Ricardo J Gonzalez for a Better America

You know what I’m tired of? I’m tired of watching the news every day, hungry for information, and receiving nothing but crumbs. It is impossible to obtain information from these petty peddlers who seem to believe that flashy on-screen graphics and bottom-of-the screen quotes (of what was said two seconds earlier) is a substitute for producing actual content. I watched several hours of the CNN coverage of the June 3rd primary before realizing that I knew no more at the end of the third hour than I did 15 minutes into the first.

What surprises me the most is that they claim they’re adapting to their viewer base. Their excuse for the excrement they ejaculate is “this is what America wants”. While there is surely a basis of truth in their plea, it’s also a copout. Simply said, infotainment is easier to deliver than information, and infotainment sells better than the news. I don’t begrudge them their right to gain as many viewers as they possibly can to increase their revenue. It is a business, and for a business to not seek profitability would be an idiotic contradiction. But the direction they have chosen to take towards obtaining profits precludes them from the claim that they are journalists.

It is much easier to do what I do, take a small piece of information and build an entertaining dialogue around it, than it is to research and report the entirety of a situation. A researcher must strive to be objective, but an infotainer gains from the loss of objectivity, because it allows for wild speculation. The infotainment industry doesn’t have to engage in the struggles of competition that existed in the past, where the broadcaster with the most information, the clearest reporting, the deepest digging, got the ratings. Now they can simply sell their perspective, with spin pandering to viewers that already agree with them. Take 30 seconds of information; spend the next 29.5 minutes spinning it left or right; profit. For me to say this might be considered self-condemnation. The difference is that I'm I’m an editorialist. It is not my job to research and discover the intricate facts, but to interpret them and give my opinion, and I make no pretense that what I'm doing is journalism.

If we are to live in the 24 hour news cycle, in the age of ADD and information bombardment, then the way of progress is to offer more through these media, not less. One would think that by this point in the presidential campaign, a real journalistic outfit would be able to publish a concise set of views on different issues by the major candidates, but with the exception of a few sound bites, trying to find out a candidates position on any specific issue is more difficult than finding out what Britney Spears wore to dinner last week. Instead we get a cult of personality for Obama on CNN and NBC, and for McCain on Fox News.

I suppose this post does not follow the traditional voice of this blog, but it comes out of the extreme frustration of seeking for news for the past couple of hours, and realizing it is nigh impossible to find it in the traditional avenues. Like many of my generation, I am unable to view the newscasters of this age with the same respect and trust that my parents and grandparents had in theirs. To attempt to compare Walter Cronkite to Bill O’Reily is as laughable as comparing the journalistic standards of the Enquirer to the New York Times. I can’t fight the feeling that the newsman is smiling not because of the satisfaction of a job well done, but the coy smirk of a con man that has tricked a mark. I struggle to find the difference between MSNBC and Entertainment Tonight. Yet we accept one as journalism and the other as pop-trash, when the only difference is the prestige we give by our willingness to accept the farce.