PM and lasting until midnight. These channels love to fixate on repetitive political topics, especially during these hours… to the exclusion of all else. Yes, they actually DO exclude and neglect to report on actual news around the nation. Unless such news is a mass shooting, killing hundreds or there’s an earthquake, a random favorite sports celebrity or a fire that has leveled an entire city, these news outlets have no interest in reporting on it. Instead, they choose to fill their time slots with inane political drivel encompassing mostly future speculation.
In fact, far too much news goes unreported due to these news channel’s neglect and political fixations. This situation actually serves as a major disservice and distraction to the nation. This gratuitous and vomitous political reporting situation actually serves to divide the nation even more rather than bring it together.
For example, when the middle east broke out in “war” yet again, the news outlets temporarily halted their political coverage for about 2-3 weeks to give us a “war” play-by-play. They even went so far as to send their “top reporters” (ahem) to the front lines to report on smell-o-vision. A small, but unnecessary temporary reprieve from their political fixations. Since then, these channels have grown tired of that middle east smell-o-vision play-by-play, just as they grew tired of the Ukraine play-by-play and have moved their camera spigots 100% back onto politics, ignoring all else.
Unfortunately, that’s the state of our so-called cable “news” channels today.
Politics as a News Segment
In the 80s and 90s, politics was limited to a 1 hour segment in among various news reporting. This is actually the proper amount of coverage for politics. That’s also why C-SPAN was created… to report 24/7 on the goings on in D.C. Yes, C-SPAN still exists, now in 3 different channels. That amount of prime time coverage in combination with C-SPAN was perfect and served the nation well to discuss politics.
Unfortunately, the spigot has been slowly moving towards more and more political coverage on so-called mainstream “news” networks with less and less time focused on actual news. Today, political analysis programs make up at least 90-95% of the so-called “breaking news” coverage of CNN, MSNBC, NewsNation and Fox News Network… not that the Fox News Network was ever or has ever been a legitimate news organization. Regardless, these networks have become fixated on political analysis and speculation instead of reporting of legitimate news around the nation.
While news goes unreported, CNN and its ilk focus on Biden, Trump and now, the 2024 Election coverage. They’re even diving deep into the Republican caucuses, as if they even matter in the grand scheme. They might matter to Ms. Haley, but these caucuses don’t deserve 24/7 coverage. Politics doesn’t deserve 24/7 coverage, except on C-SPAN where it belongs.
A Good Example
CNN and the others reported that the Iowa Republican caucuses favored Donald Trump over any other candidate by some “astounding” lead. What they forgot to mention on the air was that only ~14% of Iowa’s entire registered Republican voters turned out to vote in those caucuses. That means the 86% of Iowa’s Republican voters haven’t been represented. That the caucus voter turnout was so low means voter apathy. It also means that the those who did show up were most likely avid Donald Trump fanatics and MAGA extremists, likely making their views not representative of the vast majority of registered Republican voters in Iowa.
Yet, these so-called politically leaning news networks went on with this charade anyway, attempting to sway their viewers that this 14% turnout was somehow indicative that Donald Trump is a clear winner. Sorry to say, 14% of Republican voters turning out won’t win a general election guys.
Cable News Charters
These cable news networks were originally chartered to report on actual news around the nation. At one point, CNN (and the rest) did that. Today, not so much. The same can also be said of pretty much any other cable news network.
At some point in the future, CNN and the rest are going to be bitten hard by this incessant, fixated political coverage. I don’t know how and I don’t know when, but at some point their coverage of politics 24/7 won’t serve these channels well. At some point soon, these channels will need to make a hard choice. Continue this stupidity or begin serving the nation again properly by reporting on actual news, thus putting politics back into an appropriate 1-2 hour segment per day labeled creatively enough “Politics”.
Disguising Politics as News
One thing that these channels seem intent on doing is labeling their political talking head opinion and analyses segments as “breaking news”. This is disingenuous, if not downright considered disinformation. This is tantamount to YouTubers using ClickBait to draw viewers in. This is also why YouTube has laid down the gauntlet on creators who intend to use ClickBait when that ClickBait is not included within the YouTube video.
The same should be said of Cable News. If these channels are trying to (mis)lead you into believing that a talking head political analysis segment is “breaking news”, then these channels are just as guilty of performing ClickBait on you. Unfortunately, there is no overall YouTube / Google company to lay the gauntlet down on these news organizations for perpetrating fraud on its viewers. And yes, ClickBait is a form of fraud.
Fraud is fraud whether perpetrated by an individual YouTube creator or by a large conglomerate news organization. Let’s call it for what it is: Fraud. When news channels insist on reporting on politics, it cannot ever be considered “breaking news” and should never carry this banner. The only exception to this rule is when a political figure dies. Their death may be considered breaking news, but only in the context of their actual death… not in the political goings on the day that the person died. As long as the political figure is living, their personal woes are not subject to “breaking news.”
If news channels won’t report on the personal woes of Hollywood celebrities as “breaking news”, then they shouldn’t report on personal woes of Political representatives. In fact, the primary outlet that actually does report on Hollywood celebrity woes is TMZ. Unfortunately, the primary outlet(s) for all things political has now become CNN, MSNBC, Fox News and NewsNation (formerly WGN). The word “news” is in the name of all four (4) of these cable news networks, yet they primarily seem intent reporting almost solely on politics. That right there should be considered perpetrating fraud on viewing audiences. That, or each of these networks need to change their names.
Politics is Absolutely Not News
If there’s one thing that should now be abundantly clear, it’s why politics and political reporting is absolutely not news. It’s information, yes, but it is not news. Whether repetitive political ramblings is actually useful for most people remains to be seen. Personally, it’s not useful to this author. I find it annoying and mind-numbing. I do not find it enlightening or useful. Because I can’t be the only one who feels this way, please sound off your opinion on this topic in the comment area below. We want to hear your thoughts on this topic.
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Rant Time: News Networks are Failing Us!
This rant is a long, long time coming. News network media has been in serious decay for going on at least a decade. Recently, however, news networks are now a danger to the United States and, specifically, to the world… just as the GOP is decaying democracy itself. The whole country is in a state of decay… entropy, if you will. News media is not an exception to this state of decay. In fact, news media is ONE cause of it.
Let’s rant!
Cable News Networks
The vast majority of news is now obtained by viewers using one of the 3 main cable news networks, CNN, MSNBC and Fox News, with broadcast news sources like ABC News and CBS News leaning into this same exact problem. Even audio podcast sources like NPR, Reuters and the Associated Press are also throwing their hat into this same overkill ring.
You might be asking, “But aren’t there now 4 cable news networks?” Yes, the newest addition to cable news, [NEWSNATION] (formerly WGN), is also making a play for a slice of the cable news audience. However, [NEWSNATION] is still still too new to be considered fully. Yet this up-and-coming new channel is making all of the same mistakes as the incumbent news channels. Nothing news to see here, move along.
[NEWSNATION]
Let’s discuss this newest addition to cable news, [NEWSNATION]. This news company, which was born out of WGN in the long past, is now trying to resurrect an older WGN national news idea into NewsNation (note, the caps, formatting and brackets will be dropped for the remainder of this article).
NewsNation claims to offer a more fair and balanced approach to news reporting. Yet, NewsNation is falling into the same exact unbalanced and nonsensical news traps as every other cable news network. One only needs to watch NewsNation to understand its imbalance and unfairness in its reporting. If NewsNation cannot get itself on the right track when the rest of the news networks are doing these same exact wrong things, then 24 hour news networks cannot and will not survive.
I had hopes that NewsNation would take a different tack from CNN, MSNBC and Fox News. Unfortunately, NewsNation management has decided to adopt all of the same wrong postures and same failing strategies that the rest of the so-called news channels have adopted. Come on guys, try something different!
National Politics vs War
All of these news networks get so deep in the weeds with tunnel vision, that they cannot understand how unbalanced and unfair their news reporting actually is. These channels all seem to think their reporting is fair and balanced. How balanced can news reporting be when EVERY SINGLE NEWS CHANNEL focuses solely on one story 24 by 7 to the exclusion of all else?
It would be one thing if only one of these news channels chose to delve deep into a topic. When every single one of these channels simultaneously choose to dive deep and focus their entire 24 hour news cycle to a single topic, that’s called myopia or tunnel vision.
What’s worse is that this Israeli conflict is a regional conflict that has existed for decades. There is absolutely nothing new about this conflict. This conflict had been in hiatus most recently, but that doesn’t make this conflict new. It is different in how it began this time, yes, but it’s the same old religious arguments rehashed all over again. And yet, CNN, MSNBC and the rest are reporting this conflict as though it’s never existed before (said in total surprise). There’s nothing surprising or new about any of this conflict.
This specific Israeli clash also isn’t the problem behind this national news reporting crisis. It’s simply a victim of and catalyst for just how crappy, inane, unintelligent and one-tracked our national news cycles have become.
Gaza Strip Reporting
As of this article, Israel is now at war with Hamas over, once again, the Gaza Strip. The Gaza Strip is a contentious bit of “holy” land that both the Palestinians and the Jewish claim for their respective religions. This small bit of land, which is approximately twice the size of Washington D.C., has always been claimed by both religious sects as “holy land” under their religious doctrines. As a result of these two separate religions claiming this same small piece of land, tensions erupt, tempers flare and eventually missiles get launched. Any person who chooses to live on this contentious bit of land must choose to live with the consequences of that decision. You could choose to live anywhere else safer, but CHOOSING to live on the Gaza strip comes with it the very real possibility of death and destruction for you, your family and your loved ones. This most recent Israeli and Hamas clash proves this point out.
Each side believes the other shouldn’t be entitled to live on or inhabit this piece of land. That the land exists to serve only one of the two religions. Because both sides tend to wholly believe in this claptrap, this war will never truly end… a war over a silly little piece of real estate that, may or may not at some point in the past been used by any specific religion. Any holy nature of that land is long, long past. Yet, both the Palestinians and the Israelis feel the need to continually lob missiles at one another, killing and wounding many… all over this smallish piece of real estate.
Why is this historical backdrop important? Because the war over the Gaza strip has never, ever ended. It may have gone into a brief (in historical terms) remission, but it has never firmly ended. More than this, it can never truly end so long as both factions remain.
Tunnel Vision Reporting
News networks are treating this Israeli vs Hamas war as though it’s brand new, like it’s never ever existed before. Anyone with half a brain knows the insincerity of this reporting. Additionally, someone (stupid) at each one of these news networks mistakenly believes that the Gaza strip conflict is something that America needs to know about and watch 24 by 7 around the clock for days on end. Hint: we don’t need or want this.
Instead, what we as viewers are being treated to (no, being tortured with) is a tunnel vision news reporting. Worse, every single news outlet is doing this same exact thing. Instead of reporting (f)actual news around the United States, news which is way more important to United States viewers; instead we’re getting play-by-play, missile-by-missile, Israeli-by-Palestinian reporting with boots on the ground in Israel. This is reporting that doesn’t directly impact most Americans, except for Israeli-American or Palestinian-American compatriots or for those few military enthusiasts. If you’re that much of a military aficionado, go hop a plane and head over to the Gaza strip. Enjoy your up close and personal view. No one is stopping you. For that matter, if you’re that much of a military enthusiast, go hop another plane and head to the Ukraine front lines.
The entirety of the Jewish population is a demographic that accounts for just 4.5% of the entire United States Population. Israeli-American immigrants might account for as few as 140,000 in total (0.0424% of the entire US population). The Palestinian population numbers around 170,000 (0.05152% of the entire US population). Who knows how many are military enthusiasts there are… but news networks shouldn’t ever cater their news reporting to this small group of macabre viewers.
Why are these numbers important? They’re important to identify the total possible number of people who might be interested in watching news on this topic AND who live IN the United States. MSNBC, CNN and Fox News are primarily news networks targeting United States viewers, a total population of around 330 million, with a much smaller number watching. CNN additionally offers a broader and separate CNN International news channel designed specifically to showcase international news across the globe. CNN, if you want to broadcast international 24 by 7 coverage, use your CNN International channel instead.
However, every last one of these news networks has decided to devote 100% of their 24 by 7 coverage to this age old Israeli + Palestinian conflict, choosing to ignore all other important news reporting (save the occasional political snippet). It doesn’t matter what time of the day or night you tune in, you can be guaranteed that within 5 minutes or less, the news host will speak or the chyron will display the word “Hamas”, “Israel” or “Gaza”.
THIS is tunnel vision news reporting. There is also nothing fair or balanced about operating tunnel vision reporting, especially when EVERY SINGLE NEWS CHANNEL is doing this. When you can tune into a news network and hear about Hamas at 8am, 12pm, 7pm, 11pm or 5am, news reporting is in tunnel vision mode; a mode that is to the detriment of the United States and its viewers. It might even be considered a national safety problem.
Demographics and Viewership
When the biggest audience you can expect over this conflict is perhaps 5% of your total viewers, including both Palestinian-American immigrants, Israeli-American immigrants and the broader Jewish population (a sub-population who might or might not hold interest in that area’s conflict), you’re barking up the wrong tree by devoting 24 by 7 tunnel vision reporting to Israel. Even then, America has ~330 million total population, but only a small portion of those viewers are actually watching 24 by 7 cable news.
Fox News claims to have the biggest audience share at 1.57 million simultaneous viewers. Unfortunately, we also know that Fox News lies like a cheap rug. Any viewership numbers that Fox News claims are likely falsified, either because the Murdochs have paid off the statistic gathering company or they own that company allowing them to fabricate any numbers they wish. The point is, Fox News very likely has way fewer than its purported 1.57 million viewers claimed. Fox News has proven itself to be untrustworthy. Yes, that would also include fabricating its viewership numbers.
The point here is that even if 1.57 million viewers is anywhere close to real (and we know that it isn’t), 5% of that is 78,000 simultaneous viewers.
This means that any news network that chooses to devote 24 by 7 news coverage to Israel, does so to appeal to, at most, 78,000 Americans. Even then, that number is likely drastically lower… perhaps even as low as 10,000 – 20,000 people. Seriously, 24 hour coverage solely to interest around 20k viewers? Are news producers really this insane? I guess so.
And yet, these news networks wonder why we are seeing…
News Reporter Hostages and Deaths?
Hello! You’ve devoted your entire 24 hours of news cycle coverage into an age old, no-holds-barred, Geneva-convention-breaking set of warring factions… all for the benefit of less than 50,000 viewers? These factions have been warring for as long as everyone today on this planet has been alive… longer even. This is a Jihad, a holy war, a religious conflict. Do you think that either of these two sides legitimately believe in such things as the Geneva convention? While many of these spokespersons state that they uphold this convention, what they say and what they do are two drastically different things.
It’s easy to state that a given nation state upholds the Geneva convention, it’s an entirely separate thing to actually do it. You need to look at their actions, not at their words. Words are easily empty platitudes, especially from that area of the world. When ages old religious wars recur, specifically in that specific area of the world, the war, devastation and death toll to the other side is what’s important, not upholding some arbitrary convention that neither side agreed to when the war originally began.
When reporter hostages are taken and when some of these reporters are summarily executed, you can’t then wonder why it happens. You can blame them. You can point fingers at them. You can even yell at them. However, the fault here is on the news network management team for insinuating THEIR staff into a dangerous age old conflict. Your news network chose to insert people into a very dangerous situation and then you wonder why some reporters die? Get with the program.
Should News Networks Report on the Israel conflict?
Yes, but do so with an appropriate amount of designated time based sanely on the demographics who might show interest in watching. 24 by 7 coverage of ANY event needs to be considered carefully. Yet, it’s entirely clear that no producer or management team member at these organizations is questioning this decision.
Let’s understand why it’s important to temper coverage. First and foremost, this is NOT an American conflict. The United States has no stake in the Israeli “war”. While America is an ally to Israel, that ally status doesn’t include the United States immediately jumping into this age old conflict nor should we become directly involved in that nation state’s religious conflicts.
America has no interest or stake in Israel other than our ally status. While the American military can help Israel in small ways, it is up to Israel to fully manage its own conflicts, in the same way as Ukraine must manage its own conflict with Russia. We can give aid and support (whatever hands-off form that takes) to Israel as an ally, that doesn’t and shouldn’t include American military boots-on-the-ground or planes-in-the-air support against Hamas. That conflict is all on Israel.
News Networks and Ukraine
News networks have long given up 24 by 7 coverage of the Ukraine war. It started out with 24 by 7 play by play coverage, but soon (within a month or so) gave way to United States news coverage. The Ukraine war coverage is now placed where it should be… with maybe 5-10 minutes of coverage every one to two hours.
This is the amount of coverage Israel should be given right now. In other words, the news networks are giving too much coverage to the Israeli conflict. It’s not like this conflict started just recently. This conflict has been in progress for years and years and years. Sure, it’s once again erupted recently, but it’s a conflict that’s been ongoing for many years.
TOO MUCH COVERAGE!
Here we have finally arrived at the entire point of this article. News channels are now beating a dead horse with the unnecessary and improper choice of sweeping 24 by 7 coverage over situations that honestly warrant at most 10 minutes of coverage once an hour… and they’ve been playing this over-reporting game for several years. Not only are they beating this specific story to death, they’re bludgeoning every single story like this into dust. News coverage must be tempered. Tempered with good taste. Tempered against the demographics watching. Tempered against the interest by viewers (i.e., ratings). It must be given the seriousness of coverage that all news is given. BUT… news coverage must not preempt all other news for days on end, especially when that coverage is over a situation that is not in the United States AND a situation that is an ongoing conflict that has roots in years long past.
While all of us in America grieve for those affected in this unfortunate Israeli-Hamas situation, there’s a substantial difference between grieving and spending so much time in a news cycle that news networks beat their news coverage to death.
News producers need to take a long hard look, not only at themselves, but at their news networks. By having tunnel vision reporting over events like this one; events which ARE serious, but are also not alone worthy of 24 by 7 news coverage, news networks are now failing America hard.
By preempting news stories of equal import within the United States solely to cover a situation outside of the United States with excessive coverage, Americans are being left in the dark as to what’s happening in their own states. That’s not news reporting. That’s neglect. That’s wilful abandonment of each news network’s responsibilities to cover ALL news equally and fairly.
There can be no equal and fair when news networks willfully abandon coverage of domestic news in favor of Israel… a country that has almost nothing to do with America.
NewsNation, MNSBC, CNN and Fox News are all negligent in their willful abandonment of America, and American News. It’s actually been this way for a long time, but this story illustrates just how quick and wilful news services are to abandon their jobs of reporting ALL news… and worse, arbitrarily elevating minor news stories by self-labeling them as “major”.
Political Coverage
Prior to the Israeli coverage, these news networks have long had tunnel vision over all things Washington D.C. Again, instead of covering important news around the United States, these 4 networks have willfully abandoned this coverage in lieu of Donald Trump, MAGA and Joe Biden. Almost every word that has come out out of any of these network’s news anchors mouths in the last 12 months has been to do with one of those 3 topics: Trump, MAGA or Biden… until Hamas diverted them and Ukraine for a short time before that.
American news coverage doesn’t revolve around Washington D.C or politics or Israel or Ukraine. When the Israeli situation hit, all of these networks full-bore moved their political reporting firehose to the Israeli conflict and away from politics. What that now means is that D.C. politics might see 10 minutes of coverage in a day compared to the remainder of the 1430 minutes devoted to Israel (less their excessive commercial breaks).
Turning the News Off
When I tune into a news channel and within the first 5 minutes see the word “Hamas”, I tune out and go do something else. How many times can a news network say the same thing or reiterate the same point? At this moment, these news networks are now repeating the same diatribe over and over and over and over summed up to the following… “Israel good, Hamas BAD.”
Once you, as a news producer, can condense 24 hours worth of news into 4 small words, you’ve got a major problem to resolve. How many ways and times can a news network say the same 4 words?
Human Interest
Here’s one sickening turn of events in news reporting. A turn of events where news networks are also now failing us hard. When news networks can no longer figure out a way to say those same four words, they decide to vomit up some tear-jerker family story about the death of a loved one. We get it, people died in the conflict. We also grieve for their loss.
Instead, news networks feel the need to consume a large swath of their 24 hour OVER coverage with incidental and mostly irrelevant human interest stories. Oh yes, let’s pick a family and focus on THEIR story. Let’s understand how the mother and father became a shield to block gunfire for their children. It’s a terrible story, we get it. It’s human interest. Unfortunately, it exploits these family situations for ratings BY that news network. What the news network is doing to and with this family is far, far worse than anything else these news networks do. It exploits these unfortunate situations and those people involved to further a news network’s ratings, not help out the family. Human interest stories involving death should NEVER be considered news and should never be part of the news cycle.
Human interest stories have a place, but only when strictly labeled as human interest. Human interest stories should never be inserted in replacement of news coverage, especially in times of conflict reporting.
24 Hours In A Day
There are approximately 17 hours available for a news reporting day (subtracting the approximate 7 hours of commercials). Each of these news networks break their reporting up into blocks of hours using specific news hosts. You’d think that at least ONE of these hour blocks could give us a break from the Hamas cycle and report on (f)actual news around the nation. Instead, you’d be wrong. Every single block with every single news host CHOOSES to report on Israel and Hamas or Washington DC or Ukraine. Insanity!
When these channels go into tunnel vision mode, every single news program and news host rehashes the same exact information that the previous news host has already stated. It’s a vicious cycle that never ends. Until a news manager or producer decides to finally kill this news cycle entirely, we must suffer through this insufferable, constant barrage of the repetitive information, hour after hour after hour, day after day after day, maybe even week after week.
As a viewer, you could tune in and within 5 minutes get all of the information you need about that situation. You’d also be good for the remainder of that 24 hour period.
What this news over-coverage problem ultimately causes is viewers tuning out because of this repetition problem. It further means that real breaking news gets lost because fewer and fewer people are tuning in regularly. It also means that news viewers must turn to radio news or other alternative sources of news to avoid watching this homogeneous liquefied and over blended news coverage.
Will news channels ever get back to sensible coverage?
I can’t predict this. At some point, the pendulum may swing back. When it comes to commercial news networks like these, it’s sink or swim. The ratings will need to drop so low that the news producers have no choice but to begin making drastic programming decisions; decisions that will need to run counter to the news programming cycle being regurgitated on the other news networks.
Just because another news network chooses to do something stupid, that doesn’t mean every news network needs to do the exact same stupid thing and/or run the same exact amount of coverage. In fact, it’s better if not all news networks are doing the same thing. Let some of the channels deep dive into specific coverage, let others remain on a normal news cycle, reporting on ALL stories around the nation, interspersed with international news occasionally.
Fair and balanced reporting means reporting on all stories of interest, not latching onto one single story and tying it to your network 100% of the time. It seems incredibly stupid for every single news network to jump into tunnel vision reporting on one single topic. Yet, here we are.
News producers need to rethink this tunnel vision strategy going forward and grow a backbone. Producers need to stop torpedoing their own news channel’s ratings (and jeopardizing their own career) over this insane tunnel-vision single-news-topic round-the-clock stupidity.
PLEASE, finally get this memo.
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Fact Check: Time article claims Phenylephrine ineffective.
Welcome to the new Randocity Fact Check Series. With all of today’s lies, deception with intentional and wilful misleading information, Randocity is beginning this series to combat these misleading and false articles. With that said, a recent Time article blanketly claims Phenylephrine is ineffective. Let’s explore.
Time Article
The Time article in question is entitled “With the Decongestant SNAFU, the FDA Tries Something New” written by Haley Weiss and published on September 14, 2023 4:30 PM EDT. Note, the link included points to the article’s contents located at the Wayback Machine at the Internet Archive to show this article’s snapshot as it was written at the time this article was published. I offer a link to the actual Time article later in this article, but I suspect this article will be corrected soon, thus the snapshot is required. Please click the Wayback Machine link to read this article in full.
Because Time and other large media outlets have tendencies to revise, correct and sometimes delete articles at later dates, the Wayback Machine is the only safe way to maintain a consistent link to such articles from the past. Let’s move on.
Misleading Information
The trouble even with sites like Time is that they hire writers who don’t always properly investigate or clarify the information about which they are writing. In this case, Haley Weiss doesn’t properly clarify her article’s own topic.
Here is Ms. Weiss’s relevant misleading statement in her article:
…the panel of experts assigned to evaluate over-the-counter allergy medications ruled that phenylephrine was effective.
Except phenylephrine has never worked. What’s puzzling, then, is how it stayed on those shelves for 50 years without a challenge.
Note: Highlighting and text formatting added by Randocity for fact checking and clarification purposes.
This unusual blanket statement regarding Phenylephrine is entirely misleading. The article opens by not outright stating the fact that the entire article’s premise involves discussion solely around oral administered versions of Phenylephrine. Simultaneously, this article makes no mention of nasal spray versions of this drug. It is, thus, left up to the reader to understand and discern (and not conflate) this fine point. Conflation is the problem at issue here.
The reality is, either Haley is intentionally trying to mislead readers into believing that all forms of Phenylephrine don’t work or Haley is naive and doesn’t understand (or didn’t research) that multiple administration forms of Phenylephrine exist. Being a health columnist for Time, I find the latter to be extremely unlikely and improbable.
In this article, Haley seems to be intentionally trying to conflate all forms of Phenylephrine under the same “doesn’t work” umbrella, when clearly this is not true.
Nasal Spray Administration
While oral pills and oral suspensions appear to be the sole focus of Haley’s Time article, this article also conveniently ignores the fact that the drug Phenylephrine is also available in a Nasal Spray format. In fact, several known brands utilize this drug ingredient including the brand Neo-Synephrine… and, yes, this brand has been on store shelves for years. The form of Phenylephrine used in a nasal spray is Phenylephrine HCL.
When Phenylephrine HCL is administered using a nasal spray, this drug is, contrary to Haley’s misleading assertion in her Time article, quite effective and fast acting at opening up nasal passages when applied directly to nasal mucosa tissues, thus shrinking (or constricting) them. This author has used Neo-Synephrine for years for this purpose. I can also attest personally that Phenylephrine HCL is not only QUITE effective, it’s also fast acting and usually starts working within 1-3 minutes.
The downside to Neo-Synephrine (Phenylephrine HCL) is that it is short acting and requires frequent re-application. The best duration I’ve been able to get out of this nasal spray is between 1 and 3 hours of relief.
How I use this specific nasal spray is for the near instant relief it offers (1-3 minutes), opening up nasal passages rapidly. I then couple Neo-Synephrine with a second spray from the longer acting Afrin. Afrin contains Oxymetazoline HCL, which this drug lasts between 6-12 hours in duration, depending on amount of nasal discharge. The more discharge, the faster it wears off. However, Afrin’s active ingredient (Oxymetazoline HCL) takes up to 15 minutes to begin working after being sprayed… which is why I couple up Afrin with Neo-Synephrine. Waiting 15 minutes for a nasal spray to begin working takes way too long.
Neo-Synephrine gives me short and immediately relief. Afrin gives me long continuous relief long after the Neo-Synephrine has worn off.
Compare all of this to saline spray. While saline sprays are effective at washing nasal tissues, it does nothing to actively open up the nasal passages. If the saline manages to dislodge and wash away an allergen irritant, it might help reduce nasal allergies. However, I’ve never had any congestion relief from using a saline nasal spray, other than to sooth irritation and dryness.
Nasal Sprays are Drying
The one thing that drugs like Oxymetazoline HCL and Phenylephrine HCL have in common is that they are extremely drying to nasal muscosa. They are so drying, in fact, that they can sometimes cause nose bleeds. The best way to avoid this drying problem is to occasionally apply a saline spray to keep the nasal tissues hydrated while using Phenylephrine HCL and/or Oxymetazoline HCL. You can also use a facial steamer to steam the nasal passages, help hydrate them and offer relief from the dryness.
Nasal Spray Rebound
All of the current drugs that are designed to shrink nasal mucosa (vasoconstriction) by direct spray application have the possibility of a rebound effect. Nasal spray rebound is when the drug wears off and the nasal passages stay congested for long periods thereafter… sometimes for hours. This then causes the person with congestion discomfort to want to spray again to open up the nasal passages. It becomes a vicious cycle.
I workaround rebound by cessation of spraying one side at a time. I cease using the nasal spray in one nostril and wait through the rebound cycle to complete for that one side, which could take up to 24 hours. Once the rebound is over and that nostril is back to its normal state, I then cease using nasal spray in the other nostril and, again, wait through the rebound cycle. Once both nostrils are clear, I’m off of the nasal spray.
This is the only method I have found to get out from under the nasal spray rebound cycle. I go through this process with each cold I’ve had at the very end of the cold. There’s no real way to avoid nasal spray rebound, unfortunately.
Rebound is the reason that so many people get addicted to using nasal spray.
Nasal Spray Effectiveness
The final aspect of the use of any vasoconstricting nasal sprays is that they’re actually too effective. What I mean by “too effective” is that these sprays artificially open the nasal passages wider than is otherwise normal. It forces the nasal muscosa to shrink more than is normal when the nasal passages are open under normal circumstances. For me, this being “open too wide” causes several problems.
The first problem of being too open is that it allows way more allergens in, which causes me to sneeze way more often. The second problem is that I can feel that the passages are open too wide, which actually causes a slight bit of discomfort. Third, because the passages are open quite wide, this encourages way more air flow in and out, which seems to cause more drying than is otherwise normal. Thus, the need for saline sprays or steam treatments to moisturize. While the drug formulations also seem to encourage dryness via the drug chemical itself, the being open too wide seems to exacerbate this drying issue.
However, if the choice is being fully congested or using a spray to open nasal passages, I’ll choose using the spray every time. My first spray choice is always Neo-Synephrine because of its fast acting nature, even though it doesn’t last nearly as long as Afrin.
Time Article, Circling Back
The point to all of the above is that Phenylephrine is indeed effective and useful when applied in the correct way. However, when taken in an oral form, its effectiveness may be in question as Haley’s Time article suggests.
I don’t have a problem with Haley’s article if seen solely through the lens the oral drug versions. However, her article is confused and appears to intentionally conflate all versions of Phenylephrine to be one-in-the-same. They aren’t. While the oral versions may be ineffective and have no efficacy, the same absolutely cannot be said of the nasal spray version.
Debunking Haley Weiss Time Article
Haley Weiss’s article in Time (this is the actual Time article link) is strongly misleading. It intentionally attempts to lump all forms of Phenylephrine into the same bucket, claiming the overall drug is ineffective and does not work.
===> This article’s claim is absolutely false! <====
Phenylephrine HCL in a nasal spray format is quite effective as a decongestant when applied directly in the nasal passages. Phenylephrine, when taken in an oral pill or suspension format, as her article suggests, may or may not be effective for the purposes for which it was intended, as an oral decongestant. This article intentionally fails to separate the effective uses of this drug from its ineffective uses, thus making overall blanket statements to confuse readers.
I guess that Time is no longer a trustworthy enough news source to properly research its articles… nor can it now avoid making such misleading statements.
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Somebody denies wrongdoing
This question goes to news organizations. Is there any corporation on the planet that would actually ever admit wrongdoing in any legal entanglement with the goverment or otherwise? Seriously, is there? I mean, unless the company is flatly caught red-handed at whatever it is they shouldn’t have been doing, no company is going to admit guilt or wrongdoing. It just doesn’t happen. They would face too much potential civil and criminal liability. So, they don’t do it.
So then, why is this always a headline? Not admitting anything is not news. News is the article written surrounding the reasons behind the legal battle. It isn’t news that they denied wrongdoing. So, write headlines that actually draw the reader in. Don’t write headlines that are obvious and stupid. If you think that such silly and trite headlines grab attention, that thinking is just plain wrong. These types of headlines only serve to show just how trite and obvious your journalism actually is. If you like pointing out the blaring obviousness of the situation, fine. But, don’t call it news.
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