How many "Breaking News" a day can a common person handle?
I saw one latest Breaking News:
"Axe throwing has become the most watched national sport in Jordan".
Seriously? This is Breaking News?
In Covid-19 era, increase in new infections is breaking news, but decrease is not?
Number of deaths is breaking news, and number of recovered is not?
Everything that can go wrong is breaking news. Positive developments don't always see the light of the day.
Who determines what is breaking news anyway?
Now, all the unverified rumors are breaking news.
Also, once something is a breaking news, we never hear about it afterwards.
Why do all the breaking news die so young?
I have a sneaky feeling that the reporters are paid by the number of Breaking News they can announce.
I could be wrong.
Famous broadcaster Walter Cronkite was asked the reason for reporting only the bad news.
He said, "we cannot report on all the cats that did not runaway".
When the Godfather of broadcast journalism, Edward R. Murrow reported about Buchenwald concentration camps in Germany, the focus was on the horrific news. Walter Cronkite's continuous coverage of the first Moon landing is memorable because the event, and not the reporter, was the centerpiece.
As early as in 1958, at the beginning of the Television era, Murrow warned,
"Television in the main is being used to distract, delude, amuse and insulate us".
This was before Cable TV, social media and multiple news websites.
Things are worse now.
Nowadays, getting the real news is not as easy as it used to be.
Now, the news anchors are celebrities. They have become larger than the news. They have been allowed to mix news with personal opinions. You get the perspectives of the news rather than the actual news itself.
Gone are days when news is reported separately from editorial opinions. News stories are hardly vented. Any one can quote "anonymous sources" and create a news story. Much of news today is little more than gossip. News media is freely manufacturing news rather than reporting it.
According to a recent (2019) study by the Rand Corporation, "Journalism in the U.S. has gradually shifted away from objective news and offers more opinion-based content that appeals to emotion and relies heavily on argumentation and advocacy".
The so called "Opinion Journalism" has marginalized the truth, with liberal news sites like Slate, Salon and Huffington Post on one side and conservative ones like Breitbart, Drudge, or Newmax on the other.
Cable news is divided between left leaning CNN and MSNBC and right tilting Fox News and OAN.
Many, like me, are tired of constantly being fed false information.
Sadly. even the once reputable newspapers like Washington Post, New York Times and Los Angeles Times as well as pioneer News Networks such as CBS, NBC and ABC are all falling in this swamp.
But for some objectivity in BBC and Wall Street Journal, we are totally void of real journalism.
We blame the the President, the Congress and the Judiciary for the current polarization of the country.
How about the Fourth Branch- the News Media? Should they not be accountable?
As Jeffrey McCall, Professor of Communication at DePauw University said in his piece in "The Hill",
"Today, sixty years after Murrow's famous speech, the electronic news industry seemingly lacks any individual or organization to impart the professional guidance or moral leadership he once provided.
American news consumers suffer because of this vacuum".
To all those still seeking objective news reporting, Edward R. Murrow's signature closing phrase says it all.
"Good Night and Good Luck".
For other Blog Posts of Murthy's Musings, go to www.murthysmusings.com