The News Industry

I think that the press has become more of a 'News Industry' than anything ... most of the network news shows look a lot more like Letterman than Cronkite ... I think their sponsors push them to entertain us rather than inform us - it is all about the ratings you know. Pundits on the right and the left side of the aisle seem to occasionally bemoan the other side a being 'biased'. I find that perhaps they protest too much. They are all in the same game and the tit-for-tat complaining about the other side is just part of the game.

Now the print media wants us to believe that they are not at all the same as their on-screen counterparts ... like they don't have to sell papers (and advertising) anymore . I find that these folks are no different than the talking heads on TV. The paper I subscribe to has 41 columnists on it's payroll ... pretty obvious that entertainment is a large part of their business.

Bottom line - it is all about entertaining us ... that is what these guys ... Leno, O'Reilly, Rather and the rest ... get paid for ... and they often do it well. Sad thing is that we think that listening to 'the news' is somehow more 'intellectual' than watching the daily soaps.